Mon 11/19/09

I've been reading my brand new copy of Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue". My wife brought it home for me today.....but I think a clerk at Border's played a trick, and switched the cover of the real book and put it on another book....I'm already on chapter three, and so far she hasn't cast one spell, thrown one hex, or summoned one demon. I read all the reviews, and I was promised that it was a book of the occult.

It will fit nicely on your bookshelves next to all the Ann Coulter books. I'm sure they both feel sincere thanks to you for supporting them in the jet set style to which they've become accustomed.

I've never bought an Ann Coulter book. And really, I wouldn't have bought this.....my wife wanted it....and what she wants, she's damn well gonna get!

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-november-18-2009/daily-show--the-rogue-warrior

I think Jon Stewart was best able to capture how I also feel about this sanctimonious moron on last night's show.

Not to be political, but could you articulate yourself why you have such a visceral hatred of Sarah Palin?.......I mean, without having to put up a video of a parody from a comedy show.....or is Jon Stewart actually your source for current events and other topics....

I can understand not agreeing with Palin's opinion about what should be done about unemployment, but I don't understand why Jon insists that she said didn't really say anything.

I happen to agree that creating a climate in which small businesses can thrive and grow is key to a healthy economy that puts people to work. Being able to keep more of the money one makes in business is quite an incentive to go into business or to expand an existing business. I'm not sure why some people think that taxing the shit out of business is going to help the little guy. Businesses hire employees, and growing businesses hire more employees. Then again, I'm just some uneducated, midwestern hick woman.

The goal of health care reform is to help small business, large employers, families and the individual.

Big companies use benefits as a part of staying competitive and pay over 2/3s of the cost of private health insurance. As medical costs and health insurance skyrocket they have to pay more and have to pass on more of the cost to their employees.

Small businesses either can't afford to provide those same policies or are crippled by the cost of trying to. Reform would allow employees to get insurance without burdening their small employer or paying the exorbitant costs of individual plans - IF they could qualify for a individual plan in the first place.

Self employed individuals would have access to group rates by pooling with those employees of small business without insurance and all the other large groups currently without or with too little insurance.

Palin is only spouting the tired old slogan that Democrats only ever tax and spend. Simply saying small business will suffer does not make it true and she can't explain how or why it would be true or answer all the claims that it will help the large majority.

But she says what some people want to hear and want to believe and by simply saying it they are persuaded.

AARP has endorsed the reform because of it's benefits to seniors but there's already a big ad campaign to scare seniors saying it will ruin Medicare. Well guess what - medicare IS government run healthcare.

But whatever, people are going to believe what they want to believe. No matter how many news sources they scour they will only pull out the ideas and conclusions they already agree with.

No matter what her detractors say, Palin is a rich woman now with a worldwide platform to express her opinion (or regurgitate talking points). She'll never have any real official power again (imo) but she has the ways, means and lack of sense to spread misinformation or outright lies, stirring anger, hate and worst of all fear. She deepens the divide in our country and rubs salt in the wound. So I don't care for her.

What I find infuriating is this whole reverse "elitism" from those who purport themselves to be the non-elite, is that it is every bit as disparaging and self-aggrandizing from the plain old, decent folks towards the groups they think they are better than. Sarah Palin embodies this self-righteous, false modesty that is annoying in itself, but when it is combined with the inevitable hypocrisy of becoming what they condemn, it's just plain ridiculous.

I live right here in the bible belt of the rural South and get plenty of exposure to "real" Americans and their hard-working, responsible way of life. If you think some urban, latte-sipping yuppie looks down his or her reading glasses at the real Americans in the South, mid-west and other parts of the "heartland" of the flyover states, then you've never had to listen to the constant patting themselves on the back about their stellar patriotism, faith, work ethic and just all-around goodness that makes them so much better than those (fill in the blank with whatever group they know is beneath their contempt: lefties, tree-huggers, non-believers, college-educatied types, women's-libbers, freeloaders, bicyclists, etc.) They claim they are just simple and plain, while the whole time extolling their virtues and morals as being exemplary and their highly vaunted "common sense" judgment impeccable. I find this whole mindset to be just as arrogant as any elitist snob's condescension, worse even, because of the phony way it is presented as modesty.

Palin is the ultimate example of this and no doubt why she appeals so much to that base. She brays about responsibility while she quits her low-profile governership of the state she was elected to serve under some bullshit excuse about being unable to get anything done now so she can pursue more lucrative enterprises like this book deal. Much like her equally hypocritical, fellow-governor Mark Sanford, it's easier to preach responsibility to work to others than actually follow through with your own. She also takes no responsibility for her own problems, it's always someone else's fault. If she can't come up with an answer to a simple question then it's because one of "those" people in that group that "we" all know we're better than "those folks in Hollywood or that darn main stream media" is out to get her by expecting her to actually know something instead of being able only to talk in tired clichés and repetitive talking points. Of course, she's all too willing to go on every "main stream media" program to sell her book, when it suits her needs.

She is a vapid opportunist who is milking every minute of her newfound fame but whose critical thinking and understanding of the issues she purports to be able to solve go no deeper than the simple-minded parroting of populist sentiments such as "taxes are bad!"

Don't confuse health care reform with health care control.....big difference. Health care control is THE conduit for controlling the masses. Hitler realized this, and did it. Stalin realized this, and did it. Mao Tse Tung realized this, and did it. I'm all for reform, but the current bills being proposed don't reform anything.....they just transfer the problem from one entity to another, and along the way, transfer your individual rights, and money with it. No one in their right mind can propose a bill that starts taxing immediately, but delays the service for four years and call this "reform"!. Ten years of taxes, six years of services. Right....yeah....that's reform. Mitch McCFonnell had a good analogy of how this works.....buy a house, start paying for it, but you can only move in after you've been paying for it for four years. The 900 billion figure that you hear for the cost of this monstrosity is actually about 2.5 trillion. That's from the CBO (congressional budget office). And, with government efficiency being what it is.....just double that figure, and you see the real cost.

The free market is the only hope of ever reforming health care costs, but the politicos are too tied up with special interest to ever let this happen....at least the ones we have now. If you're ready to live under a government that controls what you eat, what you wear, what you drive, where/how you live, the doctor you see, the treatment that doctor gives you, the hospital you can go to, the medicine that you can take etc. etc. ad nauseum....support Obamacare. If you'd rather keep your freedom of choice (sound familiar?) then make sure you support political candidates that have your ideals. That's the only way that this problem will ever be solved.....and if they fail you, or enrich themselves at the public betrayal....kick them out, and jail them if egregious or illegal activity was involved.

The problem really isn't "health care" per se....but the lack of honesty in our politicians who allow so many sweetheart deals to exist with the providers of healthcare, and the ensuing manufacture of pharmaceuticals and equipment. Fraud is rampant, inefficiencies abound, trial lawyers get rich, insurance companies have virtual monopolies on targeted markets, pharmaceutical companies are subsidized by the American taxpayer, while they sell their cures overseas at 90% discounts. The whole system stinks, and government could correct it if they were honest.....but they can't run it! They would just make it worse, and the byproduct of this would be higher cost, less individual freedom, and eventual bankruptcy.

Now.....Sarah Palin. This woman is SMART! And she has a passion for doing the right thing for the people she serves, in whatever capacity. Yeah, she doesn't sound like a Harvard graduate, or possess the soaring rhetoric used to fool people in doing things that are not in their best interest. She is plain-spoken, a little nerdy, a little self-righteous, and honest! I'll take that over any lying politician seven days of the week. The liberal media hates her, the conservative media is a little fawning, she comes across sometimes as a little too aggressive in her thoughts.....but what she says, you can believe. Show me any lie that she has told......you'll be hard-pressed to find one. But if you do, which I doubt, I'll show you ten for every one of hers from the Clintons, Pelosi, Reid etc. The hatred of Sarah Palin doesn't come from her politcal views, but what she stands for personally, which is, not to sound corny but I know it does, is God, country and family. What the FUCK is wrong with that..........

baldar77 wrote:

Now.....Sarah Palin. This woman is SMART! And she has a passion for doing the right thing for the people she serves, in whatever capacity. Yeah, she doesn't sound like a Harvard graduate, or possess the soaring rhetoric used to fool people in doing things that are not in their best interest. She is plain-spoken, a little nerdy, a little self-righteous, and honest! I'll take that over any lying politician seven days of the week. The liberal media hates her, the conservative media is a little fawning, she comes across sometimes as a little too aggressive in her thoughts.....but what she says, you can believe. Show me any lie that she has told......you'll be hard-pressed to find one. But if you do, which I doubt, I'll show you ten for every one of hers from the Clintons, Pelosi, Reid etc. The hatred of Sarah Palin doesn't come from her politcal views, but what she stands for personally, which is, not to sound corny but I know it does, is God, country and family. What the FUCK is wrong with that..........

You just showed some good examples of the reverse elitism I was decrying. Sounding like a "Harvard Graduate" is bad, but being "plain spoken" is good. We had plenty of this anti-intellectual attitude for eight years when George W. Bush's plain-spoken, good old boy common sense got us where we are today. He was being used to further his handler's agenda, just like simple-minded Palin is being used by the right wing now. Excite the base with the same rhetorical buzz words of "GOD! COUNTRY! FAMILY!" as if they are the only people who care about their families and their country and have any moral or ethical boundaries. You don't even notice that you start the paragraph putting down "soaring rhetoric" as being used to fool people while ending your paragraph with your own soaring rhetoric!

Don't try to expand this discussion into the merits of other people you don't like, I was charged with only defending my stance against Ms. Palin. Palin is honest? So is Kathy Griffin, I bet you don't enjoy her brand of honest, plain spoken, speaking of her mind, do you? She doesn't lie? How about you look at this link of 12 of them, that I'm sure you won't be persuaded by either.

No, now on further reflection I think baldar is right about Palin. We can only hope that all the great REAL Americans will exalt her into a leading position within the Republican party. HAND TO GOD it is my fervent hope that she is the Republican Presidential nominee in 2012.

My basic point I was trying to make was that the hatred of Sarah Palin is deranged. I don't give a shit if you like her or not, just that the treatment she is receiving from people is uncalled for. She has no power, she doesn't make policy. She must really strike the fear nerve in people to make them want to destroy her as they're trying to do. So listen to the SOARING RHETORIC from a Harvard graduate, and be ready to be told what kind of toilet paper you'll use to wipe your ass....and how much to use. No reverse elitism here, buddy....just a defined sense of trying to hold onto basic freedoms, without having some bureaucrat wipe that ass for me.

Rose wrote:

No, now on further reflection I think baldar is right about Palin. We can only hope that all the great REAL Americans will exalt her into a leading position within the Republican party. HAND TO GOD it is my fervent hope that she is the Republican Presidential nominee in 2012.

LOL.....she won't be the nominee.....too divisive. We'll get some lame guy like we had last time, trying to "reach across the aisle" to "his friends". BTW Rose.....the AARP, and why they endorsed Obama's plan? It's for the money.....they sell insurance to the seniors......and that will be "the public option" offered to people if this goes thru.....they stand to make billions for their endorsement.

No, the hatred is not deranged, I just gave you several clear examples of why her gleeful derision of things she has no understanding of is quite logically annoying to many people. You simply choose to ignore them because she represents the same sanctimonious self-righteousness and hypocrisy that keeps you hammering Obama as some kind of threat to freedom yet that is actually a more accurate depiction of exactly what it felt like to be under repressive, rights-blocking, Patriot Act-passing, freedom-crushing, war-starting, economy-ruining, illegal Iraq-invading, health-care reform-ignoring, Blackwater-hiring, no-bid contract giving, POW-torturing “conservative” for eight years that you had no problem with at all. That is why I did not waste my time talking to you about anything until your derisive implication that I know nothing but what I see on Jon Stewart and your direct request that I provide you with substantiation of my antagonistic attitude towards this antagonistic, over-exposed woman, who doesn't have any power but is on every channel all day long recently and doesn't get half the venom that I'm sure Hillary got from you when she had no power either. So if you don't don't give a shit whether I like her or not... BUDDY... then don't fucking ASK me. I will now go back to ignoring you.

Rose wrote:

The goal of health care reform is to help small business, large employers, families and the individual.

I'm sure that your goal of health care reform is to help small business, large employers, families and the individual, but for 99% or more of the politicians involved, the goal of health care reform is whatever selfish benefit they can gain. That is why I am skeptical that any plan they come up with will benefit anyone but them and their cronies, and it'll all be at a cost to the taxpayers.

BTW, I love you all - you and your opinionations.

I think this thread proves my point about how divisive Palin is.

As for health care reform and the free market, the problem now is that insurance companies and not doctors have complete control over your health care. The control what doctor, hospital and other provider you can see. They control what care those providers can give and how often you may receive it. In cahoots with pharmacies they control what medications can be prescribed to you. I'm sure that's why the AMA has also endorsed health care reform.

The single purpose of any insurance company is to make money, by limiting benefits paid in any way possible. They love you as long as you pay top dollar premiums every paycheck but should you get sick, injured or old you are nothing but a liability to be cut off and cast aside at the earliest opportunity. Non-profit government run coverage can't be any worse than what we already have.

Hugh Manrace wrote:

No, the hatred is not deranged, I just gave you several clear examples of why her gleeful derision of things she has no understanding of is quite logically annoying to many people. You simply choose to ignore them because she represents the same sanctimonious self-righteousness and hypocrisy that keeps you hammering Obama as some kind of threat to freedom yet that is actually a more accurate depiction of exactly what it felt like to be under repressive, rights-blocking, Patriot Act-passing, freedom-crushing, war-starting, economy-ruining, illegal Iraq-invading, health-care reform-ignoring, Blackwater-hiring, no-bid contract giving, POW-torturing “conservative” for eight years that you had no problem with at all. That is why I did not waste my time talking to you about anything until your derisive implication that I know nothing but what I see on Jon Stewart and your direct request that I provide you with substantiation of my antagonistic attitude towards this antagonistic, over-exposed woman, who doesn't have any power but is on every channel all day long recently and doesn't get half the venom that I'm sure Hillary got from you when she had no power either. So if you don't don't give a shit whether I like her or not... BUDDY... then don't fucking ASK me. I will now go back to ignoring you.

OK....btw Hugh....I only made a post about reading Sarah Palin's book.....and the attacks started flying.

The next government takeover target......higher education. These greedy universities need to be CONTROLLED!!!


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/20/california-college-tuitio_n_365209.html