StrangeSox

QUOTE (Reddy @ Jan 9, 2012 -> 09:12 PM) do you know a single thing about Huntsman? He's the most moderate candidate in the campaign. He supports environmental reforms, civil unions, is actually religiously tolerant - teaches his adopted indian daughter about hinduism. How awesome is that? He also supports lowering taxes and all that other GOP fiscal policy. I'd vote for him over Obama. I wouldn't vote for the Dept of Education cutting, National Endowment for the Arts cutting, Health care destroying, pro life, anti gay Ron Paul if my life depended on it. And I know y'all wont believe me, but I'm NOT crazy liberal. I just seem like it compared to all these Right wing wackos these days. No, openly supporting Huntsman does a good job of ensuring everyone that you're not a liberal. Huntsman's economic plan, like every other Republican plan, results in massive tax cuts for the wealthy (particularly for the investor class, capital gains and dividends rates get slashed) and minimal cuts if not increases for everyone else while almost eliminating many social services. Oh, and he's back-tracked on some of his global warming acceptance and he wants to cripple the EPA. Weren't you campaigning pretty hard for Edwards 4 years ago? I'm not sure how you could go from what Edwards policies were to Huntsman without some serious political/philosophical changes.

Paul's supported DOMA.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jan 9, 2012 -> 08:37 PM) hes not as focused on social policies. He would love to completely eliminate all forms of the social safety net. That's pretty core to his philosophy.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 9, 2012 -> 08:43 PM) It's the very specific small government though. For example, he has repeatedly attempted to itoduce "life begins at conception" laws at the federal level which would clearly compel abortion bans, which he also supports. He also is happy to support corporate rights over individual rights, for example, since I'm still waiting for a coal plant to pay me back for my lungs. Those personhood bills would also have the wonderful effect of outlawing many forms of contraception.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Jan 9, 2012 -> 08:45 PM) Expound? I'm sure card-carrying Republicans would vote for him over Obama, and I've heard a good amount of talk that some Democrats would jump over to him for one election. He'd get some left-leaning support, for sure. He'd get most of the libertarians, but that's a relatively small group. He'd get some Republicans, but some of his domestic policies and his especially his foreign policy is 100% against the Republican party platform. While party tribalism would give him some "hold-your-nose" Republican votes, a large percentage of reliable GOP voters would simply sit at home. Recent polling is already showing Republican enthusiasm fading in the face of their possible candidates. As he receives more and more mainstream coverage, his wacky economic ideas (eg gold standard, massive federal budget cuts that would plunge us into a depression) and their disastrous effects as well as issues like his racist and homophobic newsletters will get more press scrutiny. He'd struggle to get many independents at all, and as these other paleoconservative issues are highlighted, the anti-war, anti-war-on-drugs younger left-leaning crowd will become disaffected with him.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Jan 9, 2012 -> 08:26 PM) From one Wall Street insider, to another Wall Street insider, to another Wall Street insider. Damn, Obama hates some Wall Street. Bad enough to keep hiring them as COS. Yet, we're all told that Wall Street and bankers suck and they run his White House. Oh the irony. This is a great attack on the "MARXIST OBAMA HATES BUSINESS AND MURDERS JOBS!" rhetoric and goes right with the leftist "CORPORATIST OBAMA IS A CENTER-RIGHT SHILL!" Which is kinda surprising coming from kap. But it's pretty much correct.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Jan 9, 2012 -> 08:26 PM) I wish Joe Biden would answer questions speaking Mandarin. But it would be totally fake Mandarin.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Jan 9, 2012 -> 08:20 PM) Huntsman is a clueless high school drop out and his only 'skill' is having super rich parents. don't forget that he speaks Mandarin!

Paul would be decimated in a national election.

who cares, Paul is anti-militarism, criticize him over his many crazy positions

Huntsman's fiscal policies are boiler-plate conservative market evangelism, it just seems sane compared to everyone else's.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 9, 2012 -> 04:56 PM) I really thought electing obama would end fighting the god damn vietnam culture war every presidency but it's clear that until all of them die we have to listen to this bulls***. yup.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 9, 2012 -> 02:38 PM) Except that they did find the writer of the newsletters. Not to my knowledge, and I read Sullivan pretty regularly and he'd be ecstatic to post that. The problem runs deeper in that Paul somewhat defended the newsletters in 1996 and didn't start his "I know nothing" claim until 2000 or so. When you combine this with a record of opposition to making Martin Luther King Jr. Day a holiday and opposition to the Civil Rights Act, it paints Paul is essentially unaware of the realities of discrimination at best.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 9, 2012 -> 03:11 PM) ultra liberal my thumb.

Yeah, it's not like these ideas are new from Paul--he's held many of these same positions for decades.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Jan 9, 2012 -> 06:45 AM) Andrew is generally only considered conservative by liberals. He's definitely not a hard-line conservative, but his positions mostly fit in with the center-right or libertarians.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Jan 8, 2012 -> 06:53 PM) How so? you could read sullivan's summary for some great examples!

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Jan 8, 2012 -> 10:40 AM) i read some of it, before becoming thoroughly bored with his monotonous liberal "observations". it really was a pointless read. you can't really argue that the GOP candidates' version of history is noticeably detached from reality.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Jan 7, 2012 -> 11:50 AM) Killing dogs that are beyond care is one thing. Killng 86% of the dogs you take in because your cash goes to salary and advertising expenses instead of actually helping animals, is hypocritical. Claiming the world is gonna end as we know it due to the use of fossil fuel while riding around of private jets to say that is hypocritical. the first one may be a fair point; I've heard PETA criticized for that before but I'm not at all familiar with it. The second one isn't, at all, because that advocacy could lead to a reduction in global carbon output that's several orders of magnitude less than one person's jetting about. A better example would be Gore's gigantic house. edit: I guess I don't understand what the point of this tangent is, though.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Jan 6, 2012 -> 11:54 PM) How about all the so-called inclusive occupy movements? Finding the black guy in most of them is harder than finding Waldo. But you would find guns, drugs, criminals and so on. Well, that just isn't true. But even if it were, you are still missing the point.

also just curious, what "groups dedicated to diversity that mostly consist of white men" are you referring to? Nothing springs to mind.

There are serious contentions to any of those other groups you listed that don't work for the group in question. You may not agree with them, of course, but the Humane Society likely has an explanation for what they do and why it ultimately is the most humane course of action and helps the most number of animals. And obviously the pro-individual-freedom people (like that re-labeling?) would not agree that they do not have problems killing babies (the support for individual choice could be made along libertarian lines similar to how they may oppose the Civil Rights Acts while also detesting racism) or that they are actually killing babies at all ("life begins at conception" is not a scientific or universally agreed concept). However, in this group's case, they unambiguously claim to champion protecting life while at the same time are praying for someone else to die, and importantly that someone else isn't causing the deaths of others. There's no way to really square their statements as anything but cognitive dissonance.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Jan 6, 2012 -> 03:50 PM) So the head of the Jersey Teachers union sending an email to all the members asking them to pray for a Christie heart attack are not the same? It isn't just some offhand remark, its how they feel. And when they get called on it, they get all mealy mouthed about it saying 'that's not what I meant' or that it was somehow taken out of context, or the always awesome "i'm sorry if you were offended". It's dumb for them to do that, but Rex was pointing out the irony of a group "dedicated to protecting life" or whatever they said also organizing prayer circles of death. Comparing that to a group that doesn't espouse protecting life as its goal isn't exactly a straight-up comparison.

The exchange on the last page is full of awesomeness.

Or a dedicated home a/v store, but it'd be a pretty dick move to use them for their expertise and then buy elsewhere.