Now more than ever.
You guys are becoming predictable. First, GWB (the fighter-pilot) is a moron, and now it’s Palin. Why don’t you guys ever argue ideas?
No one has proven that Palin resigned to run for the presidency. Certain of you guys have seized upon it as a way to point and laugh at the so-called moron, but it’s far from certain that she’s done any such thing.
And if she resigned her governorship in order to write books (i.e., get rich) and serve as a lightning rod or rallying point for the conservative movement, that would be fine with me.
Then that disdain is misplaced. I’ve never said that politeness and civility can only be found in a bygone era; what I’ve said is that it was much more common then. And then there’s the issue of crassness, which is undoubtedly more prevalent nowadays.
And most often, when the subject is brought up, it’s by people like luci, who try to use it to minimize arguements that they have no other defense for. I’ve largely said what I have to say on the subject.
And now I’m out for a while.
Dio, I’ve already explained my thinking with regard to 1968. It was essentially the year when the counter-culture revolution cohered and began to effect society at large.
Needless to say, things have been fucked up ever since. 
I think you’ve missed the point. I’m sure **Lobohan **will correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the point was that *Obama *resigned his senate seat to take on the presidency, which is a far cry from Palin resigning to do … well, we don’t really know what the hell she’s doing, do we?
What ideas has she presented?
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No, but that’s the MOST charitable possible interpretation.
And with the Democrats too.
And you tell us about “proof” … 
As if they didn’t have a huge head start. Keep repeating this stuff and people will start to think you’re serious, you know?
Oh, so it’s the damn dirty hippies that ruined America. Grandpa, is that you?!
Hm. I could say the same thing about you guys.
That’s not at all fair to the right wing: they show great variety in reasons to kvetch about their opponents:
-Gore lied about inventing the internets
-Kerry faked his wounds to get those Purple Hearts
-Obama pals around with terrorists, is a Muslim and wasn’t even born in this country.
Granted, there’s an underlying unity in the batshit insanity of the arguments, but there’s a definite lack of predictability about what they’ll come up with.
Well GWB IS a moron, and Sarah Palin does not seem to have an above room temperature IQ, so it seems like the left was right.
Ya know, I’ve always been skeptical of media pile-ons. When people first started picking at Palin, after she was nominated, I figured it was more of the same ol’ partisanship, blah blah blah.
Then after the election, the conservatives started dissing her, and I suspected there might be something to the trash talk. But hey, Obama won, Sarah became irrelevant, and we’d never have to hear from her again, right?
Now? If they had a reelection between Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin tomorrow, I think I’d probably vote for Obama. I still like McCain, but he’s not worth unleashing Stark Raving Sarah on the world.
-Malleus, conservative with a brain
Interesting article from Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal.
A Farewell to Harms:
Perhaps she really does plan to make her own Batshit party.
I hope this is true. The brakes on our two part system are faulty. Maybe Palin can leech the crazy out of the Republicans so that we can go back to arguing about policy and leave the Greens and the Palins to slap policemen and keep Putin from peeking into our windows.
You don’t seem to be presenting any ideas and Sarah Palin certainly hasn’t, either.
If the shoe fits then one must wear it, and by any reasonably relative measure, Sarah Palin is phenomenally uneducated and ignorant by the standards of a person running for such a high office. I challenge you to name any candidate for President or Vice President in the last fority years who either (a) sounded as vapid and ignorant as Palin did or (b) who had equally unimpressive educational and experiential credentials. Dan Quayle, widely mocked for his propensity for screwing up speeches, looked like Albert Einstein by comparison.
It’s a free country and she can do anything she wants. But she’s still a quitter and still bailed on a job she promised the people of Alaska she would do for no apparent good reason. It being a free country, people can point out the fact she broke a rather important promise without providing an explanation.
I would donate money to that cause if it helped her become like the second iteration of Ross Perot.
I asked some African American folks here in TN and they seem to disagree with you. Thoughts?
Well, the fact that they’re even allowed to speak to you is part of the downfall of polite society, of course!
My thoughts? It’s a specious argument that presumes the only way to address racsim was to create a society of assholes. One of the reasons it’s specious is that the counter-culture revolution which has resulted in the permissiveness that has been so harmful to today’s society in terms of crime, drugs, STDs and abortions, not to mention belligerent personal behavior, had virtually nothing to do with the issue of race.
The notion that creating a crass, vulgar and relatively low-class society was necessary in order to correct racism is a revisionist one that has been propogated after the fact by people who dishonestly want to credit their ideology for advances made by blacks themselves. The real reason is that lefties of that time wanted to do away with existing standards so they could dress like scuzzbugs, do drugs, fuck in the mud at rock festivals, and still find jobs and not get shit about their long hair, clothes and drugs from the rest of society.
It wasn’t until long after the fact that liberals began to claim they did it all in the name of racism.
It is true that most of the civil rights legislation introduced during the 20th century came from liberal-leaning politicians - and that is to their credit - but it is also true that most of it was introduced during the more polite and civil time that existed prior to the late sixties. (Which, of course, demonstrates even more clearly that creating a crude, classless society like exists today was not necessary in order to correct issues of racism.)
It’s a popular meme among the left, anxious to defend what it’s done to life in this country that it was all necessary to fight racism, but it’s neither a correct nor honest one.
How does he get the goalposts to move like that? i have to dig them up, and re-plant them, and it’s backbreaking work, but he just waves his hand, and poof!–now the goalposts are WAY over here.
And it was a blast! Sorry you missed out, but you had your chance…
Indeed it would! When you’re not too busy, could you outline the major civil rights legislation passed in the 50"s? Just the top ten will do, no need to be exhaustive, we know you’ve much to do…
I resent that remark; I wasn’t looking for a job.
I can’t say I really know that much about life in the United States previous to 1968 (I’m neither an American nor was I born at that time). But “To Kill A Mockingbird” directly contradicts your point.
Particularly Bob Ewell, who in the novel represented a white-trash underclass that relied on the oppression of blacks to feel superior to someone. I haven’t read any criticisms of the novel that contradict that impression, and I’m sure there are other works which make the same point.
Somehow, when I read your posts, I have the notion that you have the “old-timer’s disease”. In other words, any reference to a certain time makes you see it to rose-colored glasses, which, of course, makes your objectivity about those times quite suspect.
Bullshit. This is a conservative lie. The reason racism is fading in this country is because liberals said that everyone should be equal and the government should actually do something to make that happen. Conservatives fought this every step of the way. Some honest conservatives openly said that black people could never be equal to white people. Other conservatives would say that they believed in racial equality in theory but that we should just ignore racism when it was actually happening. Which is again bullshit. If society decides racism is wrong then society should enforce that - the same way that society should enforce the idea that murder or theft or rape is wrong.
So the liberals fought the conservatives and won. Black people finally have some real rights in America. And do conservatives acknowledge that they were wrong? No, they now claim that they were always against racism and they deserve the credit for fighting it. Which is an outright lie.
The same thing happened with feminism. Conservatives fought against women getting equal rights. But once the liberals won and women had equal rights, conservatives jumped in and claimed the credit. And I’m sure fifty years from now when gays finally win the equal rights they are entitled to, conservatives will be there claiming that they always supported gay rights and it was those liberals who opposed gay marriage.
I don’t mind conservatives wanting to live in the past. But I hate it when copnservatives try to change the past. Because their refusal to admit they ever made any mistakes keeps them making the same mistakes over and over again.