Thinking Right

By jbmlaw

December 11, 2007 8:05 AM | Link to this

Merry Christmas all. I am uncertain whether today’s topic is (1) corporate welfare to expand the medicrats’s income, and its twin, Republican complicity in the expansion of government, or (2) honesty in the legislative process. To the former, there is nothing wrong in our medical industry that government will not make worse. The entire problem is in the uninformed perception that the medical industry is somehow different from the food industry, the housing industry, the automobile industry, or any other industry “essential” to modern man. Every point where government intrudes into private enterprise leads to a misallocation of resources, manifest in the medical industry by runaway high (government-subsidized) costs. Surely no other industry has so much injection of government into so many points (as our friend TFTT would say, geddit?, the clever analogy to the druggies.) So, of course, our republican overlords determine all we need is more corporate welfare, to grow the industry some more. Smart, sort of like steroids for the public weal.

Of course, if presented as it is – a sop to preferred Republican contributors – additional government payments to the medical industry may be a hard sale to the public paying the bills. So we’ll conceal the cost, add new areas of taxes, persuade people this is like an insurance policy, albeit one that they would never purchase on their own so we’ll make up their minds for them.

Isn’t America great? Where else could six-figure incomeds persuade the government to put a gun to the head of the taxpayer to shake down more money? Well, other than Putin’s Russia? It would be enough to make Bourke Hickenlooper go postal.

By Aquagirl

December 11, 2007 8:19 AM | Link to this

Let me help you jbmlaw. Today’s topic is : “Jim Has Just Noticed Republicans Tax And Spend Like Democrats, While Claiming They Are Fiscal Conservatives.”

Let’s see how many other wingnuts have come to the same realization, and have the huevos to admit it.

By Shark Sammich

December 11, 2007 8:22 AM | Link to this

Careful, Jim—you’re actually sounding quite rational today.

I expect the usual band of lizard-brains will tell you that taxation is confiscation, and that if we only adopted the magic-bean approach of (fill in with crackpot tax scheme du jour) everything would be lollipops and ponies.

By Mid-South Philosopher

December 11, 2007 8:30 AM | Link to this

Good morning, Jim.

Your column this morning is one of the most sensible appraisals of what is going on with respect to taxes here in Georgia. Our politicians, lacking the guts to face our state challenges head-on, are failing to make the hard decisions we elected them to make. As a consequence, they are giving us the soft-shoe and slight-of-hand performances.

Of course, the preponderance of that august body…the General Assembly…has intelligence quotients equal to or slightly less than their chronological age. The Governor is very much *the lost ball in high grass.” The only people dumber are we who elected them!

I think government, at all levels, has become inept. It has become a giant, self-perpetuating paramecium consuming the resources and treasure of the citizens. By and large, it is non-responsive to the people except when they band together, either in numbers or resources, to the extent that the power or the continuance of the beast is threatened.

Quite honestly, it may be time to exercise fourth “Right” enumerated in the Declaration of Independence!

By Not Democrat, and not Republican

December 11, 2007 9:04 AM | Link to this

Is it fair to say that Republicans have lost their fiscal way? Transportation is probably the biggest problem we have in Metro Atlanta, and there is no one under the Gold Dome, with the (fill in the blank) to stand up and do something about it. With out of wack programs, such as making Georgia a fishing and retirement haven, everyone in the General Assembly either has their head stuck up their (fill in the blank) or just want to ignore the huge elephant in the room. MARTA is the only urban transportation system in the country that does not receive any state funds. Why is that? You can’t build additional roads forever. What is it gonna take for this problem to be seriously addressed, new leadership perhaps? Or maybe make all this Republicans AND Democrats drive their own cars from the capital to Alpharetta every friday afternoon in rush hour? until they are ready to REPRESENT the people who elected them?? Sound like a good idea right?
As far as Grady is concerned, it is good to see the leadership out of the hands of that board, but the mission of the hospital should always remain the same. What can Republicans say now that their party controls all branches of state government, ans has nothing to show for the time they’ve been there. Do I believe Democrats could do any better, probably not. It is going to take some drastic change to get these people to put the problems of everyday working Georgians first, and not paying these corporations back for getting them elected! Right is right, and what these people are doing isn’t exactly kosher.

By The Oddball

December 11, 2007 9:13 AM | Link to this

Best column you’ve ever written, Jim. When you flesh your ideas out thoroughly and leave out the name-calling, you make good points.

By Pompano

December 11, 2007 9:18 AM | Link to this

When it comes to all of the proposals to “Save Grady”, why do all of them call for people other than those that use the hosipital to pick up the tab? I take the train into work everyday and see all of the baby-mommas heading down to Grady w/their kids. One thing they all have in common is that they’re carrying the latest & greatest cell-phones. So our culture is now one where we have to maintain or cell service but have no problem stiffing the Doctor. Grady’s problem is the new definition of “Indigent” now covers able-bodied citizens that are simply to lazy or irresponsible to see to their own needs. Unfortunately, with marriage rates less than 30% for some segments of the population, this group of individuals is growing faster than those of us asked to foot the bills.

By ron

December 11, 2007 9:22 AM | Link to this

Jim,What’s wrong?Everyone likes you today.Republicans raising taxes?Of course they do.Apparently they only raise the taxes on Democrats as the Repulicans nevr see a Republican increase.Remember George H.W.Bush?

By Redneck Convert

December 11, 2007 9:22 AM | Link to this

Trauma center my foot. I smell Grady and trying to make the rest of us pay for the hospitle of Those People.

In my book a fee is just a politicans way of raising taxes while they are claiming to hold down taxes. I got a buddy in Roswell that says they are trying to make a “stormwater utility fee” to suit the tree-huggers that want to make people pay by how much roof and driveway they have. They are too chicken to raise taxes to pay for it so they want to add it to the water bill and then tell people they held taxes down. When all along they are bringing in more money from taxes on account of new property and getting this stormwater utility fee to boot.

You got to watch these politicans real close or they will be in your billfold fast. Ain’t but one thing that scares us godly Republicans more than death. Taxes. You can tell a fine Republican he’s going to die in two months and he won’t blink a eye. But tell him his taxes is going up and he will scream and yell and pitch a fit like a two year old in a store that didn’t get something he wanted. Well, I’m proud to say I’m against all taxes.

I’m sort of driving with one eye on the rear view mirror today. Ever since that guy yesterday said I was going to be 6 feet under if I didn’t change my ways. Its bad enough Sister Dusty and this Captain guy and TFTT make fun of me and call me all kind of names. Now a bunch of libruls is on the warpath against me and want to do me in. You got to be brave to stand your ground as a good GA Republican, but I reckon there ain’t no point in telling everybody I’m Redneck Convert and come on and get me. So I’ll just drive like the drunk that always goes 35 mph and maybe no one will notice. Being a GA Republican is something to be proud of but it ain’t worth dying for. The libruls sure got a burr under their saddle after 7 yrs. of My President.

Have a good day everybody.

By The Oddball

December 11, 2007 9:22 AM | Link to this

One more thing.

Before you set the current leaders of the General Assembly loose to overhaul the tax laws, remember that these are the same clowns who wrote the “tort reform” and “sex offender residency” laws, both of which were (a) immediately hijacked by special interest groups, and (b) so badly written that the courts are throwing them out piece by piece. Regardless of the policy choices that will be made, these people simply are not competent at writing laws. Lord alone knows what we’ll end up with if they start making major structural alterations to the tax code.

By Phil o sopher

December 11, 2007 9:26 AM | Link to this

Well, at least we’re getting closer to dealing with the issues that I had been led to believe were the tasks that politicians were paid for. Anyway, let’s be honest with each other since politicians can’t be - How would they ever get re-elected?

The first step in any effort to initiate meaningful change is what? All together now class. Admit that there is a problem. We will not accept the phrase “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. What this phrase really means is that the person saying it is just fine with things the way they are.

Well, identifying the first problem is the simple part in this situation - Too Much Government, at all levels. How do you address this first problem? Maybe study the data, stratify it, analyze it. With the age of the Internet, perhaps a good start would be to use those sunshine laws to their fullest extent. Our county commissioners, for example, like to publish meeting minutes where they yap about how they’re paying too much for one thing and not enough for another. Yet, they won’t publish the county budget along with these politically oriented minutes. There’s just no good reason to keep so much from public scrutiny. I think the public can be of great benefit in identifying such things as wasteful spending, fraudulent purchases, etc.

How about another problem to work on? What about inequality in taxes and services? Now that’s a big one. I wonder if there’s a politician out there that has done some basic analysis of the data in this case. Maybe, Mr. Richardson is on to something - even if by accident - with his talk on property taxes, etc. I’m not claiming that I think he’s right but, at least he may have made it past the first step. All together now class, what is the first step?

Of course, once these problems have been identified and their impact on our - all together now - TAXES has been measured, then they can be prioritized. What do we do next? How about determining potential solutions for the problems.

Here’s one to kick around and discuss regarding the tax inequality issue: Why not develop a flat tax on property much like what is currently used to value conservation use property. This could be a base amount that is re-evaluated yearly by the state and everyone would pay it. Hey, this may even get rid of some of the bias introduced by all those appraisers. Maybe, a market value based house tax could be added on to help balance out the impact on local services. This tax could consist of two parts - an impact fee and some fixed annual tax. Then, we could look at how sales taxes are currently distributed across the state and look for ways to eliminate the disparities that exist between those counties that managed to lure in the most business and those that did not.

Oh but I ramble. This couldn’t possibly work as long as the politicians are more interested in who has the largest dangling - participle?

By Go Fish

December 11, 2007 9:30 AM | Link to this

MR. Wooten,

First, thank you for being one of the very few with the AJC to have the courage to allow comments posted with your columns. Obviously the GREAT tax opponents have spun their special interest enough to basically kill it. That’s sad. I was hoping we could have been bold enough to eliminate at least one whole class of taxes. But no those special interest groups won the day. As far as your concern about the Saudis, well we could have charged them based on whether on not they were a citizen of the State of Georgia. After all if you’re not a citizen you should pay for state services. Remember businesses do not pay taxes. Those are passed on to the consumer so in effect consumers are paying every tax in the form of prices on goods which is the ultimate hidden tax.

By Dennis

December 11, 2007 9:31 AM | Link to this

Mr. Wooten writes, “Tell me what I’m buying and what it costs. Then levy the taxes, straight-up.”

In time to come, Mr. Wooten, your children and grandchildren now own an unnecessaary war in Iraq. The costs and “straight-up” taxes are still to be determined.

In the meantime, remember, you are the one who bought it.

As to the costs of a trauma center, I’m reminded of when a tightwad farmer near here objected to the salery of an emergency ambulance personnel as being “too high”.

But I’ll bet he didn’t think that when he had a heart attack and those same people stablized him and took him to the emergency room.

And why you singled out the Saudis for buying property and sitting on it as an investment, I don’t know. But I know American real estate corporations do the same thing. And while the values of the property are going up they don’t contribute to the community either.

The financial hole that the Republicans have dug for the United States for the past seven years beats anything (make that everything) the “tax and spend” Democrats have ever done.

You don’t have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

By thogwummpy

December 11, 2007 9:38 AM | Link to this

Every time I hear a Neo-lib yap that “corporations should pay more taxes” (corporations automatically imbed taxes into their price structure, so every new tax is a tax ultimately consumers pay); or the rich don’t pay their fair share (they pay MORE than you or I in every respect), or that tax cuts caused debt (tax cuts stimulated the economy, and now we have RECORD HIGH tax revenue…Congressional Budget Office numbers, not mine)—-I’m reminded that Lefties slept through high school civics, and never have taken Macro-Economics 101. Taxes by definition ARE confiscatory—-and every pea wit that uses taxes to trot out some creaky obsolete 19th century class-friction morality play, should have their right to vote revoked.

By zeke

December 11, 2007 9:38 AM | Link to this

Any tax is too much! No government regardless of the “need” should be allowed to tax it’s citizens to provide a service for less than the whole population! Add on taxes, property and ad valorem are examples, are not consistent with our Constitution and national ideal of private ownership! And constantly adding taxes to items like, prepared foods, accomodations, car rental, marta and others should be outlawed as non American socialist confiscation of wealth from the successful in this country to redistribute to the less successful or those who just have their hand out and do not contribute to society! And, the states buying up property to conserve it or prevent development is absurd! One of the main tennants of this country is private, not public, ownership of property! The feds and states already own way too much property and should be prevented from acquiring any more at the expense of the taxpayers! The aptly named “FAIR TAX” is THE solution to these problems! A percentage tax on all NEW goods and services at the retail level based on current percentage that it would take to offset the current expenditures of government! That percentage cannot change, and, govenments would have to operate within the boundaries of that tax with NO DEFICIT SPENDING WHAT SO EVER! The only exception would be for national defense and the military only in case of a major war! We now waste over 2/3 of our national budget on social programs, welfare and other needless mandates! How much further can we move toward socialism without becoming the old soviet union, china or cuba? The liberals, socialist and communists, including the democrats, so called civil rights activists, the aclu, the sierra club, and other socials activist groups cannot wait to rush us headlong down that path of socialism and loss of freedom!!!!

By Shark Sammich

December 11, 2007 9:46 AM | Link to this

Ah, I knew we’d get the “Rich people pay MORE than their fair share” meme from a lizard brain before 10am!

Well played, thogwummpy!

So what kind of PoS beater-car you got that bears your “FairTax” sticker, anyways? I always get a kick out of those.

By Captain Freedom

December 11, 2007 9:47 AM | Link to this

THE Captain was going to post a remark, but sees that Zeke has the bat$hit crazy angle covered today. (Is it a stretch to think that Zeke might also adore DOCTOR Ron Paul?) Thus, with the loony fringe of True Belief well represented, THE Captain shall take a day to bask in the luxury of His wealth and wisdom.

A free word of advice, Zeke, from an experienced Keyboard Kommando. Wipe your keyboard with a clean, lint-free cloth from time to time. Otherwise your spittle foam will clog the mechanism.

By Glenn

December 11, 2007 9:47 AM | Link to this

Not Dem & Not Rep,

Yes, it is indeed fair to say that Republicans have lost their fiscal way. And you may be the first non-Republican so to say.

Your mentioning their waywardness opens the interesting prospect of a comprehensive statement of that problem, the better to address it. I believe that some recent books have described the extent of fiscal liberality on Bush’s watch, so maybe those texts make good starters.

Jim’s done another fine job of capturing a complex story with consistently accessible language. What’s more, a necessarily nuanced description of the reasons for the GA GOP’s fiscal pusilanimity would be a still greater journalistic challenge. It’s not enough to say that the Party simply lacks a Reagan.

• Why does it lack a Reagan?

• Why does it insist upon aping the Democrats?

• Why does it accept, as Nixon fatally did, the rules as received?

• Are Republicans incapable of conceiving of government in other than essentially liberal terms?

• What role Mephistopheles?

For me the symptom to watch is the GOP approach to a general tax on services. Reagan by now would have thrown his body across that path, in defense of the beautiful status quo: government funded by shrinking sources of revenue.

By The Oddball

December 11, 2007 10:00 AM | Link to this

Why are you people so enamoured of Ronald Reagan? The man never once proposed a balanced budget, and the national debt went ballistic on his watch. He bought votes with tax cuts and then stuck us with the check. As far as fiscal policy goes, the Reagan years were not the “golden age” — they were the years when the Republican Party began to lose it’s fiscal way.

By Anonymous

December 11, 2007 10:12 AM | Link to this

Don’t start on that path, Oddball… you’ll find people here who honestly believe that supply-side economics SUCCEEDED.

And that Mister Rogers shot JFK, while you’re at it.

By @@

December 11, 2007 10:25 AM | Link to this

Although there’s no humor in today’s column, it’s hard not to laugh because this “tax-shift” sham is the same kind of crap that has been served up by Democrats for years and those who support them say….”Oooooo it’s so good!” while conservatives have always exclaimed “WTH is that you just put on my plate — I’m not eating that!”

So let me see if I’ve got this Republican turned Democrat tax scheme right…

I’ll be driving the same ten-year old clunker at an additional cost of $10.00 only to have it disappear into a government pothole?

Needless to say I’ll be sticking with the party that’s been saying….Hellooooooo is anybody up there? It’s getting cold and dark in this government stinkhole.

By Glenn

December 11, 2007 10:33 AM | Link to this

Oddball,

Notwithstanding your British spelling, I’m afraid you misconstrue Reagan. He’d meant to overspend both the Soviets and the Democrats. You know how the first play worked.

As to the second, his Budget Director David Stockman later fessed up: the idea was to put the federal government so deeply into a fiscal hole that successor Democrats and GOP spendthrifts would have no option but to “shrink” government. The vision was vast, the execution, brutally simple.

Vintage Reagan. He never lost his Jeffersonian suspicion of government, precisely the aspect lacking from the GOP skyboxes of the moment.

By Shark Sammich

December 11, 2007 10:39 AM | Link to this

Oddball, the answer to “Why are you people so enamoured of Ronald Reagan?” I think, is rather simple.

He’s the only American hero the right wing has, really. They can’t say bad things about him, or else they’d have nobody; at least not anyone within living memory. Who of the Republican persuasion can they point to?

Ike, maybe? (But then we get to haul out his various speeches when Ike sounds farther to the left than any Dem running today…)

By deegee

December 11, 2007 10:46 AM | Link to this

Why would a state like Georgia see any benefit in taxing its citizens in order to provide a sophisticated type of medical trauma network that could potentially attract talented professionals to the state who would enjoy participating in something worthwhile? That’s a stupid idea. I’m much happier knowing that my tax dollars are going to promote fishing out of what is rapidly becoming a mudhole.

By Adam

December 11, 2007 10:50 AM | Link to this

Politicians, Rep or Dem, have only ONE objective. Reelection! They are only interested in how they are portrayed in the media and certainly don’t want to appear as some Scrooge taking away the goodies. So we get endless increases in the reach of government into all sorts of areas they have no responsibility being involved in. Whenever a Katie Couric wannabe appears on the local news with some heartbreaking story about a defective baby stroller, the politicians jump across each other in an effort to show their “concern” and launch a new government program dedicated to “stricter baby stroller standards.” There is no end to their efforts to shape their media image for the next election.

I’m afraid we have gone beyond the point of no return regarding larger and more intrusive government. Self reliance and personal responsibility are unfortunately traits of the past. Nanny government is here to stay and grow. The politicians aren’t wondering how to reign it in, they’re only wondering how to hide the cost while pandering to the demands of the whiners demanding to be served with more goodies.

By Dennis

December 11, 2007 10:52 AM | Link to this

By The Oddball December 11, 2007 10:00 AM “Why are you people so enamoured of Ronald Reagan? The man never once proposed a balanced budget, and the national debt went ballistic on his watch. He bought votes with tax cuts and then stuck us with the check. As far as fiscal policy goes, the Reagan years were not the “golden age” — they were the years when the Republican Party began to lose it’s fiscal way.”

Everyone of these “believers” still think Reagan GAVE “THEM” tax breaks.

You don’t have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

By Camus

December 11, 2007 11:04 AM | Link to this

Any honest assessment of the imact the Reagan tax “cuts” had on the average middle-class taxpayer would admit that the increase in FICA and Medicaid taxes he implemented far outstrip any reduction in the income tax this group may have realized.

So you see, Jim, the taxation slight of hand was happily practiced by St Ronnie as well. But don’t let the facts get in the way of a good polemic.

By Aquagirl

December 11, 2007 11:06 AM | Link to this

deegee, don’t forget we can more effectively recruit cops and firefighters the same way. When they’re severely injured protecting us, we can rush them to Lanier and hand them a fishing rod.

Seriously, how can someone be taken seriously when you publicly admit voting Republican in the last election? You elected G. W. “Mission Accomplished” Bush and Sonny “Fish Georgia’s Mud Flats” Perdue.

Next election we’ll see Bozo the Clown on the ballot with an (R) next to his name. It would raise the collective Republican IQ a few points.

By Glenn

December 11, 2007 11:15 AM | Link to this

Yes, Ike. Also Abraham Lincoln, William Seward, Sam Houston, Ulysses Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, Herbert Hoover, Earl Warren, Leo Strauss, Barry Goldwater, Bill Casey, Bob Dole, and a host of journalists and commentators.

So have at this list of flawed people, each of whom was heroic in his own way. The same could be done with any list of Democrats. Once again it’s the categorical treatment which is in error. Republicans often draw inspiration from non-Republicans. Churchill looms in this regard. Reagan himself conspicuously admired FDR.

Does it matter that Eli Parker and O.O. Howard and Frederick Douglass and most of the founding American conservationists were Republican? To me, not.

By RealRep

December 11, 2007 11:25 AM | Link to this

Mr. Wooten -

Mike’s with you 100%!

Mike welcomes with open arms the Giuliani and Romney defectors.

A vote against Mike is a vote for Hillary.

Huckabee ‘08

By time for the INSTANT DEATH of ALL yellowbellied LIBERAL VERMIN

December 11, 2007 11:29 AM | Link to this

The sad yellowbellied homosexual enemas inbred redneKKK turd and Lance Korporal Syphilis are still infesting this blog with their self absorbed witless queeralicious cut and run puke!! These verminous human scum are as worthless as the resident paranoid schizo, the ever vainglorious abortion bucket escapee aborted shrivelled foreskin which pukes up its execrable rabidly unfunny putrid puke as if its psychotic puke is robotically puked up by anally obsessive putrid pukes proud of their unhinged puke making puke!!

ALL the leftist USAF targets on here need to STFU!!! especially the treasonous maggot ridden greasy Cuban rent boy getaturd!!

Thankfully the mental health authorities in VT have done their job and ensured the sick child rapist redneKKKs NAMBLA has been dragged off the streets and cyber space for good. Nice also to see the permanent demise (on here at least) of the turgid bi-polar liar the sullen black racist ho crackpipe debbieturd. Doubtless its failed to get bail this month and is quietly quivering in fear of its annual STD test results whilst hiding from its usual oil slick lookalike MS13 greaseball gangbanger punters.

Funny how the mouthy venal narcissistic shamelessly HYPOCRITICAL eco whacko nutter the alBOre’s worthless cringe making nobel ceremony was hilariously virtually ignored by even the fawning party of leftist hate media. ALL eco whackos and their pinko commie creep ilk should be fed to Hizbollocks in Beirut and/or HAMarse in Gaza. This would instantly prevent over 50% of the USA’s noise pollution, over 75% of the televisual pollution and nearly 95% of the nation’s non-agricultural methane production.

The human scum VIck got off lightly yesterday!! Should have been the full five years inside!!

Can someone please explain to me - using credible, irrefutable logic - why every DAMN time something nasty/unpleasant happens to some church group or religious types it is by the grace of god that it wasn’t anyworse than it was??? How anyone can moronically and emptily assert it was just the grace of god that prevented a much worse massacre etc!! Surely its reasonable enough to suggest, given the bleating cited above that god was perfectly happy?? to have a few of his bleating sheep slaughtered in CO over the weekend by some embittered deranged religious nutter hell (deliberate use of sardonic pun here) bent on some sick twisted revenge!! Otherwise why didn’t s/he/it stop any of it???

Of course its all bollocks!! The church security guard who shot the murderous turd simply did so NOT because of god but because being armed she was able and brave enough to prevent far more pointless loss of life!! END OF!!

By TW

December 11, 2007 11:36 AM | Link to this

tftt- Many thanks for the honest face you put on the Republiqaeda party each time you post.

By Heywood Jablome

December 11, 2007 11:40 AM | Link to this

Here comes RealRep again in his vainglorious attempt at winning the wingnut hordes over to Mike Huckleberry, coddler of homicidal rapists and friend of anti-science Creationist lunatics everywhere.

Hey, why not? A televangelist for president, someone who believes every word in the Bible is literally true (even the parts that contradict other parts…it’s all a miracle!!). And here I thought you wingnuts didn’t like having ill-bred Arkansas hillbillies in the White House.

C’mon TFTT. Your wingnut pals want to run a nutjob Christianist for President. Tell us how ya feel about it.

And while you’re at it….

— Heywood Jablome

By CLAX

December 11, 2007 11:56 AM | Link to this

Jim,,,,Jim,,,,,Wake Up Jim!

It’s all been a bad dream. All this time you thought Republicans like you had all the answers and could do no wrong. Now look! You’ve finally realized all that rhetoric you’ve been stuffing in your columns about Democrats all these years also applies to your inbred Republican, party-switching pals in the legislature! Whew! What a shock that must’ve been!!!!

CLAX

By CLAX

December 11, 2007 11:56 AM | Link to this

Jim,,,,Jim,,,,,Wake Up Jim!

It’s all been a bad dream. All this time you thought Republicans like you had all the answers and could do no wrong. Now look! You’ve finally realized all that rhetoric you’ve been stuffing in your columns about Democrats all these years also applies to your inbred Republican, party-switching pals in the legislature! Whew! What a shock that must’ve been!!!!

CLAX

By Stevie Nix

December 11, 2007 11:59 AM | Link to this

Hey, dimwad, we get the bit. It was real funny the first 90 times, now it’s still real funny, and we’re all impressed with your blogging ability. Here’s a cookie. Now sit on an air hose.

Moron.

CNN just reported that a baby has been born with a lit cigar in it’s mouth. There’s a video to prove it. It shows the baby during birth, head first delivery, and there’s the cigar, and the baby takes the cigar out of it’s mouth, before the umbilical chord is severed and says, “Shaddap!”

This kid’s gonna take over the world.

By Suchhma Deek

December 11, 2007 12:06 PM | Link to this

That cigar gag just never gets old.

By Stevie Nix

December 11, 2007 12:12 PM | Link to this

When Huckabee was axed about the baby born with the lit cigar in it’s mouth, he said, “I didn’t know they allowed smoking in delivery rooms. The Baby Jesus, of course, was born with the Patch.”

Romney said, “I would never criticize a cigar smoker, or a cigarette smoker, or any smoke of any kind. To each his own smoke. I smoke the brand of my four fathers.”

Hillary said, “The video is obviously a you tube fake. Get real and get lost, you total loser idiots. We need healthcare, we need lower taxes, we need to end the war.”

By jbmlaw

December 11, 2007 12:15 PM | Link to this

Poor oddball @ 10:00 – the “Reagan envy” is palpable. You can understand his lament – if Ted Kennedy was the most admirable leader your party had produced in 75 years, you would envy Republicans their Reagan also. Too bad the democrats abandoned such honorable men as Joe Lieberman and Zell Miller – they coulda been contenders.

Dear Jabber @ 11:40, I fear you raise my own complaint. Although the leftist Huckabee is my sixth-favorite choice among Republicans, I suppose I would still rank him even with the best of the Democrats, Joe Biden.

By Glenn

December 11, 2007 12:31 PM | Link to this

A vote for Mike is a vote for statistical Christianity!

Rudy in ‘08!

By Glenn

December 11, 2007 12:40 PM | Link to this

If Republicans have “Reagan envy”, then what do Democrats have?

“Jimmy Pity”?

By Curious Observer

December 11, 2007 12:47 PM | Link to this

Rethuglicons,

Better hope Huckabee doesn’t win the nomination. He’s a 20-point underdog to any top-tier Democrat—thus the Democratic silence on him. McCain is your best bet, but you purists will reject him because of his stand on immigration. I love the way you allow the evangelicals to shaft you.

By BS Aplenty

December 11, 2007 12:49 PM | Link to this

jmblaw & TFTT -

Gentlemen, I am truly amazed at your gifts & skills. You’ve clearly brought your “A” games today.

By Glenn

December 11, 2007 1:07 PM | Link to this

tftt, an inside-the-family disagreement: your judgment of the scouring of the temple by the pistol-packing security guard amounts to magical thinking. To agree with your analysis one would have to pretend either:

a) that the shooter did not say that a voice she understood as God’s instructed her to go to that place armed; or else

b) that she is lying, in which case

c) there is at least one likelier explanation for the woman’s having arrived at that place at that hour with her handgun.

The razorlike explanation is simply that she is telling the truth, that she saved the lives she saved in conscious awareness of an extraordinary inner directive.

Stranger things have happened, even hereabouts. Consider the Atlantan who turned her armed captor into a new believer who turned himself in.

“Truly it is the work of the Lord, and marvelous in our eyes.”

By getalife

December 11, 2007 1:26 PM | Link to this

gop raising taxes?

My goodmess, the disgruntled wingnut went on a shooting spree claiming wingnuts created all the problems in the world.

Good thing that body guard was there with a gun.

Told ya they are dangerous.

Geez.

By Will S

December 11, 2007 1:30 PM | Link to this

We are going to have to raise taxes. We are going to need a billion dollars (yes, with a “b”) in order to continue the harassment of the people on Georgia’s Sex Offender Registry. Mind you, we need very little money to actually try to reduce the occurrence of sexual offending because we are spending next to nothing on that. But we need an obscene amount just to retroactively harass the people on our Registry for no benefit in return. People who actually pay taxes (the minority of us) ought be outraged and toss the bum legislators. I guess the rest of you can keep screaming for more government.

By Glenn

December 11, 2007 1:36 PM | Link to this

getalife, she wasn’t “there with a gun”; she was doing her job elsewhere when the gunman showed up “there” heavily armed, and something told her she was in the wrong place, so she broke off her rounds and went “there”, to the besieged sanctuary, in spite of her duties elsewhere.

That’s the story, anyway.

By Jackie

December 11, 2007 1:37 PM | Link to this

Taxes are soon to become irrelevant because American blood and treasure is being squandered in Iraq. It appears that those same treasures are to be spent in our attempt at “bring Iran into compliance.” The David Stockman concept is in full effect here; spend all the money on things that do not add to our prosperity so that political control can be exercised over the population because of the financial bind they have placed us. How many of us have the $20,000 owed to the Federal government for the money borrowed for the Iraq war? The $20,000 is for every man, woman and child in this country. It was just reported that Trent Lott was joining the retired Sen from LA to form a consulting firm to lobby on behalf of the medical industry. He retired before the new law took effect that would have prevented him from forming such a partnership that lobbies our government. These folks are not concerned about the public, only their continued financial rape of the citizens.

By Jackie

December 11, 2007 1:42 PM | Link to this

News item just released from the Pentagon reports that more than 3,700 troops have been killed and more than 28,000 have been seriously wounded in Iraq. More blood, more treasure squandered. When will the criminals in the White House be frog-marched out?

By Gee Dubya

December 11, 2007 1:44 PM | Link to this

You know, I just don’t think about him that much anymore.

By Phil o sopher

December 11, 2007 1:51 PM | Link to this

Do you feel the power?

CAN you FEEL the POWER?

YES I FEEL the POWER! I AM SENATORMAN!

To which the president replied: Shut up. Pipsqueak. Or, was that the governor?

By time for the INSTANT DEATH of ALL yellowbellied LIBERAL VERMIN

December 11, 2007 2:00 PM | Link to this

Glenn

I take your point about the familial ructions in this instance. But your gentle, amiable and as usual respectful dissembling (small very amiable grin) doesn’t actually invalidate my bigger picture “logic” which is infinitely and instantly transferrable to any similar incident/occurence where the ‘but for the grace of god’ assertions are slavishly trotted out. One example that has stayed with yours truly for many years is logically IRREFUTABLE. After a major fire at York Minster - the C of E’s second most important cathedral - the Guardian reading lefty clergy trotted out the same ridiculously pious bollocks. How gracious of god to have ensured the damage was only such and such and not much worse. Surely if god gave a toss then s/he/it would have ensured the fire burned down/damaged something at least as equally deserving - like a local mosque or the local Labour party offices or something else - anything else … IF NOT actually having prevented the fire - rather than damage such an ‘important’ organised religion structure.

It is IMPOSSIBLE to credibly and IRREFUTABLY ascribe some act/thought etc to some kind of deity. Fideism is the $200 word for it!!

The self programming we all choose - or far worse have inflicted on us when young or vulnerable and our critical factors are either very juvenile/undeveloped or when we’re desperately seeking some kind of magickal security blanket/dogma to help us ‘walk the line’ through what is sadly increasingly a leftist infested moral relativist cesspit is what’s responsible for such fixed responses. Ultimately a reasonably educated leftist hating right wing agnostic position is easily the most satisfying, credible and intellectually/morally sustainable world view!! … huge grin

To the resident leftist (almost) human leeming scum who have the ritalin fuelled bleedin’ cheek to question/impugn my proud right wing secular views … GFY!!!

Huckabee is a sad smug superstitious dishonest inveterate tax hiking twonk!!! Rudy - when he finally gets it re: the mincing poofs/queers/f aggots/di kes and really cracks down on the vile venal infestation of illegal grasping leeches will make a fine President!!

By Will S

December 11, 2007 2:11 PM | Link to this

We are going to have to raise taxes. We are going to need a billion dollars (yes, with a “b”) in order to continue the harassment of the people on Georgia’s Sex Offender Registry. Mind you, we need very little money to actually try to reduce the occurrence of sexual offending because we are spending next to nothing on that. But we need an obscene amount just to retroactively harass the people on our Registry for no benefit in return. People who actually pay taxes (the minority of us) ought be outraged and toss the bum legislators. I guess the rest of you can keep screaming for more government.

By Rudy G

December 11, 2007 2:11 PM | Link to this

I’ll make a well-dressed President, won’t I?

By RealRep

December 11, 2007 2:17 PM | Link to this

No self-respecting Republican will vote for Giuliani. The GOP has an opportuntiy to rid itself of the neocon element that has nearly destroyed it.

Bring back conservatism. Bring back morality.

Huckabee ‘08

By Phil o sopher

December 11, 2007 2:21 PM | Link to this

There are good reasons for separation of church and state:

I - I don’t need a religious zealot telling me how to live

R - Republicans should know better

A - All of the prayers (or bombs) in the world won’t change some people’s minds

N - No one should tell us how to live our lives as long as we extend the same courtesy

By getalife

December 11, 2007 2:22 PM | Link to this

“Mike Huckabee: Women Should Submit To Their Husbands”

Old school wingnut.

What say you wingnut women?

By jbmlaw

December 11, 2007 2:22 PM | Link to this

Dear Jackie @ 1:42, “When will the criminals in the White House be frog-marched out?” Answer, long before the leftists get serious about the war against terrorists. The leftists have no plan to make the world safe, only a plan to whine about the real men (and women) actually doing something about it. Give Thanks to a soldier or sailor or grunt today, for your freedom.

By BS Aplenty

December 11, 2007 2:22 PM | Link to this

Glenn

Nice logical structure, but I think a flawed premise. The all “inner directive(s)” = “god speaking” postulate is not universally accepted.

TFTT rants, I believe (pun intended), because, as decent & heroic as the female security guard is, she also had the glassy-eyed stare & vocal tenor of a hypnotized acolyte.

In her interview, a simple, “thanks to God”, without the cheerleading would have given great credibility to her claim. But the more she said, “it was God” (probably five or six times), the less I believed her.

Allah Akbar.

By Andy

December 11, 2007 2:33 PM | Link to this

While I agree with the premise of Jim’s op-ed I’ll be honest even as a conservative and a successful small business owner I could careless with what these Georgia local and state morons do at this point.

Between the rampant corruption and reverse racism found throughout the City of Atlanta government coupled with the other metro area disasters such as the lack of planning, residential and condo overbuilding, the traffic headaches and now every CEO in the country knowing ATL/GA never had a water plan that looked more than 1 week ahead at any given time the Metro area’s heyday has already come and is currently leaving.

While this is great for surrounding states particularly the I-85 corridor in SC and NC it’s all the more reason to ride the first wave out of here along with the other intelligent people.

If ATL weren’t a has-been the Fortune 1000 wouldn’t be leaving as they have been over the last 5 years.

Only the idiots will ride this ship to the bottom of ocean along with captain.

By Steve

December 11, 2007 2:36 PM | Link to this

When will the Bible bred ignoramuses here in Georgia wake up and start electing some sensible politicians (if that’s possible?)

By time for the INSTANT DEATH of ALL yellowbellied LIBERAL VERMIN

December 11, 2007 2:39 PM | Link to this

Well said BS … I was quite tempted to suggest the guard was fulminating like a Moonie … but that analogy might not have been inwardly digested by some of the younger less well read (snigger) folks on here!!

Ultimately I could care less wot folks believe - cos it aint no skin off my nose - but I always enjoy challenging wot they do!! If U start from a flawed, or in this case deeply flawed prem,ise then any assertions that attempt to bolster such flawed premises are doomed - like the gleeful ambulance chasing, wife’s cancer exploiting suddenly far left scumbag Edwards - to fail!!

BTW that should be …”resident leftist (almost) human lemming scum”

sorry for any mass confusion, like wot dey have in San Fran Sicko on Fathers Day or Veterans Day (gedditt??)

By Bunny

December 11, 2007 2:48 PM | Link to this

Holy, moly, not only is Jim making sense today, but Time for whatever blasts the ridiculously religious! I must be dreaming!

By Andy

December 11, 2007 2:49 PM | Link to this

One more thing, look who the elimination of property taxes really caters to: the retirees.

Between the upcoming wave of retiring boomers and Florida losing countless retirees everyday as result of rising property taxes and insurance what better way to attract these retirees to Georgia who are currently moving to NC and TN?

Afterall the typical county SPLOST ballot in Georgia is held during an ‘off’ election when the tyical electorate won’t show but they know the retirees will esecially if they think that extra penny will save them $50 per year in property taxes.

I can see the 2009 national advertising campaign now:

Georgia: God’s new waiting room.

By jbmlaw

December 11, 2007 2:57 PM | Link to this

Dear RelRep the Jew-baiter @ 2:17, you don’t even know what a neoconservative believes, or perhaps you are merely hostile to the concepts of freedom and brotherhood. Or perhaps you are faithful to the origin of Buchanan’s epithet?

Dear Phil @ 2:21, your logical flaw is where you say, “All of the prayers (or bombs) in the world won’t change some people’s minds.” Our intention is not to change minds with bombs, it is to bomb those who don’t change their minds about killing Americans. I understand it is one of your religious convictions that Islamists are just like you, and there is some basis for that belief, but I think it fundamentally misguided.

By jbmlaw

December 11, 2007 3:01 PM | Link to this

Dear Steve @ 2:36, not going to happen until the democrats nominate at one person with joy in his heart. So long as the democrats all spew epithets and hatred, the Republicans will continue to win with the worst possible nominees. Why should they change what works?

By Phil o sopher

December 11, 2007 3:29 PM | Link to this

Dear jbmlaw, Do you think that Israel will be swayed by Iran’s bombs? There are many ways to view things. Yours is just one.

By Bunny

December 11, 2007 3:32 PM | Link to this

Kuchinich has joy in his heart.

By Glenn

December 11, 2007 3:34 PM | Link to this

BS Aplenty, she evidently is trying to be faithful to the religious charge to credit God for the things that are of God. Her explanation is widely unacceptable, it’s true. What is the more acceptable explanation for such strange events?

And yes, Abba is Akbar!

And the Walrus was Paul.

Phil o sopher, odd that your four-point justification for church/state separation fails to contemplate governmental trammeling of religion, for it was that prospect, and not your far-fetched one, which moved the Constitutional Framers.

tftt, as to the twisted if, I grant you, prevalent notion of God limiting His violence, you may know the theological premise that the bad cannot derive from the Good. Moreover, in the secular fields of religious studies and literary theory there are the Girardians, who endeavor to discern, in cultural texts, human violence from sacred violence. They hold, as incidentally many rabbis have done through the ages, that the former category is often disguised by those culpable as violence originating in God. They further hold that divine violence, when its depictions are unmasked, invariably consists of God abandoning humans to their own stubborn violence.

The relationship of violence to Christianity is the hottest thing going in Biblical theology.

By Jackie

December 11, 2007 3:42 PM | Link to this

@jbmlaw at 2:22pm

Sir, you seem to have confused the issue. The criminals in the White House are the ones that are causing our military grief. The military has performed admirably, in the face of incompetent leadership. The Islamic terrorist, as you call them, are in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Please make a logical, rational and plausible supportive statement as to why our military is involved in Iraq. I am sure you will have an answer that is supportive of the criminals.

By GayGreyGeek

December 11, 2007 3:51 PM | Link to this

Phil @ 3:29 - What you have left to learn is that, in jmblawLand, there is One And Only ONE possible to view things, and all other possible perspectives can be dismissed as “islamofascist” or “Jew-baiting”.

Especially those perspectives that might make a normal adult stop and think for a moment.

By Glenn

December 11, 2007 3:51 PM | Link to this

Jackie, your position is unmistakable. But you overrun your own position when you say, as you did @ 1:42, that the troops are fighting for, and thereby perpetrating, a criminal waste of blood and treasure.

By Phil o sopher

December 11, 2007 3:51 PM | Link to this

Thank you for your commentary, Glenn. I really don’t need a history lesson though. I was merely trying to deal with the present by bringing some of the original premises forward. Now, do you really see a need for the religious to run roughshod over government, vice versa, or one theocracy over another theocracy, etc.? Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Do we just blow up the world and be done with it or just blow it up piece by piece until everyone else cries UNCLE? Please enlighten me with your line of reasoning.

By Dusty

December 11, 2007 3:57 PM | Link to this

jbmlaw@3:01

Oh, that was such a fine paragraph. “Joy in (his) heart” is such a great asset for political success (and most endeavors).

I can look at the Democratic nominees and cringe. Obama appears to have some heart but I think it is more inexperience and that little lost boy look. Democratic representatives in Congress are even more formidable. Have they ever said anything good about the war, the country, and most certinly not, our President?

Jim is talking about taxes and I am off subject. No more taxes!! No more Republicans acting like Democrats!! Now I am back on subject, sorta.

This is a happy season. I am tempted to say something nice about RedNeck and Captain but…I’ll just wait until Christmas…Maybe I will think of something by then.

By Glenn

December 11, 2007 4:04 PM | Link to this

Phil o sophist,

Since you are the sort who characterizes an historical point made in a subordinate clause as a “history lesson”; since you either cannot or will not specify in what way you are bringing which constitutionally “original premises forward”; and since your idea of a “line of reasoning” is to pose a string of absurdly exaggerated rhetorical questions, what kind of fool would I have to be to answer your question?

By Sen. Obama

December 11, 2007 4:10 PM | Link to this

Who are you calling boy, Dusty?

By Phil o sopher

December 11, 2007 4:10 PM | Link to this

You got me on that question, Glenn.

I don’t know, What type?

By Dusty

December 11, 2007 4:13 PM | Link to this

Philo 3:51

Perhaps you have not noticed.

We are not a theocracy.

There is not one sign that the “religious” are running roughshod over government.

Going to church is not running the government.

Americans are trying to keep the world from being blown up.

Americans are trying to keep ourselves from being blown up.

If you believe in the USA, you’d better start appreciating it instead of undermining it. As one who cares, I do not appreciate your anti-American efforts.

By Glenn

December 11, 2007 4:13 PM | Link to this

Dusty! Dusty!

I’m relieved that you’re here. When I wrote to you on Sunday about otherwise freethinking women who nevertheless pine for a Big Hubby government, I was summarizing Jim’s characterization from his weekend column; I wasn’t attempting to characterize you. It was my fault for using the overbroad pronoun “you” when I meant “they” or, alternatively, the hypothetical “one”.

My apologies, Dusty. I’d never presume to insult you in such a way, and would boil to oil anyone who did.

By Phil o sopher

December 11, 2007 4:15 PM | Link to this

By the way Glenn,

For your edification, it is not sophist - the appropriate form is sophist plus sorcerer

By Dusty

December 11, 2007 4:16 PM | Link to this

Sen. Obama @ 4:10

I said you had a “little boy look”. What did you want me to say? That you looked like a little girl?

By Phil o sopher

December 11, 2007 4:17 PM | Link to this

Dusty,

Let us pray that you are correct!

By Sen. Obama

December 11, 2007 4:23 PM | Link to this

Civilized society has long been onto the practice of using such code words, Dusty. Are you going to call me uppity next?

By Glenn

December 11, 2007 4:24 PM | Link to this

Phil o sopher

I kneel corrected by your sophistic casuistry.

By Dusty

December 11, 2007 4:31 PM | Link to this

Glenn@4:13

Don’t give it a thought. I threw my burka away long time ago (not that I ever had one). I don’t doubt your sincerity.

In fact, I may send you several people to boil to oil for their impertinence. Always good to have a compatriot.

By Dusty

December 11, 2007 4:35 PM | Link to this

Sen Obama @4:23

What code words? SOS or something? I won’t call you uppity unless you are elected President. If that happens, I will add disaster.

By AmVet

December 11, 2007 4:37 PM | Link to this

Wow!

Mr. Wooten, our (sometimes under rated?), (finally?) speaks (out loud?) to the painful realities.

Republican or Democratic, the spending always go up.

And in one way or another, for one cause or the other, to one person or his brother, so do the taxes.

So as my sage mother told me LONG ago, “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.”

What an epiphany - this conservative coma…

And I (always?) thought the walrus was John. Goo goo g’joob…

By Sen. Obama

December 11, 2007 4:38 PM | Link to this

So in your opinion, Dusty, the color of my skin would make my election a disaster? Makes me wonder about the content of your character.

By Phil o sopher

December 11, 2007 4:38 PM | Link to this

Glenn,

Arise kind sir, for tis not a sleight of hand or utterance of half truth that shall lead us hence from the demise of our own crafting. Only knowledge and the hope of the wisdom it may bring will show us the true way.

By Sen Obama

December 11, 2007 4:41 PM | Link to this

A bit shrill aren’t we, Dusty?

By Sen. Obama

December 11, 2007 4:51 PM | Link to this

Nice try imposter Obama, but you forgot the . and the end of the abbreviation of Senator.

By Glenn

December 11, 2007 4:55 PM | Link to this

Phil o doxa,

As to your casuistry, I can do no better than my fellow communicant Mr. Blake, who once suggested, “If a blight kill not a tree but it still bear fruit, let none say that the fruit was in consequence of the blight.”

Normally I reserve this gem for schoolteachers, but in your case, an exception. With apologies to Blake, of course.

P.S. Barak & Dusty, ‘twas I who aped the Senator, to toy with codewords a little. I confess.

By @@

December 11, 2007 4:56 PM | Link to this

I’ll just call The Phil o sopher a/k/a PoliFore “Phyllo”: A delicately layered puff pastry laden with butter.

I could get “fat fat” on a diet of “Phyllo” but alas, I’ll leave him/her to suffer the clogged arteries brought about by his love of lard.

How’s it swingin’ PoliFore?

By Dusty

December 11, 2007 4:59 PM | Link to this

Sen Obama @4:38..phony impersonator….

I see. Now, you mention skin color. You are a bigot.

Obama is a politician. You, sir, are a jerk.

By Political Foreskin

December 11, 2007 5:00 PM | Link to this

Long and strong as usual.

By Jackie

December 11, 2007 5:00 PM | Link to this

@Glenn

Per your post of 3:41 indicating that I have overrun my position. I do not follow the logical progression of your point.

By Dusty

December 11, 2007 5:02 PM | Link to this

Glenn@4:55

I am going to boil you into oil!!

By Father Confessor

December 11, 2007 5:07 PM | Link to this

Father confessor, suffering from the post nasal drip, wanders into the AJC rumpus room and walks up to the Thinking Right aquarium, peering into the clear water below.

Not unlike Jolly old St. Nick, he lays a finger aside his nose … and blows, er, stuff onto the water. He switches sides and repeats. Finally, he clears his throat and hocks a loogie onto the surface.

On cue, the Dusty parrotfish arises each time and swallows.

I know I’m a jerk, but dang it’s fun.

By AmVet

December 11, 2007 5:08 PM | Link to this

I am feeling very magnanimous today.

And I’ve yet to don my gay apparel.

Perhaps this War on Christmas is wearing me down…

By Morton Q. Rufalo

December 11, 2007 5:16 PM | Link to this

I thought I smelled Father Confessor about, but wasn’t quite sure. Poor Dusty.

By @@

December 11, 2007 5:16 PM | Link to this

Long and strong as usual.

Fair enough.

So you won’t shrivel in the knowledge that I carry my coping saw at all times?

By AmVet

December 11, 2007 5:20 PM | Link to this

Someone earlier spoke of “A” games, and even I too hearkened to our usually unappreciated journalist and his clarion call.

Can you feel the love, peoples?

It’s the baby Jesus!

AND the frankincense!

By Political Foreskin

December 11, 2007 5:21 PM | Link to this

It can’t cope with this.

By Glenn

December 11, 2007 5:25 PM | Link to this

Oh, well Jackie, I simply meant that when the two strands of you in evidence on this string are tied together, one has a Jackie who says (@ 3:42) that the troops “have performed admirably” as (@ 1:42) criminal killers and plunderers of the People’s treasure. That is what I characterized as overrunning your own, otherwise firm position that the troops are, as usual, admirable victims of corruption.

So it was that two-hour progression which I did not understand. I’d further suggest, if I may, that jbm knows quite enough to respect your position, though he and I and others here disagree with it.

@@, the phyllo meta-fer should be good for a blue ribbon at the Greek Festival. It’s true also that PoliFore is more circumcisive than incisive, more philodoxical (opinion-loving) than philosophical, more Sophistic than Socratic, and just generally about as Greek as a PetitFors made of phyllo.

Dusty,

May Oil of Glenn be a balm to greedheads and godheads and just plain heads everywhere.

By Dusty

December 11, 2007 5:26 PM | Link to this

eeewwww… the ig and ob (ignorant & obnoxious) have arrived…

Goodnight, folks. See you tomorrow…..maybe…

By Craig

December 11, 2007 5:31 PM | Link to this

Counselor sorry for the delay but thanks for your reference to Senator Hickenlooper. Somewhere along the way you perhaps lived in Iowa? I was always appalled that he represented me - but he was always consistent. You’re right, he would be disgusted by todays politicians of all stripes.

By @@

December 11, 2007 5:31 PM | Link to this

(((It can’t cope with this.)))

That remains to be seen Phyllo. The coping saw is a delicate instrument used to make delicate cuts on a “puffed” pastry such as yourself.

I wield it masterfully — especially when cutting to fit into corners.

By Glenn

December 11, 2007 5:37 PM | Link to this

My Sister Ellen can beat the crap out of your Father Confessor.

By Captain Freedom

December 11, 2007 5:51 PM | Link to this

THE Captain began his day remarking on the errrr… more extreme elements of True Belief, and their centrality to the continued dominance of Right Thinking in Our Nation.

THE Captain has also remarked several times that a man who cozies up to murdering rapists is perhaps a step too far along the crazy scale for THE Captain.

But today, THE Captain notices that Rev Mike Hucklebee has picked up the endoresement of Godly Patriot and Founder of the Minutemen Militia, Jim Gilchrist. Now, there is rapist-loving crazy, and then there is immigrant hating crazy. Plus, Rev Mike has scored the support of cinematic a*******kicker Chick Norris, who also strikes THE Captain as vaguely off his rocker, in a very attractive, bloodthirsty way. Somehow, THE Captain believes that Rev Mike may have hit upon an oddly engaging mixture of teh homicidal CRAZY with Christ’s Love, and you can call THE Captain crazy, too, but He believes it might be just the recipe to energize the base.

So THE Captain joins the chorus…

Rev Mike in 08!!!

By RealRep

December 11, 2007 5:56 PM | Link to this

By jbmlaw Dear RelRep the Jew-baiter @ 2:17

Please know that it is not in Mike’s character, nor mine, to name call, especially with another Republican. I come on this blog with my hand out in search of others who are tired of what has happened to our party. I can remember a time when we stood for decency, class, integrity. The response by jbmlaw only reinforces my sadness over how far we have fallen.

Again, Mike welcomes the Giuliani and Romney defectors.

Huckabee ‘08

By Phil o sopher

December 11, 2007 5:57 PM | Link to this

Glenn,

Perhaps Tis I who should kneel. For without these ears, should yon blighted tree had fallen who would have heard it?

Perhaps you should save your gems for those favored teachers of yours. I have yet to experience life from that end of the four-walled classroom. And, though your diversion was well received, let us not remain distracted from the task at hand:

I suppose it is just more far-fetched thinking on my part to expect a reasonable answer to my 3:51 post?

My 2:21 message was actually real simple: Let Iran be a lesson to us all - we don’t want to be like them. When you start dragging too much religion into politics, that’s what you get. It’s called a theocracy. It’s not my first choice, second choice, ……

Then, you commented: Phil o sopher, odd that your four-point justification for church/state separation fails to contemplate governmental trammeling of religion, for it was that prospect, and not your far-fetched one, which moved the Constitutional Framers.

How am I being far-fetched? How is a theocracy NOT a governmental trammeling of religion and vice versa? Then, when I ask:

Now, do you really see a need for the religious to run roughshod over government, vice versa, or one theocracy over another theocracy, etc.? Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Do we just blow up the world and be done with it or just blow it up piece by piece until everyone else cries UNCLE? Please enlighten me with your line of reasoning.

You manage to translate my words into:

Since you are the sort who characterizes an historical point made in a subordinate clause as a “history lesson”; since you either cannot or will not specify in what way you are bringing which constitutionally “original premises forward”; and since your idea of a “line of reasoning” is to pose a string of absurdly exaggerated rhetorical questions, what kind of fool would I have to be to answer your question?

Please allow me to present a new string of questions then:

Do you think we should be more like Iran? We have the bomb. They presumably don’t. We don’t want them to have the bomb. They want it. Israel has the bomb. Iran knows it. We won’t use the bomb (We did twice before and finally figured out that it was a bad thing.). We hope Israel won’t use the bomb. If Iran gets the bomb will they use it. Will we bomb Iran if they use the bomb? If yes, are we any better than Iran? Will Israel use the bomb at that point? Does it even matter any more.

I do realize these questions tend to be more philosophical in nature. But, given our presumed mental capacity, isn’t it better to reason first as opposed to just reacting?

By AmVet

December 11, 2007 5:58 PM | Link to this

I LIKE MIKE!! I LIKE MIKE!! I LIKE MIKE!! [repeat to fade]

By Glenn

December 11, 2007 6:01 PM | Link to this

So the old Happy Warrior, working late with his press secretary, hangs up the phone at the conclusion of his grilling by the President on agricultural price supports.

“Jimmy,” sez Senator Humphrey, as his secretary was named Jimmy also, “sometimes I’m afraid that man’s just a g******* Baptist preacher.”

God help us.

By Mr. Wooten?

December 11, 2007 6:32 PM | Link to this

Some of the posters here are making no sense at all. I can see no point in visiting your site in the future.

By Glenn

December 11, 2007 6:33 PM | Link to this

PetitFors,

Should we become more like Iran? No, and yes. A theocracy, hell no. Surely you dig the framers’ distinction, and that of the Supreme Court since the turn of the 20th century, between a religious trammeling of government (theocracy, as in Iran) and a governmental trammeling of religion (what many colonials, including my Georgia ancestors, fled). We’ve never really been in danger of the former, which is why Dusty and I consider your alarm far-fetched.

The heartening polling showed that most Americans are, unlike the fifth-rate Columbian Bollinger, able to discern the danger posed by humoring Ahmadinejad. But does that mean that we should be so reactive as to let Iran shape us by reverse?

Should we not agree with Ahmadinejad, for example, that science is a neutral tool that has become, through technology, so powerful that it must be wielded by scientists and others committed to the good?

Should we recoil from Persian culture, in its scholastic expression one of our prime progenitors, as we seek counterfoils of Arabian Islam? Or should we, rather, become more like Iran in this regard?

And what of the Iranian women and the Iranian students who bravely demand greater respect for their freedoms? Should we not become more like them, even as this very newspaper arrogantly descends into the lowest breaches of our Constitution?

More akin to Iran? Yes, and no.

By Peter

December 12, 2007 8:39 AM | Link to this

Here is what you are getting JIM……..

A poorer America, a government that has been lying to you, as well as a Media that has been lying to the American Public.

All that stuff is being proliferated by folks like YOU !

By Glenn

December 12, 2007 10:12 AM | Link to this

Peter I quite agree, especially when you take the trouble to say “folks like YOU” rather than “folks such as YOU”. Because Jim isn’t the problem, or if he is part of the problem he’s not so much that as part of the solution.

The other editors of the DNC-AJC are the problem. Lying, to them, is relative, and dependent largely upon what their legal sense tells them they can get away with. They lie to us daily as a function not only of their tendentious intent but also of this quasi-legal arrogance.

It’s a simple matter to provide examples. But the important thing is that, in effect, the DNC-AJC is not edited at all, so have at it!

[Rudy 08]

By Peter

December 12, 2007 10:38 AM | Link to this

Glen,

There are many problems, for instance it looks like JIM’s current blog has been out sourced.

I can also disagree with you, as Jim IS part of the problem, instead of talking honestly, his SPIN, is to the RIGHT, and fundamentally that is BAD for America….. spewing for one side.

He makes as much sense as BUSH does with “Facts”.

The Facts are chosen to do prove what ever the agenda is…….no matter how true or slighted they may be !

AND unfortunately both side do it.

By Glenn

December 12, 2007 11:08 AM | Link to this

Not really, Peter; not here. There are papers in which the fight is fixed for the conservatives (e.g. WSJ, OC Register) and there are many papers—of which this is an outstanding example—fixed for the liberals. But there is no paper in which both sides get to skew, or even one in which both sides get to try their best to get it right.

What does exist falls lamentably short of what Jefferson wanted. The status quo is that each American city can expect to have no more than one daily; that each daily takes an editorial stance, right or, usually, left; that the ideological stance is covered with fig leaves, e.g. a dedicated space on the Op-Ed page for a syndicated conservative voice, or, as in this case, a token conservative columnist/blogger.

The reason it’s called the “Op-Ed” is because the frontice lies in a spread, opposite the Editorial Page, that page which contains the daily positions of the newspaper’s editors. On the AJC’s Op-Ed, Jim is labeled as a voice of the right, but e.g. Cynthia Tucker is not listed as a voice of the left, though she be precisely that.

The AJC doesn’t play these tricks intentionally to put one over on us. Rather, most of the editors and writers—Jim being an exception; the liberal-minded investigator Margaret Newkirk being another—are quite unaware of the ideological particularity that skews their work and filters out the other views of the day’s events.

They simply assume that their take, the tack they were trained to take, is the truth. They congratulate and reinforce one another in this regard, sometimes with Pulitzer prizes.

By RealRep

December 12, 2007 11:16 AM | Link to this

“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Mike welcomes all real Americans!

’08 Huckabee

By Rob

December 12, 2007 11:25 AM | Link to this

I am quite flabbergasted. Just when I reached the opinion that “thinking conservative” was an oxymoron, you decided to write something rational. There never really have been Democratic or Republican parties in Georgia, just pigs with different shades of lipstick. After 2002, several pigs decided to change shades of lipstick in order to remain part of the in crowd. We ended up with the same people running the General Assembly.

By Glenn

December 12, 2007 11:32 AM | Link to this

RealRep,

When that day comes when you wake up to discover what a sham Christian Huckabee is, you can be sure that the door to Rudy’s campaign office will be open.

By Peter

December 12, 2007 11:40 AM | Link to this

Glen,

I can disagree with you again…… you are looking for labels as I see it, NOT the Truth.

Jim is NOT the voice of the Right, he is the voice of the lemmings.

Cynthia Tucker is NOT the voice of the left, she is the voice of a different opinion.

All sides need to be heard, so folks can make an educated choice.

I find little that has plausable reality with the articles Jim writes.

Jim speaks with a forked tongue, as in this silly article.

The reality is…. the Republicans ARE the Party of BIG government, and BIGGER Spending….. thus the immense deficits we continuously have under their rule.

Thus the non helping of typical AMERICANS under their rule.

The allowing of automatic weapons on our streets, is another example, the cops are out gunner and afraid today in many cities.

FOR the RICH, BY the RICH about the RICH….. that is the Republican Mantra.

“Family Values” is why Bush Veto education, and health insurance bills that help the typical American.

By Rob

December 12, 2007 11:48 AM | Link to this

Glenn, I noticed your post about colonials that stated many including your ancestors fled to the colonies to escape government trammeling religion. In a very narrow sense that is true, but in the broader sense, most of those colonists hoped to establish colonies where their religious views did the trammeling using the instrument of the colonial government. In Georgia, that was not true. Most came here to escape poverty. That was mostly true for all the southern colonies. The only colony founded specifically to allow freedom of religion was Rhode Island. Maryland was established to give English Catholics a safe haven during a time Catholicism was banned in England. Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia established the Church of England as their official religions. Virginia did later guarantee religious freedom. Washington was an Anglican. Most all of the founders were suspicious of the role of religion in government and vice versa. Jefferson was quite public in his support for separation of religion and government.

By jbmlaw

December 12, 2007 12:10 PM | Link to this

Dear Peter @ 11:40, the flaw in your argument is your inability to digest the spending differences between the parties. Democrats gut the military and spend freely on wealth transfer and corporate welfare programs, whereas republicans gut wealth transfer and corporate welfare, and spend freely on the military. If your argument were true, the democrats would have proposed spending levels lower than those proposed by President Bush.

Dear Rob @ 11:48, the primary difference between your view and that of a libertarian is a libertarian believes all views should be displayed on the commons, and you believe no views should be displayed on the commons. The “rules” on religion are enshrined in the “free speech” amendment. I think the view that religion should have total freedom of expression is closer to the original intent, and the better course for a moral society.

By jbmlaw

December 12, 2007 12:13 PM | Link to this

Oh, and Peter @ 11:40, you have it backward when you write: “Jim is NOT the voice of the Right, he is the voice of the lemmings. Cynthia Tucker is NOT the voice of the left, she is the voice of a different opinion.” Cynthia is the voice of lemmings, and Jim is the different opinion. Lemmings have no need for a blog, to offer dispute; “different voices” have blogs.

By Rob

December 12, 2007 12:29 PM | Link to this

jbmlaw,

Your statement about my views is presumptuous and best and at worse, arrogant. I never stated my view. I merely stated what I discovered while completing my degree in history many years ago. I came from a time when prayer and Bible readings began the school day in elementary school. If we were pressed for time such as late school buses, we would skip the Pledge of Allegiance but never prayer and Bible.

By RealRep

December 12, 2007 12:37 PM | Link to this

Glenn -

I certainly respect your allegiance to Guiliani. Should you choose to observe real conservatism, Mike will gladly welcome you aboard.

Huckabee ‘08

By Glenn

December 12, 2007 12:50 PM | Link to this

Peter,

Feel free to disagree with me all you want. I’m interested in your opinions.

And I agree with your last as far as it goes, except that it implies that I consider Jim THE voice of the right and Cynthia THE voice of the left. A clearer way to express what I think might be to say that Jim is THE AJC’s token voice of the right, for better or worse, while Cynthia is AN AJC voice of the left, one of many.

Nor do I think they intend to represent political parties. Rather, Jim intentionally represents one ideology, and Cynthia, unintentionally, another.

The truth seldom lies between two statements of opposing conventional wisdom, because there are too many things wrong with that formulation. It presumes that we always could tell what the truth is;

• that conventional wisdom always contains the truth;

• that conventional wisdom can state the truth in more than one way;

• that the multiple statements of truth are two in number;

• that the two statements of truth are in opposition, and therefore represent two separate truths or else one false and one valid truth statement;

• or, alternatively, that each is true to an extent, the actual truth lying somewhere in the middle of what just happen to be the prevalent Democratic and prevalent Republican statements of the day on any given public matter.

Ridiculous.

As to your point that it is hypocritical for a self-identified Republican to worry conspicuously about fiscal efficiency when in fact the GOP is a party of spendthrifts, I completely agree. Who then should advocate efficiency and propose, as Jim is doing, some means to achieving it?

Rob,

I appreciate all that you’ve said, as well as your saying it. My ancestor Thomas May came to Savannah on Oglethorpe’s second voyage as an Anglo-Scots Nonconformist tired of the overweaning Church of England. Georgia evidently was just the ticket for him, and later his line was to worship with the Wesleys in Savannah, a conversion that further speaks to the religious field day the colonials were having.

However, as I respect the historian’s obligation to place anecdotal evidence in proper perspective, I do not presume to over-generalize from Mr. May’s experience. And I say this even though others of my colonial ancestors, both Dutch [Hartke] and English [Bowles], did come to the colonies for similar reasons, settling in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, both of which were established as havens of religious freedom.

You’re right, of course, about the extent of Washington’s Englishness. You probably are aware of recent scholarship which essentially pegs him as a wannabe English aristocrat, permanently resentful of his eventual discovery that, as a merely wealthy American colonist, he’d never make it into the smart set. He was indeed an Anglican, one of many who fought to disestablish the Anglican Church in America, and one of many who was only too happy to become an American Episcopalian instead.

Jefferson is an odd and seemingly self-contradictory case, in all matters but most especially in his Christianity. I’m not comfortable with his being claimed by either the religious or the irreligious. In any event his significance in that department was that he saw no real threat of a religious takeover of government, but only of a prospective governmental takeover of religion.

As to the colonists generally and their willingness to enforce their respective creeds, wouldn’t you agree that the colonies were not as remarkable in this regard as they were in the increasing prevalence of their tolerance and latitudinarianism? One wishes that they had not insisted on learning for themselves the tolerant lessons already commended to them by e.g. the Swiss, Dutch and Iroqois, but still, learn them they did—so well in fact that by 1776 they were pretty insistent about staying out of one another’s hair while also, with some exceptions, insisting that the Church of England look to its own skirts.

To me the important thing is that they bequeathed us a tradition of (a) freedom of—rather than from—religion, combined importantly with (b) the obligation of the citizen to circumabulate the next citizen’s metaphysical toes.

Where have we done wrong by this cultural formulation, Rob? We seem to have fallen rather short of it…

By Glenn

December 12, 2007 1:11 PM | Link to this

RealRep,

Should you become allegiant to “real conservatism” no one will be happier than I.

Comparing the qualification of Mayor of New York to the qualification of Governor of Arkansas is, in the first place, absurdly lopsided, as the chief administrative officer of NYC generally is considered more responsible than even the Governor of the State of New York.

In any event, I agree with Giuliani supporter George Will that Rudy managed to pull the liberal rug right out from under New Yorkers (leaving many of them off balance still) and place them on a sure footing so quintessentially conservative that the whole thing resembles in retrospect a grand spectacle staged by a Sigfried & Roy.

Juxtapose this to Mr. Huckabee’s attitude toward Arkansas liberals, with whom he was acquiescent if not downright in league, and his Bushesque reverence for comity as a cheap fulfillment of his need to be liked, and I’m afraid you’ll find Huck a bit Huckish by comparison.

Fortunately, Huckabee defectors are welcome in the Rudy camp.

By jbmlaw

December 12, 2007 1:25 PM | Link to this

Dear Rob @ 12:29, I would be false to deny that I am both presumptious and arrogant. Nevertheless, as you dwelled on the “anti-religious” view of government’s role as the enforcer of social norms, I inferred your approval of the view; I also note that you complain of, but decline the opportunity to deny, my presumption.

“Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia established the Church of England as their official religions. Virginia did later guarantee religious freedom.” I would respectfully note that establishment of an “official” religion does not conflict with religious freedom, although that perceived “conflict” is the standard argument of the anti-religous zealots. Please feel free to agree with my philosophy, that we want government to encourage all voices in the village commons, whether via monuments or a creche, or whatever form is most appropriate for any expression of one’s religious beliefs.

By Anonymous

December 12, 2007 1:26 PM | Link to this

You can always count on JBM for a knee-slapping comment on the alternate reality he lives in.

So, Democrats are the party of corporate welfare… and Republicans CUT corporate welfare? Seriously? JBM’s trying to say this with a straight face?

Oh, it’s priceless, folks. The claim that Republicans are somehow fiscally responsible—that they’re not 100% in the pockets of the corporate lobbyists who fund their campaigns and write their legislation—that’s hysterical.

Thanks for the chuckle, JBM. Thank goodness most Americans are living in THIS reality.

By RealRep

December 12, 2007 1:27 PM | Link to this

Glenn-

Giuliani is a liberal. Thinking such as yours has all but trashed the Republican Party. Mike offers a way out.

A vote for Rudy is a vote for Hillary.

Huckabee ‘08

By jbmlaw

December 12, 2007 1:31 PM | Link to this

Dear Anonymous @ 1:26, I note the lack of specificity in your critique, but I pass that for the big picture that I argued. Do you affirm, falsely, that democrats have proposed spending less than President Bush? Do you affirm, falsely, that democrats have proposed spending less than did the last republican congress?

By Anonymous

December 12, 2007 1:54 PM | Link to this

I affirm, correctly, that the Republicans in Congress have been corporate-welfare enthusiasts in record amounts for the past two decades, far surpassing their Democratic colleagues in pushing pork, favors, loopholes, bailouts, and subsidies for their corporate owners.

Really, JBM, you’ve got to check in with the real world once in awhile.

By Glenn

December 12, 2007 2:01 PM | Link to this

Well now, RealRep, how’s them fer fightin’ words from the camp that refuses to speak ill of fellow Republicans?

Which of Rudy’s policies have been liberal? Was his welfare reform liberal? Was it liberal to cut the welfare budget in half? Was his tough-on-crime program liberal? Was it his zero-based budgeting? His tax cuts? His attack upon bilingual education and the public school “monopoly”? His end to open enrollment and restoration of competitive admissions at the City College of New York? His refusal to humor religiously offensive art and terror-sponsoring Muslim visitors?

Tell us, what’s liberal about Rudy Giuliani?

Was Theodore Roosevelt a New York Republican more to your liking?

By GayGreyGeek

December 12, 2007 2:10 PM | Link to this

I love it. The paleocons (ain’t nothing neo ‘bout ‘em any more) are eating their own.

By RealRep

December 12, 2007 2:15 PM | Link to this

Glenn -

Without wasting my time here, let’s just say that Giuliani could have taught John Kerry how to flip flop.

The real Republicans have fled the failure Bush, and rightly see Giuliani as four more years…a loser come November.

A vote for Giuliani is a vote for Hillary.

Huckabee ‘08

By Mike

December 12, 2007 2:23 PM | Link to this

You have to keep one thing in mind when you deal with they panty waste left in this nation and taxes: they don’t think your money is truly your money. Further, should you rise up against a rise in taxes, be it capital gains, inheritance, or income tax, you will be labeled greedy. I mean, the gall of you to work your a$$ off and want to keep what you have earned (or your family has earned) from being taken from more so.

From today’s Laugh Parade:

Dddddemocraaats are upset that the former National Hurricane Director is not saying he was forced by the Bush admin to downplay hurricanes and the farce of man-made global warming. Someone tell those butholes on the left in Congress how many hurricanes the US has seen, especially really BIG hurricanes, since the Owl Gore hysteria of Katrina over TWO YEARS AGO. What complete fools.

By Glenn

December 12, 2007 2:39 PM | Link to this

Yes, RealRep, I realize that you and Huckabee are all talkee and no putee-upee, unlike the pugnaciously blunt Mr. Giuliani, but if you think that the Democrats, my former employers, are not dreaming of making Huckabee their McGovern, you’ve got to get serious about this stuff and quick.

By Peter

December 12, 2007 3:07 PM | Link to this

JBMLAW, I believe I have it correct…..

Lemmings follow as the Rights do with Bush, he led us into a non win able war, with made up stuff….WMD……Cheney even made that comment about Bib Laden, and Saddam working together.

HA HA HA to that comment !

All the Rights on the far side, still follow this guy blindly.

The group I am speaking about is a small part of the Republican party, not to mention the country as a whole.

Jim’s voice is the voice of a few, and they are the followers to the end….. The Lemmings.

Cynthia’s commentary share great insight, and actually her last article is right on with the statement about Bush’s his gun policy’s and his policy about teen age sex.

For some reason in a time of SEX all over the TV…… in the form of TV shows, and all types of ADVERTISING, you can assume, kids will NOT pick up on that ?

Or act on that ?

I guess you think it is alright that the cops are scared on the streets, as they have become out gunned by the criminals ?

I guess this is the Head in the Sand Blog.

As far as the Democrats dismantling the Military, that is not something I agree with you on.

I do understand that the Democrats actually think about other things than JUST Starting wars, and making sure the Rich get Richer, and the WAR mongers have their fun.

They would have never allowed the bilking of California as Bush did.

They would not have giving away all the one sided contracts to basically one group, that being Haliburton.

Please remember they did move headquarters out of the country, so they did not have to pay US Taxes, after being given all that money by the US.

I guess that is why YOU and the WRONGS are so in the minority….. Blind leading the blind, and at the edge of falling off the cliff.

Last question….. do you spend more than you make, and put it all on credit cards ?

If the answer is YES, than you behave exactly as BUSH does with our budget.

By Republican Games

December 12, 2007 3:16 PM | Link to this

The story is familiar enough to be mind-numbing: Congress takes up an important policy issue; the House passes a popular bill, a majority of the Senate wants to pass the bill but Republicans won’t let the legislation come to the floor. The bill gets pulled, Congress’ approval ratings fall a little further, and everyone wonders how a measure that enjoys the support of a majority of the House, Senate, and electorate can’t reach the president’s desk. Rinse, repeat.

Senate Republicans have become so reflexive in filibustering everything that moves that when Dems finally agreed to GOP demands on a bill to repair the alternative minimum tax last week, Republicans filibustered anyway — out of habit.

This isn’t going to get any better anytime soon.

“Senator Mitch McConnell laid down his mark in the current budget fight, informing the Capitol Hill press corps that he was ready to offer Democrats a deal, $70 billion in war financing with no strings attached and a total budget identical to President Bush’s proposal.

In other words, the Republicans should get virtually everything they want. And he was not kidding.”

The Senate minority is effectively holding the chamber hostage — give the GOP what it wants, or nothing will pass. It’s led to a Senate in which the Republicans have just about broken the two-year record for filibusters in less than one year.

By Dusty

December 12, 2007 4:01 PM | Link to this

Oh my, libs are here to knock the President and the country and the war and the budget and anything in the world they can to make our country look bad.

Democrats have made a mess in Congress. They CLAIM they support the war but put so much pork on every funding bill that nobody with good sense will move it. That was after Democrats tried to pass a bill with military deadlines.

Bush will not approve a huge “pork barrel”. He knows the most important thing going on now is to complete our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is not going to fund YOUR local museum, bridge, or pet project while we are fighting for freedom.

Democrats forget the war. Democrats load the budget. Democrats continue to ignore the troops and patriotism in their laissez-faire politics. Americans will not forget that in 2008.

By Bobby Petrino

December 12, 2007 4:04 PM | Link to this

It was these long, name calling e-mails I kept getting from someone calling him/herself time for the falcon feckpigs to get off their spoiled arses and put forth some fooking effort that finally convinced me to leave.

By Nickthequick

December 12, 2007 4:21 PM | Link to this

Current Gallop Poll of Bush’s performance:

37% approval.

Current Gallop Poll of Congress’ performance:

22% approval.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/103225/Update-Ratings-Bush-Congress.aspx

Maybe that House Nanny speaker with her hammer thingie needs to spend millions more tax payer money on flowers. The very idea here we have Democrats on this blog whining about Bush. I don’t know if that’s more hilarious or pathetic.

Reminder for the ubiquitous Iraq whiners - congress appropriates war funding completely separately from domestic and congressional FAT funding.

By Rob

December 12, 2007 4:26 PM | Link to this

jbmlaw,

You make an interesting claim that by providing historical information in response to an earlier discussion I am rendered “anti-” something. Your statement, “anti-religious view of government’s role as the enforcer of social norms”, is puzzling since that is one of the cornerstone roles government plays. Is it objectionable that government enforces the social norm prohibiting robbery, murder, lying under oath, violation of contracts, acceptable safety standards in airplanes, etc.? It is not mere quibbling to ask this question.

As for your statement, “establishment of an official religion does not conflict with religious freedom”, I am curious how you come to that conclusion. In the country of my birth, the laws banned the practice of all but the official religion until the late 18th century. It was quite a number of years after public practice was allowed before those practitioners of competing forms of Christianity were allowed to hold office. In Germany, the government provides direct subsidies to the Catholic and Lutheran churches even though millions of Germans are neither.

Since I came here when I was very young, most of my education was in a rural region of Georgia. I was supposed to be a Catholic, although there were so few of us in the area, the nearest church was nearly 30 miles away, and I never knew another in my school. My fifth grade teacher read verses to us from the King James version of the Bible which is a different and some say poor translation from both Latin and the older Greek and dropped some of the books of the Old Testament. She followed the reading by the Baptist version of the Lord’s Prayer. She also thought nothing of making disparaging remarks about Catholic Christians and non-Christians. She was also an overt racist at least until desegregation came along.

As for religious expression on the village common, how would you handle that? If the village common is funded through public taxes, is it alright for public displays on public property of religious traditions that some find objectionable? Who would pay for building the monuments? If a private group paid for it, who would pay for maintenance? If the maintenance is paid for by a private group, what happens if the private group can no longer produce the funds to maintain? All are valid questions.

Catholics use crucifixes while Baptists find that objectionable and only use crosses. Baptists forbid their practitioners from drinking alcohol and for many years banned the manufacture or purchase in the state of Georgia and still manage to continue the ban on selling alcohol on Sunday. I don’t know about you, but having wine with a large meal is normal in my house. When I was growing up, we could only buy wine after rather long journeys since we lived in a dry county surrounded by dry counties and then only in a few special shops. My religious traditions had no problem with alcoholic beverages consumed in moderation, and some of those traditions included alcohol as a central ingredient.

Jews are nervous understandably about any majority religion being supported even passively by the government. Many fundamentalist practitioners of the abrahamaic religions would be outraged if a Wiccan or Hindu display was allowed on the lawn of city hall. Look at how many object to Harry Potter books in the public library, which doesn’t even refer to a specific religion.

In another post it was stated that religious freedom was defined in the First Amendment. Here is the relevant text. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. Jefferson himself is the first I know of to use the concept of a wall of separation. Since he was not merely a signer but the author of most of it, I think it is significant in knowing the mindset of the Founders.

By Glenn

December 12, 2007 5:01 PM | Link to this

Rob,

I’ll defer first to my friend jbmlaw, but everything you say (save the last part, about Jefferson’s authorship) is accurate and on-point as far as I can see. As jbm no doubt will explain, some of the very questions you raise have been addressed directly by the Supreme Court.

I happen to have made a special study, over the course of several years, of American church/state conflict, and I’m especially moved by that aspect of your educational autobiography.

I’m not sure where jbm’s coming from concerning established religion. Perhaps he’s thinking of France, a place so blase about religion that it cares not that it has an established one.

A quick story about that. Twenty years ago my university gave a lovely reception dinner for its latest trophy, a brilliant French scholar named Jean-Pierre Dupuy. As the grad student representative that evening, it was incumbent upon me to take my turn, around the dinner table, asking the newcomer a witty question. My attempt was as follows:

“Professor, it is reported that the new Archbishop of Paris immediately commissioned a poll of Parisian views on religion, only to find that whereas more than 70 percent of Parisians identify themselves as Catholics, more than 80 percent say that they do not believe in the self-evident doctrine of sin. How is this possible?”

“Mais non,” replied Dupuy, stealing my thunder, “c’est ne pas possible, for een Pahreez sin ees ze only sing in awheech-uh we do believe!”

By Rob

December 12, 2007 5:01 PM | Link to this

jbmlaw,

You make an interesting claim that by providing historical information in response to an earlier discussion I am rendered “anti-” something. Your statement, “anti-religious view of government’s role as the enforcer of social norms”, is puzzling since that is one of the cornerstone roles government plays. Is it objectionable that government enforces the social norm prohibiting robbery, murder, lying under oath, violation of contracts, acceptable safety standards in airplanes, etc.? It is not mere quibbling to ask this question.

As for your statement, “establishment of an official religion does not conflict with religious freedom”, I am curious how you come to that conclusion. In the country of my birth, the laws banned the practice of all but the official religion until the late 18th century. It was quite a number of years after public practice was allowed before those practitioners of competing forms of Christianity were allowed to hold office. In Germany, the government provides direct subsidies to the Catholic and Lutheran churches even though millions of Germans are neither.

Since I came here when I was very young, most of my education was in a rural region of Georgia. I was supposed to be a Catholic, although there were so few of us in the area, the nearest church was nearly 30 miles away, and I never knew another in my school. My fifth grade teacher read verses to us from the King James version of the Bible which is a different and some say poor translation from both Latin and the older Greek and dropped some of the books of the Old Testament. She followed the reading by the Baptist version of the Lord’s Prayer. She also thought nothing of making disparaging remarks about Catholic Christians and non-Christians. She was also an overt racist at least until desegregation came along.

As for religious expression on the village common, how would you handle that? If the village common is funded through public taxes, is it alright for public displays on public property of religious traditions that some find objectionable? Who would pay for building the monuments? If a private group paid for it, who would pay for maintenance? If the maintenance is paid for by a private group, what happens if the private group can no longer produce the funds to maintain? All are valid questions.

Catholics use crucifixes while Baptists find that objectionable and only use crosses. Baptists forbid their practitioners from drinking alcohol and for many years banned the manufacture or purchase in the state of Georgia and still manage to continue the ban on selling alcohol on Sunday. I don’t know about you, but having wine with a large meal is normal in my house. When I was growing up, we could only buy wine after rather long journeys since we lived in a dry county surrounded by dry counties and then only in a few special shops. My religious traditions had no problem with alcoholic beverages consumed in moderation, and some of those traditions included alcohol as a central ingredient.

Jews are nervous understandably about any majority religion being supported even passively by the government. Many fundamentalist practitioners of the abrahamaic religions would be outraged if a Wiccan or Hindu display was allowed on the lawn of city hall. Look at how many object to Harry Potter books in the public library, which doesn’t even refer to a specific religion.

In another post it was stated that religious freedom was defined in the First Amendment. Here is the relevant text. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. Jefferson himself is the first I know of to use the concept of a wall of separation. Since he was not merely a signer but the author of most of it, I think it is significant in knowing the mindset of the Founders.

By Rob

December 12, 2007 5:30 PM | Link to this

I apologize for the apparent double posting. There was a network hiccup. When I refreshed the screen, it apparently executed the post a second time.

Glenn,

You are correct about authorship. I am embarrassed at making such a glaring mistake. Oddly, it has always been one of those little things I have gotten backwards more than I care to remember. Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. The actual penmanship for the Constitution was provided by a paid clerk from Philadelphia. James Madison is the actual “Father of the Constitution”.

By Glenn

December 12, 2007 5:51 PM | Link to this

Yes, Rob, but I didn’t intend it as pedantry, as obviously it was one of those little dyslexias that all informed people sometimes make. I’m sure you know that when Jefferson employed the wall metaphor, in Danbury and in the letters preliminary to his visit there, he was spinning for strategic pastoral support. That’s not to disagree with you that his thinking on the subject goes importantly to legislative intent—it has done, repeatedly, in jurisprudence—but only to say that what he meant by the metaphor was to ensure the pastors that he’d do his utmost to ensure that government not interfere with their expressions of faith.

You make a very important legal point about the inextricability of lawmaking and morality. The idea that the two are exclusive is often surfaced here, and it’s as misguided a notion as are the common misinterpretations of Jefferson’s wall.

I think your descriptions of the un-level playing field for competing religions is a wholly valid account of a wholly un-American state of affairs. The GA schoolteacher, after the war, should have used the RSV, an historic effort to arrive at a translation equally acceptable to the Protestants, Catholics, Jews and secular scholars who produced it as a kind of rebuttal to the WWII attack upon Western civilization. Your See would have preferred the Douay then, but it did approve the RSV for just such use.

Incidentally, there is a charming paraphrase, The Cotton Patch Bible, which takes place along the Hooch instead of the Jordan.

The new orthodoxy is not coming from the churches, but rather from the universities (prodigal progeny of the churches): a highly particularistic metaphysical speculation, secular materialism, in drag as pluralism.

By jbmlaw

December 13, 2007 8:05 AM | Link to this

Hey, AJC, get your act together. I still cannot post my brilliant essay on yesterday’s topic, at least, not to the right link.

Dear Rob @ 5:01 yesterday, my critique seemingly hurt your feelings; I will provide you an opportunity to redeem yourself. Our friend Glenn correctly affirms that everything you posted was factually true, but my critique was not founded on the accuracy of the material you posted, but rather the relevance. I challenged the principle you highlighted – the desirability of governmental constraint of religious celebration – and you affirmed, twice, that you were merely posting pointlessly, and then you took up the position I attributed to you.

The principle I offer – which I perceive may spark our friends Glenn and TFTT – is “disestablishmentarianism is not a prerequisite to religious freedom.” I think Great Britain abundantly illustrates the truth of my position, and I believe your “maintenance” questions are insignificant compared to the larger freedom issue. I believe Wiccan or Hindu participation would be highly desirable, in allowing all of us to understand our otherwise mysterious brothers.

I am horrified by the bizarre and uniquely American jurisprudence that affirms “because ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,’ therefore a high school principal may not offer a public prayer before a football game, nor may a state supreme court erect a monument to the ten commandments as published in an ancient Jewish holy book.” At minimum any reasonable interpretation of a separation of powers doctrine would seemingly inoculate other co-equal branches, and a limitation on Federal power coupled with a Constitutional Amendment permitting states to exercise powers not reserved to the Federal would seemingly authorize the behaviors I note. Of course, plain language has no meaning to a leftist judge.

Allow me to manufacture a hypothetical case. President Bush strikes an agreement with the Southern Baptist Convention, and issues a proclamation. Each morning a Baptist preacher, without financial charge to the government, will appear in every government office to pray over the employees there. No bureaucrat is required to pray with the preacher, nor even to be in the same room as the preacher at the time of the prayer. The only constraint in the proclamation is that any employee interrupting or interfering with the pastoral appearance will be discharged for cause; while the right to free speech is preserved, there is no right to hold a government job. No Congressional action is required, no treasury funds are affected. I suggest our bizarre jurisprudence would adjudge the proclamation “illegal” for no reason, even though it would be fully consistent with the limitations described in the language of the First Amendment. Your analysis?

By Stevie Nix

December 13, 2007 9:13 AM | Link to this

Yeah, AJC, how am I supposed to get through my day without reading Jbmlaw’s deep insights into the major issues affecting our lives today. I mean, it’s simply not fair that a major newpaper would be so behind the techno-wizard eight ball. Like, I’ll bet in the fifties, you morons couldn’t do the etch-a-sketch very good. or the hula hoop. or the davy crocket thing with the racoon’s tail. or the “you sank my battleship” game. Now please, get up to date, or drop out.

Just kidding, God Bless Us everyone.

By Glenn

December 13, 2007 9:32 AM | Link to this

Good morning jbm,

I won’t cut in line ahead of Rob in responding to your clever hypothetical, but I did want to respond in general to your line of thinking.

Now I see where you were going, I think. And yes, agreed that disestablishment is not prerequisite. However, it may be stated accurately that disestablishment can be prerequisite.

Moreover, the fact that it has been prerequisite in some societies seeking latitudinarian worship is not a thing of the past. The disestablishment of the church of scientific materialism was prerequisite to the Lithuanians’ freedom to worship, and something similar will be required in China, where the practicing religious are regulary sentenced to hard labor consisting of the manufacture of relgious objects for sale to the unenlightened nations. Irish Catholics, if you can still find any, will attest to the prerequisite disestablishment necessary for their free exercise of religion. The Dalai Lama likewise.

That religious freedom can still flourish in nations with established religions, is a statement that borders on a categorical error. Blake wrote, “If a blight kill not a tree but it still bear fruit, let none say that the fruit was in consequence of the blight.”

It is also a presentistic statement, one which can be made at all only because the established churches are only now mostly moribund husks. Of ecumenism Muggeridge observed that “The churches find themselves able to agree at this moment in history precisely because, believing nothing, they no longer have anything about which to disagree.”

I hope you can manage to post your earlier essay, which must necessarily have been lengthy, given how Rob weaves factual observations together with speculative postulates and historical jurisprudence. He’s obviously in earnest, though, about the single most salient topic of the day.

When Hell freezes over. That’s the answer to your question as to when the DNC-AJC will get its act together on these blogs.

[Giuliani/Thompson 08]

By Glenn

December 13, 2007 9:48 AM | Link to this

Stevie Nix you go to Hell. You drove Christine out of the group and now all we got to relieve the effects of your rasp is Lindsay’s castratto vibratto.

Goth burnout.