Disqus - Latest Comments for ayrnieu

Re: #Occupy Oakland Goons Break Into City Hall, Torch US Flag (Video)

ayrnieu — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 21:34:08 -0000

The point is, "yay, we're a mob! A rabble! The French Revolution can happen again!" Rather, the point is to feel the joy of human cooperation, even if in a perverted expression of it, after all the wholesome wells of that joy have been poisoned for them. Can't just get a job - as that would be selling out, or exploiting others, or killing the Earth, or keeping the beast fed, or oppressing Haiti, and so on. Can't attend a church. Can't take on fantasy challenges in online games forever. These people are starving as pathetically as any true believer buried by Mao.

Re: Romney surges in Florida polls ahead of Jan. 31 primary

ayrnieu — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:56:37 -0000

Sorry, I was trying to say 'Gingrich + PACs'. 'The Gingrich overcampaign'. It's true that there are better attacks on Romney, like these that you mention, and that Gingrich supporters make them. 'Better' in that these attacks are at least rooted in conservatism, I mean. I'm sure that Romney would _love_ to receive these attacks in a debate, and I don't just mean because of how he could respond ad hominen.

Re: Romney surges in Florida polls ahead of Jan. 31 primary

ayrnieu — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:40:54 -0000

Yeah, this is the kind of fingers-in-your-ears, "la la la I can't hear you" that a Gingrich supporter needs right now. It should also help you get through a column or appearance by Ann Coulter. But, I guess you also have to close your eyes, so that you can better see the pro-life, anti-spending campaign that Gingrich is running against Romney, where those 'flip-flops' would be handy.

Re: Romney surges in Florida polls ahead of Jan. 31 primary

ayrnieu — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:19:22 -0000

They're all fine enough, for President. I prefer Romney as nominee, out of those still in the race. I've only given money to Paul. So, beauty pageant analysis would tell you need to know about me. But I'm happy not to have to argue that my guy is to the right of an opponent that he consistently attacks from the left.

Re: Romney surges in Florida polls ahead of Jan. 31 primary

ayrnieu — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 19:44:35 -0000

"Carpet bombing", eh? Gingrich is attacked for his leftism, by Romney and his supporters; Romney is attacked for his _right_ism, by Gingrich and his supporters. How hard can it be to predict the outcome? Gingrich's attacks have been so bizarre that I even wonder if he didn't only accidently tap into Republicans' antipathy for the media. I wonder if he wasn't going for some open-marriage wing of the party, which is strong and numerous in the same fantasy where Republicans hate companies that try to turn other companies around and sometimes aren't completely successful, where Republicans believe that only malice can explain a failure to completely abide by Medicare provisions (where they believe those provisions to fit in a pamphlet), where Republicans believe that such malice would reflect on anyone who made money in a way tangential to it - without wondering if this doesn't also indict the janitor.

Maybe Gingrich isn't as bad as Rick give-felons-the-vote, you-could-only-disagree-if-you-think-I-include-jailbirds Santorum, as self-destructive attacks go, but he's pretty bad.

Re: Romney displayed many vulnerabilities at CNN debate

ayrnieu — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:26:15 -0000

Human Events endorses Obama! "A masterful politician."

Or, Obama can read one hell of a teleprompter, he has a billion-dollar campaign prepared, and he has the like of Axelrod to assassinate his opponents for him before anything as messy or regressive as a traditional American election can take place.

Re: The second Florida debate: Santorum’s big night

ayrnieu — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:12:51 -0000

Hayward has a strong opinion that rests on a cloud. The name of the cloud, "The income tax is so important to me! It must be even more important to the budget!" Rather than declare absurdity by this cloud, he could glance at 2-3 government accounting infographics that were prepared for elementary-school students. He may need to glance all of twice at the 'revenue over time' graphs, to confirm the labelled decades.

Although if he rejects your definition of 'sanity' as "clueless but firm", he can do more than that.

Re: A few words in defense of negative campaigning

ayrnieu — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 03:31:57 -0000

The shortest argument for anti-anti-negativism: "Who wants to give the media a monopoly on it?"

Re: The final South Carolina debate

ayrnieu — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 03:09:36 -0000

They cheered the attacks on the press -- for the same reason that they'd cheer an attack on the Democratic Party, taxes, infanticide, or plague rats. A better question for Gingrich would be "So, uh, how many High Crimes and Misdemeanors can we expect from a Gingrich Presidency?" The answer will be more interesting than 'none'; the question accepts the nature of Clinton's impeachment.

Re: The final South Carolina debate

ayrnieu — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 02:47:42 -0000

I'll just say, I'm really looking forward to the Romney-Gingrich-Paul debates. It'll be interesting to see Paul attack anyone other than Santorum, and it'll be more interesting without Santorum's self-defeating attacks on others. (King Romney of MA, how can you oppose my abhorrent position that there be a 'felon vote' for politicians to seek, when you didn't smash your abhorrent liberal subjects with your royal scepter? Aren't you as _passionate_ about the obviously sensible position as I'm just now revealing myself to be for my dumb one?)

Re: Vulture capitalism or populist demagoguery?

ayrnieu — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 22:36:58 -0000

Yep. Although the label's likelier to muddy a discussion than to clear it, I am indeed anti-theft.

Re: Healthy families key to healthy economy

ayrnieu — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:40:58 -0000

And this, children, is why you must study economics before you can go to bed.

Re: Vulture capitalism or populist demagoguery?

ayrnieu — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:37:30 -0000

What I Learned From Paleoism, except:

>>> As the Buchanan campaign against Bush got underway, however, odd things began to happen. In speech after speech, Pat began to bring his opposition to free trade and his advocacy of protectionism to the forefront. That was bad enough. In a fitting reminder that all political issues are connected, his deviations began to spill over into other areas: he endorsed protectionism for a greater range of sectors than were already in place (in other words, he proposed expanding taxation and regulation) and, at one stop, he celebrated unemployment relief (thus embracing a pillar of the welfare state). ... For him, "America First," that grand old slogan of the anti-New Deal right, amounted to embracing the economic agenda of organized labor! His opposition to Bush's taxes and war began to fade into the background.

Bleh.

The last paragraph is good, but it shouldn't be read with the rest as context.

Re: Healthy families key to healthy economy

ayrnieu — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:00:06 -0000

"[Romney's] record at Bain indicates that he did away with more jobs than he created"

No, it doesn't begin to indicate that. What is it going to take for you to understand that you might need something approaching a gradeschool education before you can talk any more sensibly on this subject than the average Haitian or Zimbabwean can?

Here are four timelines:

1. Company fails. Everyone's fired, and goes home. The next day, an outside group buys the land, the factory, the machines, the records, and then hires back some of the employees -- but not all of them. Has this outside group destroyed the jobs of those not re-employed?

2. Same company. The day before everyone's to be fired and sent home, an outside group buys the land &c. This group keeps on some of the employees -- but not all of them. Has this outside group destroyed the jobs of those now unemployed?

3. Same company. The day before everyone's to be fired and sent home, an outside group buys the land &c. This group however is staffed by supermen, having IQs three times that of the original owners, and so they not only keep all of the old employees but hire on tens more of them. As your other points are to the effect that Romney is an immoral and repulsive character, this is the question: is there any _moral_ distance between these supermen and the outside group from timeline #2? If there is: do degrees of success alter the moral character of any other enterprise?

4. Same company. The day before everyone's to be fired and sent home, the ghost of Herbert Hoover buys the company, says that the real problem is that the workers weren't paid enough, and does all he can to not only keep them on but hike their pay. The company promptly fails and everyone's fired and sent home. I'll let you think about this one. (Or, more realistically, I'll let you throw a fit and flail on the ground, complaining that I've missed the point or that I'm an idiot or a big fat jerk or whatever fits your leftist fancy.)

Re: Healthy families key to healthy economy

ayrnieu — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 02:30:05 -0000

Thus far, every attack on Bain that I've seen _has_ been an attack on capitalism, inasmuch as each has included some variant of "Romney _profited_! He made _money_!"

It's clear from the attacks that a "buy failing businesses and then turn them into something that anyone would want to own" venture would be OK if it'd run at a loss, or as a charity. But oh, as income, it's just monsterous. It's not even a short walk from this position to positions that would oppose practices that these don't-call-us-anti-capitalists are merely more accustomed to supporting.

Santorum... I bet, about a decade ago, he'd agree that home ownership breeds conservatism, and good productive families, and likewise that a lack of home ownership breeds the opposite. Alan Greenspan makes the case eloquently enough in his biography. So, why not incentivize home ownership to the hilt? It's not like we'll get a housing bubble or anything! If this speculation is unfair, please tell me how it is unfair.

(That said, the Club for Growth has this nice thing to say about Santorum re. housing, with one edit by me.

>>> Like many of his colleagues, Santorum has also [come around] on government’s role in the housing market. In late 2000, Santorum wrote an op-ed encouraging more home ownership, particularly for low-income families, with the help of government assistance, whether it was through the Federal Housing Administration, or Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. However, he rightly changed his tune in 2005, when he urged reform of Fannie and Freddie. Along with 24 of his colleagues, he signed a letter that read, “If effective regulatory reform legislation ... is not enacted this year, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system and the economy as a whole.” Unfortunately, Congress did not heed this warning, and the America public knows all too well what the consequences were.)

Re: Nuts. Obama Slams Romney for Destroying Good-Paying Jobs

ayrnieu — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 01:33:42 -0000

Yep, if you don't think it at all -- not even for a minute -- then it sounds really bad.

"Romney bought failing companies ..."

OK, so there are these companies that will soon employ nobody at all, and Bain bought some of them. Since we're not thinking here, we won't point out that some blame for subsequent unemployment might lie at the feet of the previous owners of these companies, who'd led them to failure. Instead of that, just picture some vultures. Grrr, vultures.

"... and sold them for profit."

OK, so: Bain bought some companies that would soon employ nobody at all, and then nothing happened (or rather, think about vultures instead of what might've happened), and then a little later, some other group of chumps bought the same doomed company for even more? What maroons these later buyers must have been! Wow! How many times did Bain get away with this? Frankly, I'm amazed also at Bain: how could they have known that in this eonomy you can just buy a doomed enterprise, wait a bit, and sell it for a profit? Generally you're supposed to buy into success, not into decline.

Well, I'm too busy thinking about evil vultures to wonder at either party's odd decision. I'm quite sure, though, although without thinking about it at all, that the formula "X bought A, and then sold A for a profit" would lead any economist to denounce X as a bunch of thieves and scoundrels. I'm sure, although without looking, that this is probably a general law or principle that would be described in the first few pages of any book on the subject. Selling something for more than you bought it for? Evil must be afoot!

Re: Nuts. Obama Slams Romney for Destroying Good-Paying Jobs

ayrnieu — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 01:12:09 -0000

"Waahhh, how dare you study when I have not." If you're offended by the non-universality of your own ignorance, then go right on being offended. You wouldn't be so sympathetic to like blather from a man about to perform a medical procedure on you, on the subject of surgical practices, or from a man about to prepare a milkshake for you, on the subject of basic hygiene, or from a man about to load a gun in front of you, on the subject of barrel discipline -- but oh, on the unimportant niche topic of civilizational prosperity vs. famine, deprivation, and death, here we should put snobbery aside.

"it can hardly be argued that these practices are moral or just especially in light of the wake of devastated lives they leave behind."

In fact, it's almost pathetically easy to argue just that. Here: a man crashes a giant boat into an iceberg. You are near the scene, and begin rescuing people. Whilst rescuing people, you are observed to prefer to snatch from the water those nearer to you, over those farther from you. Consequently, a greater portion of the dead are found to be those who fell into the water at far points from you. If only you'd reapproached the scene, you monster, they (rather than those you'd tended to save) would have been saved. Or if only you'd been possessed of superhuman speed or foresight, you monster, not one soul would've been lost. ... Oh, or maybe some of the blame should be put on the captain who'd rammed the iceberg, or on the shipwright, or on whatever boats have for a fire marshall. Maybe it would be more natural to praise you for those saved, rather than to snipe at you for those consigned to the water by some malfactors who were, in a strict, technical sense, not you.

Re: Nuts. Obama Slams Romney for Destroying Good-Paying Jobs

ayrnieu — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 15:33:46 -0000

If your concern is the number of falsehoods the press can fit into newspaper, then Bain - and our entire primary - doesn't matter at all. The press is the enemy. They're the enemy. They'll fit in as many falsehoods as they can, with no regard to circumstances. If your concern is whether the press would be able to fit a truth or two in their Bain articles, then be at ease: the worst that can be said is that Romney has presented some awkward defenses of it.

"What if the press falsely attacks us!" is a worry that can't be permitted to affect party and individual decisions, in 2012. As it's an absolute given that such attacks will come, you should rehearse some responses, and have a communicable grasp on the actual truth of the matter.

Re: Nuts. Obama Slams Romney for Destroying Good-Paying Jobs

ayrnieu — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 05:02:05 -0000

Why? It's simple: it's because their attacks are miserably, pathetically, distressingly bad. In the presence of attacks this bad, you don't need to speculate about establishment firewalls around Romney; they could've directed these attacks at _Obama_ and still have damaged their campaigns thereby (yes, really). Probably the reason that you don't see this is simply that you don't understand what's so bad about the attacks; and since you don't understand what's so bad about them even after following the issue enough to have presumably read someone's attack on the attacks, the root cause of your confusion is that you're not much educated in economics. Well, that's not unusual -- but if you're mindful of the lack, you can more readily sense when people are perhaps acting from economic insight rather than from a secret loyalty.

The worst that can be said of Romney re. Bain is that he's presented some awkward defenses of it. The worst that can be said of Newt is that his allies (represented here and in the SuperPAC) were dumb enough to try to appeal to the Democratic anti-capitalist wing of the Republican Party. (The Republican anti-capitalist wing of the Republican Party are the people who want tariffs and like. Romney's platform includes a demand that China float its currency, probably for these guys.)

Re: Nuts. Obama Slams Romney for Destroying Good-Paying Jobs

ayrnieu — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 05:01:07 -0000

[Duplicate.]

Re: The true believer

ayrnieu — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 06:38:51 -0000

"The lesser evil is still" ... the lesser evil. What do you want, the greater evil? Have you really been persuaded, by dumb quips and silhouettes of Cthulhu, that you should _not_ prefer the better option to the worse one?

"After 12 sraight elections where I voted the Republican Ticket for President", you should vote the Republican ticket for a 13th straight election. Because it's still the better option by far. What do you feel is on the line, your pride? Are you insulted? Do you feel disregarded, taken advantage of, taken lightly? How about, you buy a self-help book on the way to the polling center, or vow to pretend that you didn't vote after you pull the lever, because it's actually the country that's on the line. You've had 48 some-odd years to become or change the Republican establishment -- and as you haven't done so, it's not now as you'd like it to be; nonetheless, it still isn't the _Dem_ establishment.

Look, here's one solitary reason to support the Republican over the Democrat even if you believe, against all reason, that they, their administration, their pressures, and their appointments will be exactly the same: the press will only attack the Republican. If they're exactly the same - or similar enough that you feel you can entertain yourself with 'lesser evil' jokes at the taxpayer's expense - at least vote for a rabid adversarial press over a fawning, protective, silencing press.

Re: Ron Paul supporters want their candidate to go rogue

ayrnieu — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 21:03:11 -0000

I believe that if you actually read my comment, you'll have a better idea of what I might mean by "liberal's shell-game with labels" than you did after scanning ahead, seeing 'label', and throwing an exception. Hint: it doesn't matter that anyone else called you a neocon. You're the one whining at great length about it - when the only success in store for your whining is that you'll persuade someone to call you something other than neocon, accomplishing a change in wording without a change in meaning.

Re: Ron Paul supporters want their candidate to go rogue

ayrnieu — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:24:33 -0000

See the double-quotes? He's mocking your "that's YOUR opinion", not calling it your opinion. That aside, "that's YOUR opinion" is also an opinion.

Well, work on your math or basic temporal awareness (Paul's not electable! He only gets 0.002%!) before you get to this hard stuff.

Re: Ron Paul supporters want their candidate to go rogue

ayrnieu — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:30:41 -0000

I believe you're reading in my voice what I report as the content of RedState.

Incidentally, I was recently banned from RedState for being a Paul supporter (although as the comment was an attack on Erickson's I-wish-I-were-working-for-the-NYT writing and argumentation, I could've been much earlier banned for "supporting Huntsman" when Erick called him a traitor.)

Re: Ron Paul supporters want their candidate to go rogue

ayrnieu — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:27:00 -0000

"Ron Paul is not a libertarian" ; "Back in the 1980s, the best
known Libertarian was Murray Rothbard".

... uh... huh.

Paul is a fan of Rothbard. 'Rothbard' is mentioned 6 times in Liberty Defined, Mises and the Mises Institute are mentioned 32 times in Liberty Defined. The Mises Institute was created when Rothbard was forced out the Cato Institute. There are 5 videos and 13 mp3s of Paul speeches at Mises Institute functions.

"Ron Paul: A Most Unusual Politician" is the foreword, written by Rothbard, of one of Paul's books. Rothbard was one of the ghost writers of the (unfairly) notorious Ron Paul newsletters.

eh, I could go on. But it take it from me: this is just a silly defense. And, because it's so bad a defense, it's a dangerous one for you. When Paul's called a 'libertarian in disguise' or whatever, just shrug. Say that they're a wing of the Republican party, as they certainly are; or talk about Paul's campaign platform.