March 01, 2006

• *hangs on the edge of her seat*
• I laughed. I cried. It became a part of me.
• If Bush is a liberal, the world cringes at the prospect of the next US election seeing a right-winger getting in.
• I knew it!
• I always suspected it given his penchant for powder blue ties.
• can anyone explain to me what exactly is this much vaunted reagan legacy? my general impression was that the guy was barely competent and possibly senile for some of his second term.
• This is another example for doubting labels we give ourselves and others. Fiscally, Bush truly is not a conservative. He's a big government spendocrat. He's politically conservative, but I wouldn't call him Conservative. Just like most of us here on Mofi don't expressly meet the definition of one distinctive ideology or another. And pete, how is this a right-wing meme? Do google search results now count as memes?
• f8xmulder: The correct term is "neo-conservative", aka "neocon" -- perhaps you've heard of it? Check out the wiki. There you go. Methinks you're being deliberately obtuse...
• Is it just the amount of spending that differentiates a liberal from a conservative? Or does it matter where they spend the money? If a president had a budget the size of Bush's directed toward education, health care, and the environment; he could rightly be called a liberal. But spend the same amount on the military, corporate welfare, and socially regressive "faith-based" programs; and the label no longer fits.
• Google search results are not memes per se oh! ha ha, but memes can be Google search results. It's a right-wing meme because no lefty is going to claim Bush. Unless you want to argue that it's an insane meme. That might be the case. More liberal than Genghis Kahn? Sure. Fiscally he's a spendocrat because the Heritage Foundation (a right-wing think tank) has as part of their mission: bankrupt the government. That's not your average tax-and-spend, that's a concerted effort to ruin regulation, public schools, medicare, etc. The massive deficit is on purpose. That's why he's doing it (well, that and lots of money for the cronies et. al., tax breaks that favor the rich, the oil industry, selling public land for logging, blah blah) It's a right-wing meme because the November elections are coming soon and the party of the President are wondering how they can position themselves away from the last 5 years of staunchly supporting these unbelievably unsuccessful programs/invasions of BushCo. "Liberal" has cachet, why not use it? Calling him a gay married won't work.
• Conservatives have re-defined "liberal" to mean "everything that's bad in the world". The media, naturally , follows.
• Sloppy Sillogisms: 1: We don't like liberals. 2: It turns out that we don't like Bush. 3: Therefore, Socrates is a cat!
• hmm, Genghis Khan is reputed to have instituted racial and religious tolerance during his reign.
• Khan 2008!
• You know, the best conservative president we've had in my nearly 40 years has been Bill Clinton. I really mean that.
• Genghis Khan is reputed to have instituted racial and religious tolerance during his reign. Thank you! Yes, for historians who actually have studied that time in history, it's more than 'reputed.' I'm always annoyed that even Attila the Hun has gotten a makeover as a "cunning, almost delightful, rogue" in recent years while GK, the man who created the largest land empire the world has ever known, is a cruel barbarian, who's probably a ignoramus, because, uh, did we mention he's a barbarian?--and this is where the bias (which has more than a hint of racial bias) comes into view. The Mongols were able to do be so successful in their conquests because of innovation in tactics and, farther-reaching strategy--like racial and religious tolerance. Kublai Khan is from the same mould as Genghis, yet popular history paints him as from a virtual different planet. Perhaps popular history also thinks that the Pax Romana was achieved by the Roman army just being terribly nice and charming foreign lands into submission. Yeah, I wouldn't call GK--or any career warmaker--a liberal. And I wouldn't want to be facing the business end of his sword, but I get tired of him being used as this horrific archetype when we have much, much better, more accurate examples of horrid dictators--and those are more recent as well. btw, immo, on his best days, Dubya can't hold a candle to Genghis or Kublai in terms of leadership. In fact, I'm not sure if Dubya has good days.
• Yeah, Genghis Khan was a fucking pacifist. Check out details of his funeral for proof of this.
• If you're saying Genghis Khan is a pacifist the way George W. Bush is a liberal, you might be on to something.
• the pax romana was all about aqueducts. and roads. and wheat.
• What is difficult to understand? His spending has been more liberal than conservative. That means it is not accurate to call him a conservative spender. It is accurate to call him conservative with respect to other issues and areas. It is like some clients that I have. They are not violent per se, they are just violent with bitches who say no. A rather simple distinction.
• His spending has been more liberal than conservative. You have got to be high on crack. Explain, or admit your cracksanity.
• I've always wondered just what it is he's supposed to be "conserving." The reason Genghis Khan gets a bad rap is that his name sounds like "gangrenous." It's all subliminable.
• If I am passing out potatoes, and I pass out more than anyone ever has, it would be said that I am doling out the potatoes "liberally." If I am being tight with the potatoes, and I have passed out fewer thatn most peopl, it would be said that I am "conservatively" doling out the potatoes. Conservative spending would be spending that is on the low side. Liberal spending would be spending that is on the high side. Bush has spent more than any president in history. Therefore, he has spent his money liberally.
• You, uh, got any potatoes?
• Conservatives seem to ignore the fact that the servicing the national debt is government spending as well. Probably because all the interest is going to the rich.
• We could build a giant potato battery to reduce our oil addiction.
• this pie chart gives an interesting breakdown of who owns the u.s. national debt. the article that accompanies the chart
• While denotatively I'd agree, that's not normally how it's used when talking about "a liberal budget" or a "conservative budget", a.k.a. spending. He has spent us back to the stone age with huge tax giveaways and no-bid contracts and pallets of cash gone missing in Iraq, not to mention 250 Billion for that quagmire. Which is why, uh, we need to cut college loans, education, environment and medicare funding. Y'know to be conservative. 9-11. My point being - the meme is this: "George W. Bush spends like a liberal". It's a way to distance the Republican candidates in November from his administration (which has raised beaucoups de bux for them). Watch for it at a blowhole near you. Bush has spent as a neocon tool would spend - heavily on war and hardly anything on education or the environment. That's not "liberal" as they want people to think. If you happened to follow the first link, here's how Mr. Carlson opens: TUCKER CARLSON, HOST, ‘SITUATION’: Bush is a liberal? I mean, this is going to come as a huge shock to the many obsessive Bush haters who think he's a right-wing maniac. Explain. We're familiar with smearing Kerry as a coward, the South Carolina primary "John McCain has a black baby" phone scam, Rummy's attempts to spin the name of the insurgency, the "P.A.T.R.I.O.T." act, and all the other ways this administration has sought to undermine language itself. This is just the latest (AFAIK), dishonest twisting of language to confuse the Dittoheads and soccer moms into still voting Republican in November despite the fact that thier doing so in the last two elections has been utterly disastrous for all of us.
• Also, whereas Democrats strive to "conserve" our civil liberties and international reputation, Bush has been busy liberally handing out casualties of both life and liberty. See how easy that was? (See how completely misleading it was?) "Please, daddy, lie to me some more..."
• progressive > liberal
• Roryk: What about a pie chart to show distribution on potatoes, hunh? But the only pie chart that would be yummy would be a sweet potato pie--with marshmellows.
• If Bush is a liberal than I'm a strict constructionist.
• The Real Story
• Oh I suppose you're insinuating that people won't stand up for the reasoning surrounding the invasion of Iraq?! You think we're all quiet on the defecit front? Perhaps we can't argue that 250 Billion dollars has been well spent in the war on a state-less unidentifiable concept? That we're somehow against torture, and therefore against The President, and therefore against America?! Hah?! Oh, believe me, there are arguments for waltzing into people's houses without a warrant, believe you me! Ticking bombs, that's why! 9-11! Unitard Executionary! This president knows the difference between cronyism, incompetence and running like a coward! Yeah buddy, we're lucky to have such a well informed man at the helm of this superpower! He went to an important college because he was the best and the brightest, and it shows! So, if you want to slink back to Turdistan or wherever it is you people want to go to suck terrorist banana - go on then! Vote Democrat or some such insanity! As Toby Keith sings, in that rousing ballsack-hugging way; "Punch them ragheads / In the face / That Saudi oil / Is just a taste" Yeah buddy! Sean Refineity and Huff Slimebaugh are glad to have a President with the resolve to stick to his guns no matter how wrong he is, and so am I! Oilward Christian Soooo-oooooldiers - Marching InTo WAaaaaar!! WhooOOOO!! *kicks in TV*
• Thanks Ezra. Ever funnier as the months pass.
• > But the only pie chart that would be yummy would be a sweet potato pie--with marshmellows. you provide the recipe and i'll make it this weekend.
• Ah yes It begins in earnest.
• You know, the best conservative president we've had in my nearly 40 years has been Bill Clinton. I really mean that. Clinto did more to destroy the left in America then any other president in the history of this country. He drug the Democratic party so far to the right that it's mainstream arm is not almost indistinguishable from the Republicians. This is why I could never figure out why conservatives hated him so much. He was one of them, and auctully helped conservatism in America. As to Bush being liberal because he spends a lot, uh, no. He's a different kind of conservative, a Reagan kind, who believes that there is value in spending money. If he was liberal he would be spending that money on things like schoolsw and roads and hospitals instead of tax breaks for the wealthy and military hardware and subsidies for big corporations.
• This is why I could never figure out why conservatives hated him so much. This has been the subject of much reflection. The best answer I've heard on this is: swagger + you disagree with him + he's smarter than you = you hate him.
• But that's just it, on most of the important issues, Clinton's position was almost the same as that of the middle of the road Republicans. He auctully helped their cause.
• > swagger + you disagree with him + he's smarter than you = you hate him there was also a certain "outsider-ness" to clinton that appears to have irked parts of the establishment. i've frenquently heard the view that a lot of the u.s. political class hated clinton because he'd dragged himself up by the proverbial bootstraps rather than being born into power. maybe i talk to too many crypto-marxists. by the way, if william f. buckley is the father of modern conservatism, i'm not surprised it's so ugly.
• There was also a certain "outsider-ness" to clinton that appears to have irked parts of the establishment. i've frenquently heard the view that a lot of the u.s. political class hated clinton because he'd dragged himself up by the proverbial bootstraps rather than being born into power. maybe i talk to too many crypto-marxists. I got that impression, too. I'm always amazed at how many working-class right-wingers see Mr. Bush as "one of them." Is it simply because he likes country music and fundamentalist religion, and doesn't appear too bright? 'Cause he's far more of an arictocrat than his predecessor, and has gone out of his way to prove that poor people's interests are his lowest priority.