I am really, really busy doing other things and can’t give this comment the attention it deserves. I hope some of you regulars will have some fun with it. This is comment #17 under “Wingnut Hysteria.” Have at it.
Update: I’ve closed comments on “Wingnut Hysteria” because it was drawing flies righties.
Maha, seriously? You’re devoting a whole post to clubbing a troll?
I mean, I appreciate the opportunity, but why waste the effort? If Bobby d were educable, he’d have learned all that stuff by now. Is there some reason to believe that, if we went and documented all the atrocities YET AGAIN, that Bobby d would acknowledge the facts, rather than just fixate on some other ridiculousness?
OK Maha, I “had at it”, and I guess I drew some kinda unpleasant fire. Wish I had seen the response before you deleted it… or maybe not.
D
Bobby needs medical attention. We can’t help him here Evidently he overdosed on the Kool Aid. I enjoy a good testosterone fueled patriotic fantasy myself, but after 5+ years of war, a trillion dollars wasted in Iraq,hundreds of thousands of lives destroyed, our nation’s honor tarnished, and oil at $146 dollars a barrel… it’s time to grab hold of reality and admit that Mr.”Bring it On” lied.
I guess you could say Bush didn’t lie if deception isn’t considered lying. But whatever terms are used to describe Bush’s foolish actions leading up to the invasion of Iraq certainly forthrightness and honesty won’t be found among them.
Just one example of the troll’s inanity that, I expect, is representative of his overall ignorance and willful distortion of facts:
“Bush has a religious zealot’s hatred for gays.â€
Yes, Bush has commendably spent large sums fighting AIDS in Africa. The relationship this fact bears to whether Bush hates gays is beyond my ken. AIDS is not a “gay disease,” and the vast majority of AIDS victims in Africa are not gay.
biggergox, I think arguing with trolls can sometimes be useful, not for the sake of the troll, who is usually unteachable, but for the audience. If people who, for instance, might be relatively new to a topic, wander into a comments thread that is being trolled, I think it’s better if they see
Troll: Point (or half-baked speculation) A, Point B, Point C
Other Commenter: Point A is wrong because of this, Point B is wrong because of that, and Point C is wrong because of this
than if they see
Troll: Point (or half-baked speculation) A, Point B, Point C
Ten other Commenters: Fuck off troll!!!
This was a tall order, kind of like trying to critique Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” performed by someone in a language he’s making up as he goes along. Or like being the guy in the Monty Python sketch who goes into a room expecting to have an intellectual argument, but instead finds someone who merely contradicts everything he says.
Point: Today is Tuesday.
Counterpoint: Well no, it isn’t, because in another 24 hours it will be Wednesday.
I decided it isn’t worth it to cite the public record of Bush’s comments leading up to the Iraq invasion, compare them to the NIE of Oct. 2002, to the documentation from Tony Blair’s government, and to reality in general, and then quote Webster’s definition of a “lie.” After all, as tomjones pointed out, the commenter is someone who thinks the AIDS crisis in Africa is related to gay rights in the U.S.
I wondered what could cause such a gross cognitive dysfunction in someone who, unlike the other dregs still sticking up for Bush, can spell and punctuate and form grammatical sentences. I found myself thinking along the same lines as Swami: Bobby should get an MRI real soon. Could be a brain tumor.
Our esteemed hostess wrote:
T’was the link from Patterico. But what are you saying here, that you don’t want conservatives reading your thoughtful arguments and powerful prose? Are you saying that you don’t wish to preach to anyone save the choir?
Besides, were you to look at my poor site, you’d see that I even have a testimonial from you listed in the sidebar! 🙂
Dana: See comment policy #1
I don’t allow the site to be a conduit for right-wing propaganda. For that reason, if there are any, um, unfactual statements made in a comment, I (or someone else) must rebut them, or else I delete the comment. And I don’t have time for that right now. I’m very busy with other things and cannot babysit the comments all day long.
I assume that our hostess wanted comments concerning comment #17 on the referenced thread:
Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that if we resumed drilling for oil offshore of the United States, that every bit of the profit would go to Dick Cheney, personally; I want to make it as obnoxious as I can for my friends on the left.
Now, unless Mr Cheney decided to take all of that money in cash, and sew it into his mattress, it would go into banks and investments, the vast majority of which would be right here in the United States. Who knows, some of it might even have to go for lawyers, but they, too, would be right here in the US. All of that profit would be spent, again and again, in the United States, as the money worked its way through the economy.
Moreover, the people building the oil rigs, and then operating the oil rigs, would be Americans, pumping their salaries, the material costs, food expenses, just everything involved, right back into the American economy. Pretty good idea, don’t you think, certainly better than sending it to Venezuela?
The original comment concerned reinvestment, but I’d add one further point. I’m not wealthy; my wife and I both work for a living — though were on vacation this week — her as a registered nurse and me as a concrete plant manager. I run equipment, I shovel under conveyor belts, I clean out cement dust collectors, pretty much all dirty work; we’re solidly working class.
But, as an experiment, I ran our 2006 and 2007 income tax information through a year 2000 Form 1040, to see what our taxes would have been prior to the Bush tax cuts. Over those two years, just tow years, mind you, we saved $12,905 in federal income taxes.
We aren’t high-rollers, and we aren’t living on inheritances or dividends or investments; I wear jeans and work boots to work, and I usually have to take another shower when I get home. Yet we saved that much due to the tax cuts. People: they weren’t just for the wealthy.
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Dana — your theory works when there’s more money in the pockets of less wealthy people, because they will go out and buy new toasters and other consumer products and put money into circulation in the local economy.
However, when all the tax cuts are helping the extremely wealthy, more of that money will go into overseas investments, off shore accounts, and into high-price luxury items like jewelry that don’t create as many jobs as manufacturing toasters. So, while cutting taxes for the wealthy does grow the economy a little, it doesn’t grow the economy nearly as efficiently as tax cuts for less wealthy people.
Maybe someone else can explain this better than I can right now. I’ve got to take on some wrathful dharmapalas on the other site today.
Contrary to wingnut lore, we lefties are not opposed to cutting taxes. I don’t like paying taxes either. However, there’s a lot to be said for not going into debt. George Bush has financed his tax cuts and his war by borrowing money, mostly from Japan and China, and now China owns his ass. This is OK with you?
The phrase to remember is “economic sovereignty.” The Bushies pretty much gave ours away. This is a point I NEVER see right-wingers address. Why is that?
The ulitmate in self-serving arguments:
Give me more money and that will be the best thing for the economy as a whole.
(BTW, the “trickle-down” theory, aka “supply-side economics” is by no means “fairly well-accepted,” at least not outside of the Country Club set. It was basically disproved by the experience of the Reagan years, but continues to rear its ugly head.)
Oh, I certainly agree that President Bush and the previous Republican-controlled Congresses spent way too much money. That’s a big part of the reason Republicans were disenchanted with the Congress going into the 2006 elections. With the Democrats now in control, things haven’t gotten any better. I’d suggest that the things I see as wasteful spending wouldn’t be the same things you would see as unnecessary spending.
And Barack Obama has made promises that call for about $875 billion in additional spending during his first term, if he is elected, more than would be raised by his tax increase proposals.
Our esteemed hostess wrote:
Unfortunately, the toasters are made in China these days, so even when a working class person like me buys one, part of the money is leaving our shores.
And you ignored one thing: not “all” of the tax cuts went to “the extremely wealthy;” I already documented for you what my working-class family saved. And as of tax year 2005, the bottom 50% of income tax filers paid a whopping 3.50% of total federal income taxes collected; the wealthiest taxpayers are paying an ever-increasing share. Though I disagree with having a “progressive” income tax at all, the fact is that the Bush tax cuts have made the tax burden more “progressive” than previously.
A saving of 12K? Wowee. And how much did health insurance cost you? In a country without universal health care, 12K is a drop in the bucket. Personally, I prefer to pay a bit more in taxes and know that if I–or anyone else for that matter–become ill or even just need preventive care, I can get it without going bankrupt.
However, when all the tax cuts are helping the extremely wealthy, more of that money will go into overseas investments, off shore accounts, and into high-price luxury items like jewelry that don’t create as many jobs as manufacturing toasters.
All the tax cuts didn’t go to the wealthy. As Dana pointed out, he isn’t “the extremely wealthy,” and the Bush tax cuts helped his family enormously. I could say the same thing.
So, while cutting taxes for the wealthy does grow the economy a little, it doesn’t grow the economy nearly as efficiently as tax cuts for less wealthy people.
Do you have data to back up this assertion that giving tax cuts to people who pay most of the taxes doesn’t help stimulate the economy as much as tax breaks to people who don’t pay as much in taxes? Sure, rich people don’t buy toasters as often, but they also buy lots of other stuff, incuding luxury goods manufactured by ordinary folks.
I’m all for “economic sovereignty,” Maha. But I also understand that a war will inflate one’s debt. You don’t believe liberating Iraq was a good thing; I happen to think it is worth it. But if you think an Obama administration is going to be concerned about “economic sovereignty,” then you haven’t been paying attention to his hopenchange.
>it’s a fairly well accepted theroy, empirically supported
No, it is a less than elegant metaphor.
Re “supply side” economics, the go-to guy on the Web is Hale Stewart. See in particular “The Supply-Side Fraud: Republican Economics Don’t Work.”
There are vast warehouses of data besides Hale’s that show the whole supply side thing is a way feeble way to grow the economy, but I don’t have the time to do research for you today. I’m not your monkey. If anyone else reading this can help me out, I’d appreciate it.
There is much complaining on the Right about Bush’s spending, but where is that spending going? Beside congressional pork, it’s going into Bush’s war. He’s kept the spending on Iraq mostly off-budget where we can’t see it, but it’s there. Instead of re-investing in America — in infrastructure, in education, in technology — we’re sending our tax dollars overseas to be buried in a desert.
And the truth is, those tax cuts are not cuts, they are tax deferments. Someday that piper will have to be paid, one way or another.
I realize you righties will parrot support for upper-income tax cuts into your graves, and I have no hope that you will ever see the way your policies are strangling all of us, but for anyone else reading this — please, don’t be deceived.
Now, unless someone else wants to argue with Dana and Sharon, I’ll be closing comments soon, because I don’t have time for this.
Straw men all: I was only part way through Bobby’s comments when I began to sneeze uncontrollably, unimaginable paroxysms seized my body – yet I made it to the end.
Why is this happening I asked myself. Of course, you’re allergic to straw you silly girl I answered myself.
Here’s an interesting thing pointed out to me by my ex’s lawyer: every month when welfare checks come out, that money goes to the landlord, the grocery store, car payment, etc. IOW, it trickles up, starting with those who need it most. NONE goes to Swiss banks.
Also, look at the Food Stamp program. This was started in order to sell more agricultural goods; helping poor folks was a convenient byproduct. That’s why it’s administered by the USDA.
I do NOT want to start an argument over the abuse of these things (as if a $6000 shower curtain isn’t abuse, yes it’s everywhere), I just want to point out that trickle-up economics goes farther to “promote the general welfare” (Preamble, remember?) than the discredited trickle-down hypothesis.
You don’t believe liberating Iraq was a good thing; I happen to think it is worth it.
Wow, just one of many jaw-dropping comments today. Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, the invasion of Iraq was:
Worth it to remove a secularist strongman so that Al Qaeda could finally establish a base in Iraq.
Worth it to set different Muslim sects against one another in a civil war. (OK, I guess that’s a good thing if you’re a bigot who hates all Muslims.)
Worth it to distract from the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, so that country eventually will fall back under Taliban control.
Worth it to inflate Dick Cheney’s retirement fund at Halliburton out of all proportion.
Worth it to torture and humiliate Iraqi citizens, caught up in mass arrests after the American invasion, in the hellhole we made of Abu Ghraib.
Worth it to squander the goodwill of just and decent people all over the world, which the U.S. had right after 9/11.
Worth it to mortgage our children’s future at the cost of $10 billion per month.
Worth it to cut short the lives of our sons, daughters, brother and sisters.
Whose side are these people on?! Definitely not the side of common sense or patriotism; I expect they must be on the side of their own delusions and imaginary friends.
One of my favorite theories is that cutting taxes on the wealthy creates more jobs. Cutting taxes on the wealthy tends to make jobs cost more.
See, if there’s a 40% tax rate, and you hire someone for $30k total expenses a year, it’s costing you $18k. If you hire that person when the tax rate is 30%, it’s costing you $21k. (This assumes a sole-P or partnership – and possibly an S-corp. It changes when dealing with a corporation; at that point, corporate profitability, rather than personal income, becomes the issue.)
Now, as any idiot who blindly follows laws of supply and demand thinks s/he knows, any time you increase the cost of something, you’ll instantly reduce demand for it. Lower taxes = lower demand for workers. Lower taxes means fewer jobs.
Oh! But because the people have more money in their pockets after the tax cuts, they’ll spend it, which improves the economy. Because taxes don’t get spent by the government, you know… or, if they do, they don’t pump money into the economy. You know that must be true, or the so-called “conservatives” would be unhappy, and might hold their breaths until they turn blue. Which is a really convincing argument, right?
It’s really amazing how these feeble arguments have gotten into the public consciousness.
You don’t believe liberating Iraq was a good thing; I happen to think it is worth it.
Let’s also not forget opportunity cost. Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz says that Iraq will cost $3 Trillion before it’s all done. Besides all the bad will and all the other negatives we created by going into Iraq, this doesn’t talk at all to the immense opportunity cost that was squandered.
At some point, this country and this world is going to need to get off of oil. This was a lot cheaper and less painful to do back when oil was $30 a barrel. Instead of fighting over the last oil reserves on the planet, and wrecking our economy in the process, we could have committed that $3 Trillion to solve our energy problems that are going to need to be solved anyway. And if we don’t solve them, and profit from the solution, the Chinese or somebody else will.
Same for global warming – dealing with this in a constructive way would’ve been so much easier had we been serious about it ten or twenty years ago. Instead the far right refuses to admit what the overwhelming majority of scientists emphatically acknowledge.
Today our country is deeply in debt – which is by design by those who wanted to drown government in a bathtub. Instead of looking to the future and anticipating these crises and coming up with solutions that would’ve been much less painful than what our options are today, our country has been run by far right ideologues who have bankrupted it and left it with very few options. There will be some very painful times ahead for America, none of which were necessary had we had competent, reality-based leadership.
And so, for those who think Iraq was a great idea, my response is that you have no idea what the true costs are. You’re like someone who is smiling as your pocket is being picked and your house is being looted. You are however, perhaps starting to get a hint when you go to the gas pump.
I especially love mindless bullshit like this.
“Liberating Iraq” as if Iraq is living in freedom under a stable government.
And then “worth it”… worth *what*? One thousand dollars from every man, woman, and child living in the United States? (That’s $300 billion dollars, but the cost is already far beyond that.) The risks of not being able to respond to a real emergency, because our military is exhausted? The loss of four thousand of our troops, and the tens of thousands of injured troops? The horrendous burden of immorality that comes from being the cause of so much death, pain, and suffering? The loss of trust from all the rest of the world?
“I think it was worth it” is cheap, easy, and meaningless.Calling it bullshit ennobles it because it makes it sound like it might make good fertilizer, and it wouldn’t. It’s more like the hot air that would dry the ground and kill the seedlings.
I happen to think it is worth it.
Well, personally I have difficulty making value judgments with other peoples lives.
How many dollars, or points, or whatever you use to calculate is this worth?
I better bone up on my HTML skills.. 🙂
http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2006/04/images/hondros_tal_afar.jpg
Iraq was worth it? To whom? What did it cost YOU? Your family’s LIVES?
No, it cost you a lot less than your old SUV.
>You don’t believe liberating Iraq was a good thing; I happen to think it is worth it.
Please, sir, let us know how many tours of service you did in Iraq; it will help us assess what your personal investment in that adventure was.
Bartkid:
There may well be a maximal-touring Iraq vet who still thinks it was worth it. I don’t care.
*WE* don’t get to decide that it’s okay to kill lots of people, destroy other people’s lives and property, and throw the country into a cesspit, all for a maybe-stable, maybe-just government, maybe, someday.
If the Iraqis had chosen to fight for their liberation, and we’d chosen to help them, that would be one thing. We don’t get to kill people because we think it’s best for them.
Maybe – *MAYBE* – if there was a slaughter going on, and military force was the only way to stop it. Even then, we have to question whether we’ll cause more or less damage by intervening than we would by leaving things alone.
Herm. I don’t want to deny your main point: you’re right, a lot of people who say “it was worth it” aren’t vets who’ve served, and thus, aren’t people who’ve made a huge sacrifice. But even a vet who said that would still be wrong.
I can’t help but rubbernecking at the cognitive carnage along the internet superhighway. These types of oddities should be elevated…held up to the light and examined on occasion but two things loom prominently in my mind.
Firstly, an old southernism comes to mind — it’s like teaching a pig to sing…it will never learn and you’ll only piss it off. In this case, pissing it off doesn’t matter since it was pissed and foaming at the mouth to begin with.
Secondly, this wingnut will feel empowered to even get the slightest consideration of a response, no matter how scathing and negative it is.
Speaking of wingnuts (preemptive apologies if this is too “OT”), I listened to Jonah Goldberg argue against a mandatory (i.e. conscripted) one year of public service, an idea being batted around. Some, he claims, can make a more significant contribution in “their own way”. I suppose it’s different if you go kill people. A real patriot that Goldberg. Now I’m getting all misty-eyed….