Thursday, February 02, 2006

Just Gloating a Little

"To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe." ~ Marilyn vos Savant

On my January 29th post, I discussed Bill Clinton elevating the grossly overstated problem of “climate change” to a priority over the other global problems by minimizing the actual urgent problems facing the world.

That was just after midnight on Sunday morning, over a day before Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Mark Levin brought up the exact same discussions on their respective radio programs. And they had the exact same perspectives that I did.

Remember that. You read it here first.

Yesterday, I brought up the point that the leftists in this country would most likely attack Bush because security removed Cindy Sheehan from the State of the Union speech on Tuesday evening. I said they will criticize Bush for using “Gestapo tactics” in removing her.

Later on in the day I heard it mentioned on a radio program that the left is using the term “Gestapo Tactics” in describing Ms. Sheehan’s arrest.

Score me 2 for 2.

Maybe I should go into the psychic hotline business.

Naw. I predict that it would be a flop.

Everything posted to the comments section of my blog gets e-mailed to me. Even the things that are posted and then deleted. Some commentators post the same comment 4-5 times in a row, deleting each one, presumably, to “tweak the comment” in order to make it perfect, I guess.

Here is one example of a deleted comment:

"That, I wouldn't mind seeing"
pretty steep sentence for a t=shirt, mark, but seeing as you hate her, i guess that would make it fair.
"....specious Getapo tactics charges."
you mean they'd spew despicable anti-american dribble like "a year?! prophet's beard! it was just a t-shirt!"? the treacherous dogs....

KEvron"

I suppose he deleted this one because he realized that any sentence for illegal conduct is not a sentence for wearing a t-shirt. Or maybe because he copied and pasted a comment I made on somebody ele's blog! Or maybe he deleted it because He realizes that it makes absolutely no sense. Prophet's beard? What the ...?

Another of my regular readers and commentators wrote a comment on one of my posts, and then deleted it, probably thinking, rightly so, that it was a rather mean spirited comment. The comment read:

“Mark, what you don't about a lot is a lot.”

I think he meant what I don’t know a lot about is a lot. And that would be true. But it is also true that I know something about almost everything. I just don’t know everything about anything. If I ever start to think I know everything, there will always be someone who will set me straight.

I just had an idea. I think someday I'll make a post of all the comments sent to my e-mail but deleted by the commentators on my blog. That should be fun!

24 comments:

Erudite Redneck said...

I put that last one up. But I didn't delete it. ???

Blogger just eats stuff sometimes.

Mark said...

You should have. It was mean. That's ok. It takes a lot more than that to offend me.

Maybe blogger self censors.

Erudite Redneck said...

Hm. Well, maybe I did delete it. But I don't know why I would've. I'da replaced it, if I thought it wasn't worded right.

And if I can't jab at ya no more, just say so. Golly gee, Wally, I do know how to be mean-spirited. And that tweren't mean. Just jabby.

BTW, your absence has been noted by a fellow blogger over at my joint. Makes me no never mind one way or t'other whether, ytou, personally, come around. That's yer choice. Just lettin' you know that REM870 was feelin' a little lonely.

I don't know where all the righty-right commenters have gone over there. Might be because I don't bitch every day about politics. I try to mix it up, topically.

Anyhoo, I sure didn't mean to run 'em off. The last thing I want is to find myself sittin' around with a bunch of likeminded folks. No fun in that.

Mark said...

ER, I copied and pasted your comment directly from my e-mail. Look at it. You left out at least one word. Maybe that's why you deleted it. Anyhow. like I said, it doesn't offend me.

Send Rem870 over here. I invited him here before and he didn't take my up on it.

I stopped commenting over there because I got tired of taking the abuse from your "amen corner". Yes, I know those are your words, describing my place, but they are more true of yours.

I felt like I was just casting pearls before swine. Not calling you or your commentators swine. It's an analogy.

Mark said...

ER, I didn't stop reading your stuff. I just don't comment.

KEvron said...

i'm famous!

KEvron

Mark said...

Kev, you are a legend in your own mind.

Just go away. Please.

Lone Ranger said...

We'll have to start calling you Scoop.

Anonymous said...

Mark,
I think it is right to remove someone from a public meeting for disorderly behavior. I think security did the right thing for both the republican woman, and Shehaan. In fact, at the school where my wife taught back in Wichita Falls, they use the law preventing disruption of a public meeting to keep the children in line. If they were disruptive, they were arrested and had to go before a judge with their parents. Suddenly, the parents became intense involved in how their children behaved because it hit them in the pocket book.

BTW, I must disagree with the premise of the latter portion of this blog. I'm a firm believer in the delet portion of a post... because when cooler heads prevail, often times what we write is not worth sharing or should not be shared. So if someone delete's, I'm for leaving it deleted.
Just my two-cents worth

Erudite Redneck said...

OIf course, there was no "behavior" involved in just sittign in a chair wearing a shirt, and the Capitol Police (different agency from the District of Columbia Police) has acknowledged as much.

Neither woman should have been removed.

Mark said...

Of course, we all probably agree that the removal of Ms. Sheehan was to prevent her from disrupting the speech after the speech was begun. It really was the only sure way of preventing that from happening, short of killing her. Removing the good congressmans wife was so they could say they weren't playing favorites. It accomplished what was intended. Better to remove her before the speech than to risk her creating a major disturbance.

KEvron said...

"Kev, you are a legend in your own mind."

and in my spare time.

"Just go away. Please."

no can do, bub. you need me.

KEvron

Erudite Redneck said...

Re, "Better to remove her before the speech than to risk her creating a major disturbance."

So, you're applying the president's logic in going to war against Iraq to minor, everyday inconveniences like whether somebody says something that makes you and other uncomfortable?

To hell with law and order. Let's emphasize order over law? Let's make the whole damn country out of balance?

Wow.

You are one sick man. Sick. That kind of thinking is unAmerican.

Don't be the enemy, dude.

And if that's mean, it's mean.

Jesus, help this man.

Man, you DO need KEv.

Erudite Redneck said...

Gawdlemighty! Y'all need this, in response to the simple question: "Why is the right-wing so pissed off, since y'all have all three branches of the federal government and (I think) most of the governships)?"


Comments:
An intriguing question. I second your notion that there exists much acrimony amongst the Right. Why, indeed?

For some, could it be that they exist best and best understand themselves in terms of opposition to some enemy? When the Commie Bogeyman declined, they had to find the Terrorist Bogeyman (although, thanks to Castro and South America, they're still pretty riled about stinkin' commies).

And perhaps the more enemies they find (abortionists! gays! LIEberals!!), the better they feel about themselves?

Understand that I'm not a licensed psychologist, although I do play one in the Blogosphere.
# posted by Dan Trabue : 8:10 AM
Could be.

I think they really do want everyone who doesn't just bend over for them to come around and kiss their ass. So to speak.

They want righty-right hegemony.
# posted by Erudite Redneck : 8:11 AM
Oh, re: "And perhaps the more enemies they find (abortionists! gays! LIEberals!!), the better they feel about themselves?"

I don't think they all feel good about themselves. In fact, I think that might be the deal.

I think they feel guilty because they know that:

1., they're making rhe Baby Jesus cry*, and

2., they're in power in Washington and things have gotten worse, WAY worse, as far as spending and corruption than it was last time the Dems had the reins.

*Phrase popularized by Don Imus. I mean it as smart-alecky way of saying they're falling far, far, FAR short of the standards most of them try to force on everyone else. Wait, "falling short" implies that they're trying! Not.
# posted by Erudite Redneck : 8:17 AM
Could be because of all the attacks on the President, including calling him a liar, and a lawbreaker, none of which are true.

Or maybe because the left is getting away with all those accusations supported by the loyal leftist members of the media.
# posted by Mark : 8:29 AM
ER said:
"What is it? Do they want the rest of us to just get on our knees and kiss their ass, too?"

Absolutely!
It is all about power and powerlessness. What they are really mad about is that they are not God. They know what is right and how the universe should be, but they can't quite get everyone to conform. Thus they take on the persona of the Angery Jehovah. Or the Angery Allah in other instances.
For these people there is never enough. Not enough power, not enough submission, not enough praise, not enough acquiencence, not enough love, note enough hate.
The are like the William Blake drawing of a little figure of man before a very large bearded God saying: More! Sometimes they are even mad at God because He doesn't quite get it, like they do.
Instead of the neo-cons, I think we should call them the neo-oligarchist.
They are mad because they are not GOD! They do not rule the earth!

This is what we get for treating mental health problems on a out-patient basis.
# posted by drlobojo : 8:44 AM
Second the good doctor's comments and add the following: I think what they really want is to FORCE those of us who don't believe what they believe to think what they think to conform ABSOLUTELY with their thoughts and beliefs. Reference your post of yesterday or the day before regarding the Southern Baptists and the removal of all dissent from the flock. (Great story in today's Washington Post, by the way, about John Danforth, former senator from Missouri, about how mainstream Republicans have been marginalized by the Christian right and how, dammit, he wants his party back.) We are going to believe, or else it will be crammed down our throats bite by bite.

There does not seem to be room for individuality of thought, conscience, belief in their world. And this is the thing I find possibly the most frightening of all.
# posted by Red State Blues : 10:21 AM
I think the acrimony arises from frustration and exasperation. They have a very strong, legalistic belief system. They see things in only black or white. On or off. Right or wrong. There is no gray area, there is no room for questioning or possibility of a legitimate alternative to the structured beliefs they hold so tightly.

It gets very tiring trying to defend The Truth (as they see it). They learned a Code somehow, and that's that. Those who don't accept and embrace that Code are wrong. The end. And even worse, if they can't convince the Wrong about the errors of their ways, they have to step up The Enforcement of The Code.

And so the acrimony ramps up. The frustration increases as others say "Wait a minute, that's not right." The more challenges, the more they must defend and enforce.

Unfortunately, this type of belief system is so rigid that there's no way out once they're backed into that corner. Like a tree that can't bend with the wind, they will snap, eventually, under the pressures of the real world.
# posted by Trixie : 10:30 AM
It's really a stretch for you to have something to bitch about some days. So in a pinch you just make something up. That's why Mr. Bush says he likes to read history and not newpapers and magazines, it's all made up.
# posted by Anonymous : 11:48 AM
The lefty's have gone and done it now. The cartoon of the soilder with no arms or legs make you all look like the losers you really are. And while on the subject Hillary made the same mistake Gore made in the debate by rolling her eyes every time the camera was on here during the state speech. She's toast now.
# posted by Anonymous : 11:54 AM
Since you brought it up. Go ahead and kiss my ass now because I'm burning my democrat card and getting a new righty right card.
It took awhile but I'm ashamed to be know as a democrat.
# posted by Anonymous : 11:59 AM
Ya know, it IS cheap to make fun of people when they misspeak, because we all do it. They're verbal typos. But this is just ridiculous:

Bush Explains Medicare Drug Bill -- Verbatim Quote

WOMAN IN AUDIENCE: 'I don't really understand. How is it the new plan
going to fix the problem?'
> >
> > Verbatim response: PRESIDENT BUSH:
> >
> > 'Because the -- all which is on the table begins to address the big cost > > drivers. For example, how benefits are calculated, for example, is on >the
> > table. Whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price > > increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being >considered.
> > And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those >--
> > changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get
> > what has been promised more likely to be -- or closer delivered to that>has
> > been promised. Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. >Look,
> > there's a series of things that cause the -- like, for example, benefits >are
> > calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase >of > > prices. Some have suggested that we calculate -- the benefits will rise >based
> > upon inflation, supposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would >help > > solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast >benefits
> > grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those -- if that
> > growth is affected, it will help on the red.'

He should've just said, "It's very complicated. I'm no expoert. That's why I have experts working on it. But I will make it clear as soon as we've worked out all the details."

Yeah, he'da got some shit for saying something like that, but most people would've accepted it. Instead, he boldly went where he souldn'ta oughta, and he sounded like a dope.
# posted by Erudite Redneck : 11:59 AM
Anon 11:48 are you saying newspapers and magazines are all made up or history is all made up?

Anon 11:54 what cartoon? Could you enlighten us a bit more? Not all of listen to Talk Radio all day.

Anon 11:59 I know your full of bullshit, the Democrats aren't organized enough to issue "cards".
# posted by drlobojo : 12:09 PM
ER now that is a cheap shot, don't you know that his body language, facial expressions, and articulate hand movements filled in much of the meaning that was left out of the actual verbage?
# posted by drlobojo : 12:12 PM
lol
I have in the past thought highly of drlobjo but the longer he frequents this place the more he sounds like me and Mr. Bush. Hell if you guy's had anything better to do you wouldn't be here in the first place. I know you like to gripe and moan so on a slow day I stir the mix. lol
# posted by Anonymous : 12:42 PM
Are the righty-rights not THESE rights??

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/01/AR2006020101597.html

different Anon
# posted by Anonymous : 1:11 PM
Personally, I'm not pissed off at all today. We got Alito on the Supreme Court. I'm actually kinda happy.
# posted by Nick Toper : 1:18 PM
Anon 12:42 said,
"Hell if you guy's had anything better to do you wouldn't be here in the first place."

Damn good point, I'm going outside and enjoy this 70 degree "winters" day we are having here.
# posted by drlobojo : 1:30 PM
different Anon, I don't understand the question.
# posted by Erudite Redneck : 1:38 PM
Did somebody actually pull out the old "liberal bias media" card? Wow. I hope you Swiffered all the dust off that relic before you used it.

The media is as Righty-Right as it can be. How else can you explain that Oprah's evisceration of James Frey put to shame all the newsmen who have allowed Bush, Chaney, Rumsfeld and McClellan to lie without consequence?

But if you want to know why the Righty-Right are so angry it's because they have nothing else. They sold off their integrity to get power. They auctioned off the moral high ground to any politician smart enough to know pretending to care about "the dangers" of gay rights or free speech will get them a free pass on corruption and being dumbasses.

So they're angry. It's the only thing they haven't given away in exchange for making this country worse and worse and worse every day for anybody who struggles between paychecks or has the gall to say something that sounds like it comes from any book other than the Bible.*

*(They're also blasted when they do use the Bible to show that Jesus probably wouldn't have wanted us to go to war.)
# posted by Dr. Pants : 1:43 PM
... or to "hate fags" ...

... or to be mean to women and children ...

... or to be selfish ...

... or to be overly judgmental ...

Thanks, Dr. Pants.
# posted by Erudite Redneck : 1:53 PM
. . . for anybody who struggles between paychecks. . . Did Dr. Pants really pull out the "all Republicans are rich" card?

As I understand the question, ER wants to know why the rank-and-file are upset (not the elected officials). Quite honestly it's becuase we haven't gotten what we were promised. Then, when the chance for change came, we were offered an even worse fate (Kerry). The current crop of Rebulican 'leaders' (as a whole) embrace very few tenets of true conservatism. Most of what they say is pure rhetoric. Shoot, even Alito broke with the more conservative members of the Supreme Court when given his first opportunity.

The Dems are infamous for not having a strategy. The Repubs have one, but once you scratch the surface you can see many of the same problems that the other side of the aisle has. They're just better at putting a new coat of paint over it.
# posted by Rem870 : 2:07 PM
I think Toper answered my question, perhaps without knowing he did.

different Anon
# posted by Anonymous : 2:44 PM
Ah. Got it.

This IS a happy day for them.

It'll last until someone who opposes them, and who is IN THE MINORITY, dares to open their mouth.
# posted by Erudite Redneck : 2:55 PM
God still pissed;
Twisters hit N.O.
# posted by Erudite Redneck : 3:03 PM
Maybe that's it, ER: The Right is pissed because their god is pissed. They serve an angry and violent god and thus they follow in that god's steps.

(or is their god following in their steps...? You know what they say: The god of the capitalists will be a capitalist, the god of the warriors will be a warrior, and so on.)
# posted by Dan Trabue : 3:57 PM
I think real, literal conservatives are permanently pissed becuase nothing stands still, nothing goes back to the way it was, and change is so uncontrollable that you'll never get exactly the end result you want even when you've made the decisions.

And purists are pissed becuase politics will ALWAYS be the art of compromise; in America the middle ground is still generally the high ground in the battle, because the middle encompasses everything except the little tiny one dimensional points on either end.

And I'd like to believe everyone except the most Trotsky-ruthless of the conservatives regret the body counts, the wiretapping, the airport searches, the out-of-whack government finances and everything else the view as being what national security requires now, and because, as REM and I discussed a while back, given their assumptions, there doesn't seem a place where victory is achieved, the war is over, and all that can change back to a more free country.
# posted by TStockmann : 4:03 PM
TStock, I understood every word of that. Good points, too.
# posted by Erudite Redneck : 4:48 PM
Tstockman I've been trying to recruit members to the radical middle of the road society: The John Spruce Society. Want to be a member?
# posted by drlobojo : 5:14 PM
Thanks, and DrL - love to join, as long as I only have to average out to moderate, with a few extreme positions on either wing.
# posted by TStockmann : 6:17 PM

Goat said...

ER an answer from us true rednecks:
Patriot No. 06-04 notes, 'So let's see if we have this straight: The
Democrat Party's strategy for success includes raising taxes, abetting
terrorists, losing wars, aborting babies, smearing judges, redefining marriage,
promoting discrimination and rights for felons. Did we miss anything?' Well,
yes—insisting on public education and opposing private education alternatives,
suppressing Christianity, promoting secularism and atheism, promoting the
breakdown of the family, minimizing penalties for all anti-social behavior while
trying to remove guns from law-abiding citizens, supporting eco-terrorists,
censoring the Internet, allowing foreign law to rule us, stopping any kind of
energy development—just to name a few more." —Houston, Texas
And I can name a few more, indoctrianting children to homosexual agenda via public school.Minimizing child pornagraphy, AB50 in Ca. Supporting Islamic prayer in schools while denyiny the same to Christians, supporting Hamas while decrying the NSA surveillance program, filibustering well qualified judges , and supporting Kerry and Kennedy.

KEvron said...

"....and supporting Kerry and Kennedy."

lol! i mean, the whole list was to laugh, but that last line really punctuated your comment just perfectly! i'd bet your list of personal grievences stretches longer than paul lazzaro's....

KEvron

Goat said...

So, tell us what recent national elections you have won on that platform Kevron. It seems by casual observation you have lost the House, the Senate, the Presidency, and a majority of states. Gay marriage is being stuffed and conservative judges confirmed and a majority of women reject abortion on demand. So please continue to inform us how you are wnning since the DNC is running a major deficit and the GOP is increasing its support. Please explain why the DNC has a lower poll rating than the GOP eventhough both are in the basement.

Mark said...

ER, I left that one comment in your thread and didn't go back because I really didn't want to see how your "amen corner" would respond, and you bring the entire comment thread over here?

KEvron said...

"So, tell us what recent national elections you have won on that platform Kevron."

which platform, soupy? i didn't mention one.

however, of the last six "national elections" (i assume you mean presidential elections), dems won three, and repubs won three.

KEvron

KEvron said...

"....you bring the entire comment thread over here?"

gotto go with mark on this one, er. that's an awful lot of scrolling....

KEvron

Mike's America said...

E.R. They have rules up on the Hill. How much of the people's business would get done if every loon was allowed to create a distraction?

As I said elsewhere around here, I was told to furl my Scottish "rampant" lion flag and all I was doing was taking a shortcut through the grounds on my way home.


Now, as to this point:"grossly overstated problem of “climate change."

It is grossly overstated, but the entire science underpinning the arguments are political.

At EPA we funded an entire catechism of the left's environmental religion using taxpayer dollars to support a left wing agenda of socialist control of resources and development.

But now with the arrival of a conservative Prime Minister in Candada, and one in Germany as well, we may see some shift in the debate on this stupid Kyoto nonsense.

Goat said...

So Kev considers 3 of the last ten as positive. Hmm, Nixon 2(Ford by default),Carter 1, Reagan 2, Bush 1, Clinton 2 (thanks to us Perot voters)and Bush 2. The Dems lost the the momentum in '94 and wonder where it went. Hmm , Nixon by landslide, Carter barely, Reagan by landslide twice, Bush on his coattails, Clinton, because fiscal conservatives went Perot and Dole was weak, by less than 50% and Bush, once barely and next with over 50%. The Dems lost the house, the senate and a majority of statehouses in the meantime. So Kevron, where have you won ? A very conservative republican even runs Massachusets, now who lives in a bay area bubble?

Goat said...

Oh and in referrence to Kev calling me soupy, it is because he once posted on my blog he thinks abortions should be made into soup in particular partial birth ones and I keep calling him on that. Do I need to reprint your comments, brightbulb, once again. Kevron thinks it is alright to kill a baby as it is being born and made the snide comment along the lines of "Soup time". Just so Y'all know where his sick namecalling originated.

KEvron said...

now, cindy. nobody likes a tattle-tale....

KEvron