IntenseDebate - miscsoc

16 years ago @ Big Government - Queen vs Obama, Pelosi... · 0 replies · +1 points

I agree. I'm not a sympathiser but I hate to see people waste their time on pointless activities.

If you want to combat Obama's programme you need to appeal to groups in society which are harmed by it, and, frankly, get money from them. Wheeling and dealing. Obama won because he had the money, the opposition won't make a dent unless you have more money. As we speak he is consolidating his hold on various sectors of the economy via federal handouts. The health care thing offers you the opportunity to appeal to the medical profession, at least; and i'd make the most of that.

i.e. appeal to doctors to fund the repeal effort NOW, before people start getting substantial health benefits from the government.

16 years ago @ Big Government - Words. · 0 replies · +1 points

this is actually less funny than doonesbury, which is a hell of an achievement. does anyone know any actually funny political cartoon strips? steve bell does one called "if..." in the (left wing, uk) guardian which if not funny is at least entertaining in its surrealism. is there a right wing equivalent? conservative comic writers (as in, wordsmiths) are generally funnier than leftists but i have yet to encounter a conservative cartoon strip that raised a smile.

like, i mean, a serial sort of 3-4 panel thing like this, but funny. any recommendations?

16 years ago @ Big Journalism - Banned in Britain for ... · 0 replies · +1 points

yes, it certainly has. British liberalism has become cannibalistic, somehow. Our liberalism and tolerance has become somehow directed towards organizations whose raison d'etre is the destruction of liberalism. It's self-destructive far beyond other European countries, and I wish I could explain it

16 years ago @ Big Government - Saturday Open Thread: ... · 0 replies · +1 points

I like the term teajadism. Never heard it before. teajadiste is better than the derogatory "teabagger" or the clumsy "tea party goers" or "tea partiers", and it's interesting to connect the present movement with that of Poujade. Has a nice continental flair to it, also

16 years ago @ Big Government - Native American Child ... · 0 replies · +1 points

Isn't that one of the more defensible sections of the bill? I mean, "treatment" of child molesters (native american or otherwise) presumably involves making them less likely to molest children. If it was "give financial handouts to child molesters" that would be one thing, but rehabilitation/treatment? Whether it's constitutional or a legit use of federal funds is a different issue, but it's obviously not a matter of wanting to be nice to child molesters.

16 years ago @ Big Journalism - Banned in Britain for ... · 0 replies · 0 points

I'm not sure about being an Orwellian beetle, but you have a point when you say I am the sort of person who runs England. Since I'm Scottish, and it became clear long ago that the natives weren't up to the task and needed the firm hand of a more civilized culture. I vote Labour, but that Cameron lad's good caledonian surname reassures me that we'll be in safe hands whoever wins.

I never spent much time at Communist seminars, to be honest. Don't see why anyone would. Were you a Communist once? You seem the type.

16 years ago @ Big Journalism - Banned in Britain for ... · 2 replies · +3 points

Just replying to this earlier post, since we were a little sidetracked by my little anti-american rhetorical gambit (which, however, led off into a fairly interesting discussion and has provoked me into refreshing my memory re: the whole historical area of the wars, since I'll admit i'm a bit out of my depth there)

From 2010, we can see that Muslim (afaik know mostly Pakistani) immigration brought with it some problems, but these can be exaggerated (it's hard to say that without sounding entirely dismissive of the problem, but I don't think the Islamist issue is quite as apocalyptic as some foreigners imagine)

And also, you can't just collapse all immigration from former colonies together as an unpleasant punishment for our misdeeds. (Or treat the whole history of the Empire as a crime) The hindus, for instance, exemplify the bourgeois British virtues more than the natives. I'm engaged to someone who was born in a Caribbean country and who is far more insistent on the duty of immigrants to assimilate than myself.

16 years ago @ Big Journalism - Banned in Britain for ... · 5 replies · +3 points

(Responding to both replies)

Good answer, if I had the books to hand I think I might be able to argue the point regarding communism in Russia, but as for Italy, I'll take your word for it.

I would say that whether or not Wilson advised the Brits and the French to take a milder approach, the facts on the ground made their reaction more or less politically inevitable - whatever Churchill's undoubted deficiencies as a tactician, I would not be surprised if he may have been open, in retrospect, to acknowledging facts that Wilson's starry eyed ideological preconceptions seem to have blinded him to. He had some understanding of the forces of human nature which were at play in the whole fiasco.

That's a bit garbled, but the thrust is that his (retrospective) assessment of Wilson has something to it, I think

16 years ago @ Big Journalism - Banned in Britain for ... · 11 replies · +1 points

Sorry but I don't feel very grateful for the WWI "bailout". Tend to agree with Churchill that your clumsy and arrogant intervention back then did more harm than good and directly led to the next war.

"America should have minded her own business and stayed out of the World War. If you hadn't entered the war the Allies would have made peace with Germany in the Spring of 1917. Had we made peace then there would have been no collapse in Russia followed by Communism, no breakdown in Italy followed by Fascism, and Germany would not have signed the Versailles Treaty, which has enthroned Nazism in Germany. If America had stayed out of the war, all these 'isms' wouldn't today be sweeping the continent of Europe and breaking down parliamentary government — and if England had made peace early in 1917, it would have saved over one million British, French, American, and other lives. "

But what did he know about war?

16 years ago @ Big Journalism - Banned in Britain for ... · 2 replies · -5 points

Why are you still dirt poor? You're in your late twenties at least. Maybe you should exercise some entrepreneurial dynamism and learn a trade, instead of sitting on your arse feeling sorry for yourself and blaming everything on imaginary communists. On the other hand I am glad you've at least shown the initiative and sense of guilt to leave the country and relieve us of the huge social burden which is your council-house dwelling existence.

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