Did you ever think that the entire conservative movement would be reduced to pointing to chopped up audio on a Youtube video as their lodestone pointing to the secret communism on the left? Well, that’s where they are today.
The right is now going to be reduced to howling that every time we try to do something that’s not explicitly outlined in the constitution (like equal rights) that the flag is being burned by liberal commie nazi marxists or something.
It’s gonna be fun.
MORE:
But Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said Monday the comments on the tape have ” nothing to do with Obama’s economic plan or his plan to give the middle class a tax cut.”
“Here are the facts. In the interview, Obama went into extensive detail to explain why the courts should not get into that business of “redistributing” wealth. Obama’s point — and what he called a tragedy — was that legal victories in the civil rights led too many people to rely on the courts to change society for the better. That view is shared by conservative judges and legal scholars across the country,” Burton said..
“As Obama has said before and written about, he believes that change comes from the bottom up — not from the corridors of Washington. … And so Obama’s point was simply that if we want to improve economic conditions for people in this country, we should do so by bringing people together at the community level and getting everyone involved in our democratic process,” Burton continued.
Everytime one of these things come up, you should go to Free Republic. They are convinced that every YouTube video, every phony theory about Obama not being elected, and every anecdote-filled story about McCain signs in a neighborhood are proof that Obama is the antichrist and that Republicans are going to win.
UPDATE: Check out the hysteria on National Review. It’s like Halloween came early.
RELATED: Eight More Days Of This…Seriously
UPDATE2: Drudge says “jump!”, McCain asks “how high sir?”
UPDATE: I just saw McCain try to shoehorn this story into his stump speech and he damn near put the crowd to sleep. Keep it up, Mac!
Rethugs saying or thinking something stoopid?
You don’t say…..
Oliver, I went over to the link and I read this comment.
If B.Hussein Obama institutes Marxism he will get taken out
HAGGS99 on October 27, 2008 at 10:21 AM
Another commenter went on to say that it is uncalled for but it really sums up the angry mob mentality on their sites and movement. The Jed Report rips apart this video today.
http://www.jedreport.com/2008/10/the-which-drudge-blare-project-2.html
I have to agree that John McCain and Sarah Palin have legitimate reasons to believe Obama is a terrorist based on his relationship with William Ayers. After all, that relationship was based on charity work for an organization that concentrated on promoting equity, community development, anti-poverty, and arts and culture; all things that strike terror into the heart of republicans and their corporate masters.
Now excuse me, I have realized that because I work with someone who has been convicted of drunk driving I must go break up a MADD meeting or at least I must spike their coffee and liberate their donuts.
[...] O-Dub has the Obama team’s retort. Mmm… rapid response, tasty! Share and [...]
I suspect that Obama was thinking about the inability to guarantee poor people’s access to welfare through the use of the courts when he was talking about economic justice. This was a subject of significant interest among legal academics several years ago, especially in the period after welfare reform. I remember going to a Fordham conference in 2003 about “Rawls and the Law” where Larry Sager (currently dean of UT Law, that hotbed of communism) presented a draft of his work on judicially underenforced norms.
I shared and still share Obama’s skepticism that the courts are any kind of effective mechanism in this area, because they are not equipped to make determinations of the vast majority of people’s entitlements. This does require a large administrative state. Indeed, one of the arguments made by Phil Gramm in favor of just giving pure cash allowances to welfare recipients, rather than in-kind benefits such as Medicaid, food stamps, Section 8 housing vouchers, etc. is that it would be more efficient because it would eliminate the need for an administrative bureaucracy. (It also would be a very stupid way to administer welfare because it assumes, as conservatives often do, that the point of welfare is simply to transfer wealth, not to preserve the health and well-being of poor people — especially poor children — long enough that they can get out of poverty. Welfare is set up to meet basic needs, not to hand out large sums of cash.)
However, expecting anyone who is whipping up Obama-the-Communist hysteria either to know this much background or to write about it is an absurd expectation. To expect this of Bill Whittle, who appears to be neither formally nor self-educated in law, economics, history (”To dominate as we do in all four arenas [economically, militarily, scientifically, and culturally] has no historical precedent” — really? Ever heard of our predecessors in empire, the Romans and the British?) or much of anything, really, would be to expect National Review not to have turned itself over to the most pathetic populists.
“Here are the facts. In the interview, Obama went into extensive detail to explain why the courts should not get into that business of “redistributing” wealth. Obama’s point — and what he called a tragedy — was that legal victories in the civil rights led too many people to rely on the courts to change society for the better. That view is shared by conservative judges and legal scholars across the country,” Burton said..
The Obama campaign has become at dissembling than the Clinton administration ever has. Sure Obama is saying the courts shouldn’t go there. But what this interview does do, is make it all the more revealing what Obama’s views on taxation are. And he obviously considers the tax system as a means to redistribute wealth. Something over 80% of Americans are opposed to.
Jay, try this on for size:
“President Obama.”
Go ahead, say it. You’ll feel better.
“This discovery will hurt Obama much more than Joe the Plumber.”
Yeah, Joe the Plumber was pretty devastating.
“Something over 80% of Americans are opposed to.”
1) Give us a source for this statistic.
2) Taxation of any kind is a form of redistributing wealth. So unless you want to argue for the abolition of all taxes period, what exactly is your point?
3) Please explain exactly how Obama’s tax policy represents anything even close to a socialist economic model.
fafaroo,
Technically, a flat fee tax system in which every person, regardless of income, pays the same amount in taxes, is not really a redistribution of wealth. This appears to be the system that Joe the Plumber favors, as any other system — including the “flat tax” in which everyone pays the same percentage of income in taxes — would “punish success” by making the successful pay more in taxes than the unsuccessful do. A flat tax redistributes wealth to the less well-off in the form of government services.
I’m sure 80% of Americans are opposed to having Cindy McCain pay property taxes on her 8 houses to fund the public schools that give poor kids a chance to become something, since not everyone is so fortunate as to inherit wealth. My God, we’re punishing her (father’s) success! How dare we redistribute her wealth to those snot-nosed brats!
However, if we ran the country only on the revenue raised by a flat fee tax — requiring taxpayers to pay only the amount that the poorest citizens could afford — even the annual $18 billion in earmarks, never mind the hundreds of billions annually paid for the Iraq war, would become wholly unaffordable.
“The Obama campaign has become at dissembling than the Clinton administration ever has.”
Hey, Jay, you’re a fucking liar. Your opinions don’t matter, because they can’t be trusted. So save your energy and just shut the fuck up.
Seriously, Senator, likely soon to be President Elect… no going outside without the kevlar. We mean it.
On a side note, McCain admitting he shares a philosphy with Bush will hurt him a lot more than this socialist slur will hurt Obama.
That interview is 7 years old.
Just sayin’.
Scintillating rebuttal, CS, but cursing and namecalling are a pretty low level of conversation.
Like you, I disagree with Jay on nearly everything (and am gladly voting for Obama), but I would never dream of writing such a base, childish response to one of his posts. Prove him wrong through logic or disagree with his opinions, but try to do so like a man. Immature, hateful speech does little to impress your opponents or change their minds. Besides, it makes you no better than those who do the same on the other side of the aisle.
I suppose now is the time where you swear at me for asking for a modicum of civility or maturity. I accept my fate.
Nationalizing private debt = socialism.
A Republican president did this (via the Wall Street bail-out/giveaway of American tax dollars).
How many times do I have to say it? George W. Bush and the Republican party love Marxism.
Conservatives are “special”
“How many times do I have to say it? George W. Bush and the Republican party love Marxism.”
That’s not true. Under Marxism the state would share in the profits as well.
Technically, a flat fee tax system in which every person, regardless of income, pays the same amount in taxes, is not really a redistribution of wealth.
Redistribution of wealth is typically a manner of land-reform in which wealth-producing assets are taken from their owners and redistributed to others. Unless investment bankers are being forced to give up half of their projects and having those projects taken over by the poor, it’s hard to regard the mere act of progressive taxation as “redistribution of wealth”– particularly since typical taxation is not assessed against your wealth but against your income. Since federal taxes are assessed against our incomes and investment gains, calling this a “redistribution of wealth” is a misnomer. The high-income people aren’t facing a loss of wealth at all, nor are people with lower incomes facing gains of more wealth– one group simply ends up paying more taxes than the other. Their “wealth” stays intact.
It just seems sort of unfair in the modern world to take someone’s land away and give it to someone else, so many conservatives want to associate this sort of thing with progressive taxation, which is something no one really has a problem with in the first place.
the flag is being burned by liberal commie nazi marxists or something
Actually, I believe it’s tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis being burned (and murdered) by compassionate neoconservatives because Joe Chalabbi fronted Joe Curveball while Joe Cheney fronted Joe Libby and Joe Bush raided the public treasury to redistribute our wealth to the House of Saud and all his war profiteering cronies.
I welcome the argument about who redistributes whose wealth to whom.
Fafaroo,
Obama certainly sounds like an advocate of socialism. Cutting taxes by giving rebates to large numbers of Americans who do not pay any income taxes and funding those giveaways by increasing the taxes of some of the Americans who do pay income tax. Obama is basically just trying to buy votes here.
PG brought up the idea of the Roman Empire. I am not certain he really understands what an empire is but it interesting that he brought it up. One of the things that weakened the Roman Empire was the ever increasing numbers of citizens on the Dole.
Here we find real parallels between the Romans and Obama’s America. He is campaigning on the promise to put more and more Americans on welfare,the Dole. Trying to erase the stigma of being on welfare by making everyone go on welfare.
Here we find the true tragedy of an Obama presidency. A substantial increase in the size of the welfare state. Making more and more Americans dependant on the government for a welfare handout rather than being free citizens making it on thier own. Socialism and welfare, the Obama legacy.
AO, in much the same way that “redistribution of wealth” which was traditionally associated as land-reform in post-feudal economies is being redefined to be “progressive taxation,” what we now see is tax rebates being redefined as “welfare.” I know that you’re only doing this because McCain told you to, but it does no good to simply make stuff up and claim that whatever Obama does is automatically the sort of things you’re against.
Seriously, you would think that after 30 years, you’d find something else to be outraged about other than “welfare,” but instead you’ve maintained outrage about “welfare” and simply began to channel that outrage into anything you don’t like. Your problem is that your association with the republican party is progressively corrupting your mind and your ability to form coherent thoughts.
Amused Observer,
I’m not sure you really understand what either socialism or welfare is. Kindly point out where in Obama’s platform he advocates “making everyone go on welfare.” In fact, when Clinton signed welfare reform in 1996, Obama was not one of the state legislators who sought to obstruct the legislation; instead, he put together a non-profit task force to study the effect of the reform, and without spending a dime of taxpayer money.
If you consider tax rebates to be “making everyone go on welfare,” then you should look at the originator of the Earned Income Tax Credit, Republican Richard Nixon.
Also, before you refer to Obama’s policies as socialist again, I’d be interested in your explanation of why McCain/ Palin insist that there is nothing socialist about having the government be the largest shareholder in the financial sector. I have an odd habit of using words in accordance with their meaning, and while Obama has not advocated “the means of producing and distributing goods is owned by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy,” a Republican administration has brought us closer to such a state of affairs.
“Redistribution of wealth is typically a manner of land-reform in which wealth-producing assets are taken from their owners and redistributed to others.”
Exactly. In others words, shifting control of the means of production. Obama is proposing no such thing. Tyro pretty much nails the point here so I’ll just add that to suggest Obama’s tax policies are socialist is just willfully stupid.
To address Amused’s tired point, everyone pays taxes of one sort or another. No one is getting “free money” from Obama. At the same time, how the hell does a once a year tax refund in the area of a couple hundred bucks constitute “a substantial increase in the size of the welfare state”? If you think it does, how do you explain the $600 stimulus check I got this year from the government on top of my regular tax refund? By your definition, Amused, Bush is a socialist.
And for god sakes, can their be a moratorium on conservatives making trite, facile analogies between modern day America and the end of the Roman empire? I’ve been hearing them, starting with my dad, since the 1970s. The causes behind the fall of the Roman Empire seem to change according to the latest con talking points du jour, be it immigration, welfare, muslims whatever … Please. Just give it a rest.
Obama certainly sounds like an advocate of socialism. Cutting taxes by giving rebates to large numbers of Americans..
LIKE YOU.
What the hell is wrong with you? Obama is NOT advocating socialism.
How many times do you need to be told the truth?
To be consistent in my terminology, I should have said that “redistribution of wealth” is typical of land reform in which “income-producing assets” are taken and redistributed. Obama’s tax plans to not tax anyone’s wealth away. Shares of small businesses are not being confiscated and handed out to employees. What we’re seeing is simply the repackaging of decades-old boogeymen to apply to moderate, pragmatic federal policies. The problem is that the followers of the Republican party are too intellectually hobbled to grapple with reality and are instead being mislead by a group of crazed demagogues in the form of the McCain campaign. I worry that the Republicans are taking advantage of the easily manipulated and naive, which puts them in a place to simply be mislead by the next generation of the violent and the militia-members who might want to whip them into a fervor about how we need to “war against the government.”
Even the form of taxation that seems the most redistributative, the estate tax, is really just a simplified method of assessing all the capital gains on large estates in one full swoop instead of forcing heirs to go through detailed accounting of purchase prices of generations-old assets when they are sold.
I don’t know why any of us ever bother to argue constructively against the con idiots that patrol this blog. It’s a pointless endeavor. Having a conversation with them is like a Martian talking to a fungo. It’s like trying to rationalize with a toddler. It’s a fucking waste of time.
In nine days, after Obama is elected, I am going to be taking a personal day from work in order to watch Fox News all day. It’s going to be glorious. If that makes me petty and small… well, then I guess I am petty and small. The delicious taste of Schadenfreude…
Conservatives. Before you post anything more in this thread, please read all of tyros posts first. If you still think you have a point to make about Obama being a socialist, read them again.
fafaroo,
The causes behind the fall of the Roman Empire seem to change according to the latest con talking points du jour, be it immigration, welfare, muslims whatever … Please. Just give it a rest.
Don’t forget sodomy. That enjoyed a brief renaissance as Cause of the Fall after the Lawrence v. Texas decision. It was one of the funny-awful things about “300″ — we know the Persians are corrupt because when the hunchback goes to their camp, he sees women KISSING. Unbeknownst to most historians, the Persian empire was one long Girls Gone Wild tape.
oh man, how could i forget teh sodomy.
[...] also Oliver Willis and Martin Lewis. [...]
This is great. In the wake of the Ashley Todd incident, McCain’s campaign is now doing everything the rightist bloggers are telling them to. It’s getting pretty clear where they’re planning to pin the blame.
Oh, Bill Whittle.
I used to read his essays on economic and social/cultural issues with some pleasure, but he appears to have his heart set on becoming the Westbrook Pegler of this century. NOT an ambition to encourage, IMNHSO.
“I don’t know why any of us ever bother to argue constructively against the con idiots that patrol this blog. It’s a pointless endeavor. Having a conversation with them is like a Martian talking to a fungo. It’s like trying to rationalize with a toddler. It’s a fucking waste of time.”
Hell yeah!
Tyro has a point technically. He differentiates between wealth and income. Obama’s tax plan is not redistributing wealth, it is redistributing the fruits of wealth. But Obama himself doesn’t bother to parse his statements as carefully as does Tyros. He uses the term redistribution of wealth.
Now what term would you consider correct for giving tax refunds back to people who haven’t paid any taxes to begin with. A rebate, a subsidy, welfare, the dole? What ever the term, it is taking money from the more prosperous and redistributing that money among the less prosperous.
Obama seeks to increase the size of the subsidy receiving portion of society. I call that increasing the size of the welfare state. Many here would disagree, perhaps the term subsidy state sounds better, less stigma attached to it.
But there should be stigma attached to living off the dole. Our nation can afford to provide for widows and orphans, but the able bodied? That is shameful. Some of you have no pride. Obama may very well win this election, the Republic will endure.
Remember the bumpersticker “Work hard, people on welfare are counting on your taxes “Everybody likes free money, too bad it doesn’t exist. I don’t see how many of you can have any self respect lining up to the public trough for your welfare money. If ignorance is bliss then undoubtedly many of you will be quite happy living in a larger welfare state.
AO, you didn’t go back and read Tyro again, did you? I know you didn’t because you still have no idea what you’re talking about.
Now what term would you consider correct for giving tax refunds back to people who haven’t paid any taxes to begin with.
Well, Bush called his a “stimulus check”: “People who did not pay federal income taxes but who had earned income of more than $3,000 would get checks of $300 per individual or $600 per couple.”
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/24/economic.stimulus/index.html
“But there should be stigma attached to living off the dole.”
I don’t know AO. Anyone who can stretch one tax refund check to last 12 months of the year certainly has some awesome budgeting skillz.
In other words, not only are you twisting the definition of tax refund to mean “welfare,” you’re stretching it even further to suggest that receiving one tax refund check a year constitutes “living off the dole.”
And you are correct about one thing: There is no such thing as free money. Accordingly, the vast majority of American adults pay taxes of one sort or another, whether it’s in the form of income taxes, sales taxes, federal excise taxes etc. etc. etc. Every time you put gas in your tank you are pay a federal tax. No one is getting money without having paid taxes in one way or another.
Tyro has a point technically… But Obama himself doesn’t bother to parse his statements as carefully as does Tyros. He uses the term redistribution of wealth.
AO, what you’re saying here is “Yes, I’m wrong, but I will choose to ignore that and proceed with my stupid point anyway.”
But Obama himself doesn’t bother to parse his statements as carefully as does Tyros. He uses the term redistribution of wealth.
Perhaps if you REALLY listen to him this time, you’ll get it.
but I won’t hold my breath.
Hosta, NOW do you see why Mr Strowbridge curses sometimes? I do, too.
PG, Tyro, Repack, and many others who comment here are really really smart and articulate guys. The rest of us (well, me anyway) just do it because it’s fun and we say what’s on our minds. Pardon me if I let slip an F-bomb here and there.
Fafaroo,
Thanks for the explanation about excise taxes, fuel taxes, and sales tax. Gee I never knew.
Obama is speaking specifically about income taxes. He will raise the taxes on the rich and give part of that money to the rest of us in the form of tax rebates. Those without enough income to tax will still get checks. You can call public assistance in the form of a rebate for income tax that wasn’t ever paid anything you want. That doesn’t change what it is though, public assistance. It’s making the welfare state bigger, it’s building public dependency and creating a welfare mentality which I can sadly see too many of you have already possess.
Creating a welfare mentality, that someone else will pay, is bad. It’s bad if Bush does it, It’s bad if McCain does it, it’s bad if Obama does it. Of the three mentioned I think Obama will do it the most. Almost all politicians do it but it’s been a long time since anyone was as blatant as Obama about trading handouts for votes.
We didn’t found this nation with The Declaration of Dependance, there’s no reason to live off public assistance.
AO, are you still convinced that people can live off their tax rebate checks? Also, did you mail yours back in order to avoid the stench of dependency?
AO, you’re the only one confusing “taxes” with “income taxes.” A deal was made in the early 80s to raise payroll taxes to give income tax cuts to the rich. Middle income people saw their tax burden spike dramatically, and yet somehow certainly Republican partisans have decided to claim that these workers “pay no taxes” when in fact their taxes went UP.
AO, PG suggests a good question.
What you do with your stimulus check this year? Did you cash it or send it back?
I love the vaguely “tribal” sounding music in the background. A classy touch.
Bruce,
I have no problem with occasional cursing. But if we’ve learned nothing else from South Park, it’s that swearing loses its meaning when it’s repeated ad nauseum.
I have no problem with swearing. I do have a problem with people who purport to be somewhat reasonable or intelligent resorting to namecalling and swearing upon nearly any provocation. It detracts from the conversation and serves to undermine the intelligence of both the commenter and those who agree with the commenter.
When was the last time someone swore at you and called you stupid and through that behavior, caused you to change your mind?
Basically, I guess I’m saying that if someone can’t refute someone’s argument without calling them a fucking idiot, then maybe their debate opponent isn’t the only small-minded one.
I do have a problem with people who purport to be somewhat reasonable or intelligent resorting to namecalling and swearing upon nearly any provocation. It detracts from the conversation and serves to undermine the intelligence of both the commenter and those who agree with the commenter.
Stop being such a fucking sensitive delicate flower.
When was the last time someone swore at you and called you stupid and through that behavior, caused you to change your mind?
We’re not interested in the futile effort of changing the minds of Jay, et al. We’re here to demoralize and humiliate them.
We’re not interested in the futile effort of changing the minds of Jay, et al. We’re here to demoralize and humiliate them.
I thought you were doing a decent job of attempting the former, frankly. I certainly learned a few things from your earlier comments on this thread.
Stop being such a fucking sensitive delicate flower.
Ok, THAT was pretty funny.
He will raise the taxes on the rich and give part of that money to the rest of us in the form of tax rebates.
And you don’t want that. Gotcha.
Can I have yours?
Those without enough income to tax will still get checks.
You can prove that, of course, right?