Tarzan, Future Shock, Cherri, Little Nipper, and other delusional losers…..

Your insistent bashing of President Bush just confirms how unbalanced your position is on the state of our nation. In addition, you appear to unilaterally support the actions of the Clinton group and that alone tags you as second class humans with few, if any, moral scruples. Why are you not raging against the current state of our society?

I’m proud to be an American now that we have an honorable person at the helm of our government. If you truly believe the rhetoric that you spout than I pity the children you will raise and those who may live near or work with you.

Remember…Character Counts! There may still be time for you to get some, or not.

-- American (with@high.standards), January 24, 2001

Answers

I think you got it wrong, American. Money counts.

-- Bush has Low Standards (low@bush.com), January 24, 2001.

So let me see if I get this straight. Any criticism of George Bush is bashing, right? And anyone who doesn't think Bill Clinton was Public Enemy #1 is unilaterally in support of him? And you can only be proud of your country if you agree with the president?

Who can argue with logic like that?

-- Tarzan the Ape Man (tarzan@swingingthroughthejunglewithouta.net), January 24, 2001.

American (with@high.standards), you forgot me. I also am a "second class human" because I have qualms about Bush. Don't let this oversite happen again.

-- Bemused (and_amazed@you.people), January 24, 2001.

Note to self.....

Love bush, hate clinton...

yeah, thats the ticket.

-- sumer (shh@new.not), January 24, 2001.

"Why are you not raging against the current state of our society?"

OK, American. I'll bite.

1) What exactly do you think is the current state of our society that I should be raging against?

That's the easy one. It hands you your soapbox and gives you room to rant. My bet is you'll give us a good long diatribe full of spittle and invective aboutnother people's morality.

2) If I do take up your invitation to rage, what do you think my rage would accomplish and how would it accomplish this?

That's the hard one. My bet is you'll dodge this one with a one-liner, some kind of contemptuous insult or belittlement. But it's the more important question. It requires thought, not rage.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), January 24, 2001.

Fuck morals you asshole.

-- Manny (No@dip.com), January 24, 2001.

Why don't your gargle Ex-Lax Soda, you worthless excuse of a rotting bannana peel.

-- Nanny (nanny@no.gripOnReality), January 24, 2001.

Little Georgie has an inferiority complex because Daddy was such a big controlling man, so he got drunk and found the courage in a bottle to try to beat daddy up.
Little Georgie never grew up, was an irresponsible juvenile until he was 40 years old, which he uses as an excuse for his behavior.
Little Georgie didn't fulfill his military obligation, he had to perform community service as punishment-even though we were in a war-and desertion is a federal offense.
Little georgie is an alcoholic, and only stopped drinking when his wife told him either the bottle went or she would. A lot of people drink, what was it about his actions while drinking that drove her to give him that ultimatum?

-- Cherri (jessam5@home.com), January 24, 2001.

Far out! Say frog and every single one of them jumps on cue. This promises to be a laff riot.

OK, frogs, let's see it again.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 24, 2001.

Flint posts from the dentist's office, high on nitros oxide.

-- Bemused (and_amazed@you.people), January 24, 2001.

If they didn't respond Flint would have called them cowards. Here's a great example of damned if you do damned if you don't. Stupid schoolyard stuff.

-- Alice in Wonder Bra (alice@wonder.bra), January 24, 2001.

Make that 'Toads' Flint.

-- American (with@high.standards), January 24, 2001.

Alice:

Not at all. It's entirely possible, at least in theory, to respond *thoughtfully*, rather than reflexively. After all, for all practical purposes this election was between tweedledum and tweedledee, you could flip a coin (and an unusual number of people apparently didn't vote for either one, because they were both so similar and so weak).

But rather than respond as the New York Post editorialist did, marveling at the genuine range of ideologies Bush has brought together, we see the frogs leaping on cue. No sense of reality here at all, no reflection on what Gore might have done differently given a balanced legislature, no conception of the political process. Instead, we get pure mindless ranting. We get absurd double standards (as though Clinton brought in any conservatives, remember?)

Remember the days of "Klintoon"? Here we witness the exact same mindset. First ignore reality while concocting a caricature, and then attack the caricature for something nobody in real life ever actually did. I guess the internet selects for extremists, for whom actual thought is a mystery. And that's where the entertainment comes in.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 24, 2001.

OK, Flint. I'll bite. Read my reply again. How does it demonstrate "no sense of reality at all?"

I would be interested to see how you justify this characterization on rational grounds. For as we all know, your sense of reality is finely honed and your rationality is unimpeachable. One might even call it a super-rationality. I mean, you wouldn't just be driven by emotions when choosing your words, would you?

As American put it so succinctly, "Remember …Character Counts!"

-- Little Nipper (cabis@minor.net), January 24, 2001.

So Flint walks into a bar, see. He slides up to the bar, beside one of the other patrons and orders a glass of beer. The bartender brings Flint the beer and Flint says to him, "Watch. I bet I can make this guy jump."

Flint then throws the entire contents of his beer glass into the face of the patron standing next to him. The patron, taken aback, jumps away, dripping with beer, and stares at Flint as if he'd gone mad.

Flint hitchs his thumb at the soaking wet patron and says to the bartender,"What did I tell you. Throw a beer at a guy and he jumps. These guys are soooo predictable! What a laff riot!"

-- Break out the cookies and milk (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), January 24, 2001.

Let's see here:

Number of responses addressing a specific Bush policy, decision, or appointee -- zero.

Number of posts attacking Bush on general principles (or lack of same) -- two.

Number of posts attacking me -- five.

Now, Tarzan asks some good questions. Offhand, I'd say depicting Bush as a clown is bashing him. But Tarzan is entirely correct that there can be a loyal opposition, and constructive criticism. I doubt any rational person approves or disapproves of *everything* any president does. I'll give Tarzan a gold star [grin].

And after multiple efforts, I can't parse what Nipper is trying to say. I confess my eyes glaze over after a certain amount of "diatribe...spittle...invective" etc.

Finally, I don't think "American" has very high standards. We need useful criticism, qualms (as Bemused said) are always justified, and those who hold them aren't second class citizens at all. Like any president, Bush will do some things that turn out poorly, and some things that turn out well. Our job as citizens is to try to tell the difference, and hoot when our leaders head into the wrong part of the forest.

But the mindless, hoot-no-matter-what attitude of a Cherri, FS, or "cookie" provides no useful feedback, because it fails to draw any distinctions. No matter what these people eat, what they excrete is always the same.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 24, 2001.

Flint: "Number of responses addressing a specific Bush policy, decision, or appointee -- zero."

Relevance of specific Bush policies, decisions, or appointees to the topic of this thread, as formulated by American -- zero.

Flint: "Number of posts attacking me -- five."

Percentage of those posts attacking Flint posted after Flint made a gratuitous attack on all the previous posters, calling them reflexive, thoughtless and comparing them to frogs -- 100%.

This simple connection seems to evade poor Flint. Or is he playing stupid? Who can say, these days? He has gotten so good at it.

Flint: "And after multiple efforts, I can't parse what Nipper is trying to say."

Don't feel bad, Flint. There is room on the bell curve for everyone. Class, can anyone tell Flint what 'Nipper was trying to say?' Ooooh! I see lots of hands!

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), January 24, 2001.

Flint can figure out the nipper angle fine, he's just choosing to be lazy.

Flint, do you read Molly Ivens? You should. Do so, and report back.

-- Bemused (and_amazed@you.people), January 24, 2001.

"genuine range of ideologies Bush has brought together..."

So Flint. Tell us about this. Make a compelling argument for it. Your ridiculous attempt to bring up "Klintoon" and who he picked is totally irrelevant. In fact, it argues against your very point, as in essence you are saying President Clinton did not make ideologically diverse choices.

I do not know what has gotten into you lately. I pointed out your egregious error on another thread of not even bothering to read the link I posted, and here I come today and see you again talking about how I "excrete" stuff, again trying to paint me as a one-trick pony, refusing to even acknowledge that I clearly have debating skills- instead engaging your self in character assasination.

I once held you in respect. Now I only have contempt for you. I said I would no longer respond to you on the other thread if you had not read the link. You responded one more time, still not sdmitting you did not read the link. What hogwash. You are an intelligent person, but you are exposing yourself as a petty fool, and, in some cases, AN OUTRIGHT FRAUD.

If you can live with yourself debating a post in which you did not read the link, so be it. For those of us who know better, you made a mortal mistake there.

I will no longer respond to anymore of your comments, as I know that is the healthy thing to do. You can find someone else to pretend to be debating with. Soon, I think, with Decker gone, you will be talking to yourself.

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), January 25, 2001.

Bush is probably the least of two evils....but IMHO the difference in effects on people's lives seems overstated. Big money runs the planet mostly and a portion of this stuff is just floor show ultimately.

It's not called the excited states of America for nuthin'...

-- Will (righthere@home.now), January 25, 2001.

Oh, and Flint, If I am only capable of, as you say, "mindless drivel", I have to wonder why you spent so much time chatting with me on the equal protection thread. After all, If what I said waas truly mindless, what in the world were you doing spending all that time with an obvious moron. What does that make you?

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), January 25, 2001.

Will, you said it best!

-- Politico (don't@trust.any.politicians), January 25, 2001.

Bemused:

I read Molly Ivins every chance I can get. I think she's one of the very best editorialists writing today, and has been excellent for many years. She has a wonderful gift with words, and makes her points both informative and entertaining.

And when the Democratic Party hasn't taken a position on a topic so that Molly must think for herself, I often agree with her. I find her facts cogent, her analysis accurate, and her arguments convincing. She is very very good.

However, she also has a gift for the half truth. Politics is compromise, I give you some of what you want in exchange for getting some of what I want. The result is ugly and inconsistent, but hopefully better than what we had before, which was also the result of ugly compromise.

Ivins is quite good at recognizing whether a policy has succeeded or failed (and can recognize a failed policy *even when* she favored it to begin with). This is her greatest strength. But when a policy succeeds, she gives all the credit to the democrats/government, and when if fails she lays all the blame on the republicans/private sector. Her facts are all impeccable and well documented, but of course she not only gives JUST those facts that support her caricature, she's excellent at implying that that's all the facts there are!

So I believe that Ivins should be mixed with, say, Thomas Sowell for best effect on the understanding. And that *either one* taken all by itself eventually leads to blindness.

To all:

On rereading this thread, I realize I was actually talking only about Cherri, and to everyone else I must apologize. There is a line somewhere between strong opinion and pure blind reflexive hatred, and Cherri is WAAAY over that line. She's like those dolls where you push the button and she says the same thing over and over, with the same amount of thought behind it. But nobody else is like that, so I'm sorry.

to FS:

Hard as it may be to believe, liberals and conservatives have many of the same goals -- longer, healthier and happier lives, elimination of injustice, safety nets for the unfortunate, reduced crime, etc. etc. How we get there is where we differ.

From my perspective, your approach is an excellent illustration of the triumph of hope over experience. And you tend to confuse goals with methods, so that if I disagree with your method, you think I am against your ultimate goal. This is rarely true. For example, I hate intentional disenfranchisement as much as you do, and for the same reasons. Where we differ is whether we assume it's deliberate before this has been determined, and whether we prefer a legal or political solution to the problem when it's been established.

But this is only a question of *how* we can reach the same goals. As Molly Ivins says, the first rule of holes is when you realize you're in one, stop digging. I think it's clear that the liberal, "government is the answer, now what's the problem" approach has passed the limits of its effectiveness, and become counterproductive.

But you can't correct a failed policy if you can't see that it has failed, and you can't see failure if you *want* it to succeed so desperately that your desire has blinded you. Passion is great for putting a plan into action, but it's just terrible for designing an effective plan in the first place.

As the old saying goes, for every problem there is a solution that is simple, obvious, and wrong. It *ought* to work, but it does not. So we need a change of presidential viewpoint now and then, because barking up the wrong tree loses credibility after a while. It's time for another wrong tree to bark up [grin].

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 25, 2001.

I know ,,I know... Barking up a dead dog's ass doesn't work either.

-- Will (righthere@home.now), January 26, 2001.