People on the left are stupid, and people on the right are stupid.

Only libertarians are cool. All twelve of us.

Hurricane Sandy was caused, of course, by Homer Sexuals and Mormons and Obama.

http://www.ibtimes.com/hurricane-sandy-caused-homosexuals-president-obama-evangelist-preacher-john-mcternan-says-855933

People on the far left and the far right, are the same people. It is a circle folks, not a line.
The Nazis were socialists, just like the USSR, and they were all on the same side until they got into a pissing contest over who got which parts of Europe.

Don't really have much to do with Twitter, but when I see comment threads on blogs I follow start to go that way, it's time to move on to something else. Three hundred comments, half from two trolls flinging "Rethuglican" and "Demoncrap" back and forth? Time to switch over to NFL.com and read about really important things.

> Time to switch over to NFL.com and read
> about really important things.

I know, but... Democrats really are Hitler.

Listen, I was raised to be a liberal Democrat. My head and my heart will always thrive in that karmic zone: Government has a role to play in helping some people whose lives are being derailed by circumstances beyond their control.

But the typical liberal enthusiasm for government is about taking control of other people's lives to egotistically affirm superiority on someone else's dime.

I believe this now with all my heart.

If you want to tell me you're more decent than other people —and certainly, if you want to tell me you're more decent than me— you're going to need a large body of evidence in order to convince me that this is true. This corpus will describe your own good works and risks to yourself on behalf of others, and not a lot of detailed cleverness about policy and distant forces.

Government has a role to play in helping some people whose lives are being derailed by circumstances beyond their control.

Lately, the government IS the circumstance, beyond individuals' control, which is derailing their lives.

Yeah to Pirate Jo on both counts.

There's sort of a phrase for this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

They're both wrong.

Hitler is Hitler

(although I could be wrong - I went to public school after all)

You're not wrong, and neither is Charles... I'm just pissed off.

You're not wrong, and neither is Charles... I'm just pissed off.

Tears? You want tears?

I can't count the tears.

Gahhhh... My keyboard trembles at the very link....

Regarding circumstances beyond one's control...

My son picked out a short book about Helen Keller. I learned about her in school - I'm sure most of you did too.

This little early-reader was STUFFED full of information about her that I just did not know. Whenever I'm feeling all "woe is me" (or somebody else is going on about how they need XYZ because woe is them), I'm now thinking about this.

Apparently, this girl didn't just learn to sign and read. She (with no sight or hearing) learned to speak clearly. She learned French and German. She attended college (not one for the deaf, a Radcliffe College - back when there were serious entrance exams for all students to get into college). That was all by the age of 22 if I recall correctly.

She learned to dance (without being able to hear the beat!). She wrote articles that were published. She gave speeches. She could read lips (using her hands to touch people's mouths gently while they spoke).

I'm 31 and can't do half of that - despite being born into a more technologically advanced era, having sight and hearing, and having some talent with language.

Reading that little early-reader is really making me think that the problem isn't the circumstances (in the vast majority of cases). The problem is lack of passionate desire to work one's arse off and MAKE things change - to get the skills, make the opportunity.

Hitler is dead. Like the brains of those who tweet such absurdities.

There is some truth in it in that both Dems and Reps support various fascist policies, just in different but overlapping areas of life (e.g. both favor 'War on Drugs', both support expansion of TSA and homeland security powers, indefinite detention etc.). Reps are fascists when it comes to e.g. gays. Dems have implemented a fascist healthcare system overhaul. Both favor corporate welfare, they just represent different sets of corporations. Both favor 'debt slavery' aka modern government debt systems. (I don't think either party wants to exterminate Jews though.)

PS I'm approximately libertarian. It's wrong to steal, it's wrong to initiate force. But I'm not anti-government .. I believe it's possible (though not easy, and requires thinking 'outside the box' of commonly held paradigms) to construct consent-based government. I also think it's OK if government provides various services providing it does so in a consent-based way (including the way it funds itself). Modern taxation is morally wrong (it's theft) but OTOH it's absurd to suggest that people wouldn't pay voluntarily for government services if it was a broadly consent-based system with morally sound governance.

Good Morning America had Eva Longoria on this morning and Lara Spencer was raving about how wonderful it was that she was so involved in politics. Eva is the idiot who tweeted that any woman who did not vote for Obama was an idiot. We collectively have short memories.