# Senator Trent Lott announces retirement **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 26, 2007, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senator-trent-lott-announces-retirement/427845 "2007-11-26T22:41:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senator-trent-lott-announces-retirement/427845/121 "2007-11-28T19:33:14Z")
[QUOTE=wring] :eek: Trent Lott resigned??? who knew? [/QUOTE] No one is going to know that around here until \*\*BrainGlutton \*\*gets off his ass and starts a thread about it! ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senator-trent-lott-announces-retirement/427845/122 "2007-11-28T19:34:53Z")
[QUOTE=Kimstu] I understand that you personally would prefer to reserve the term “free-market” to apply only in the context of true, ideally efficient free markets, just as you personally would prefer to reserve the term “liberal” to apply only to the context of the political philosophy of classical liberalism. However, in both cases your preferred meaning happens not to be what most people understand by the term in question, so we are to some extent stuck with the resulting ambiguity. [/QUOTE] Consistency Check: Do you accept without objection the labels “Pro-Life”, “War On Terror”, and “Family Values”, as those terms are commonly used in modern American political argument? ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senator-trent-lott-announces-retirement/427845/123 "2007-11-28T19:35:04Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] No one is going to know that around here until \*\*BrainGlutton \*\*gets off his ass and starts a thread about it! [/QUOTE] I feel like a character from _Waiting for Gadot_ ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senator-trent-lott-announces-retirement/427845/124 "2007-11-28T19:51:06Z")
Hmmm. I thread about Trent Lott turning into a joke thread. Who’da thunk? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senator-trent-lott-announces-retirement/427845/125 "2007-11-28T20:14:52Z")
We’re just trying to cope with our deep sense of loss. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senator-trent-lott-announces-retirement/427845/126 "2007-11-28T20:17:29Z")
> [@SteveMB](#): > > Consistency Check: Do you accept without objection the labels “Pro-Life”, “War On Terror”, and “Family Values”, as those terms are commonly used in modern American political argument? Do I accept their existence? Sure. Do I use them myself? Sometimes. Do I use them with an ironic inflection? Occasionally. Do I use commonly-understood synonyms for them instead? Sometimes. Do I argue that there is “no reason” to use these particular terms, and recommend that others use “more descriptive” synonyms for them instead? Never. Do I respond to other people’s non-ironic use of them with philosophical critiques, or cryptic little aphorisms suggesting that I find their phrasing ideologically objectionable or dishonest? You can bet your sweet bippy I don’t. (Did I pass? It’s been a while since I had my consistency checked and you never know **what** they’ll find…) ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senator-trent-lott-announces-retirement/427845/127 "2007-11-28T20:19:04Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] We’re just trying to cope with our deep sense of loss. [/QUOTE] From deep-sixing Lott. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senator-trent-lott-announces-retirement/427845/128 "2007-11-28T20:20:19Z")
\*\*Kimstu \*\*= Rumsfeld? :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senator-trent-lott-announces-retirement/427845/129 "2007-11-28T20:21:03Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] We’re just trying to cope with our deep sense of loss. [/QUOTE] What about Denny Hastert’s deep sense of loss? He resigned too, and on the same day as Trent. Did **Brainglutton** open a thread for him? NO. That is _soooo_ unfair! ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senator-trent-lott-announces-retirement/427845/130 "2007-11-28T20:29:21Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] Oh, sure, **Arty**! We finally get an opportunity to hear about **Liberal’s** political philosophy, at long last! and you want to spoil it. [/QUOTE] It’s worse than that. He would spoil your opportunity to snark at me with zippy one-liners, which are rarer than a fried penis in Jeffrey Dahmer’s fridge. It’s something you just never do. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senator-trent-lott-announces-retirement/427845/131 "2007-11-28T20:30:43Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > Kimstu = Rumsfeld? :eek: Eww, thanks a lot **John** , now I feel all dirty! (Thanks for the correction, I couldn’t figure out for the life of me where or when or why I’d said that. Whew.) I gotta say, though, that using the emergence of “spontaneous order” in a few internet entities like eBay and wikipedia as an argument for the possibility of a truly and completely libertarian society is somewhat like Communists using the existence of soup kitchens as an argument for the possibility of a truly and completely communist society. Neither phenomenon strikes me as likely to scale up very well to the workings of society in general. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senator-trent-lott-announces-retirement/427845/132 "2007-11-28T20:37:28Z")
[QUOTE=Kimstu] I gotta say, though, that using the emergence of “spontaneous order” in a few internet entities like eBay and wikipedia as an argument for the possibility of a truly and completely libertarian society is somewhat like Communists using the existence of soup kitchens as an argument for the possibility of a truly and completely communist society. Neither phenomenon strikes me as likely to scale up very well to the workings of society in general. [/QUOTE] Except that I wasn’t making “an argument for the possibility of a truly and completely libertarian society”. I was disputing your claim that “the thing about an increasingly large and complex society is that it becomes harder and harder to get major things done in it without the exercise of some form of coercive power”. The complexity (in the form of technology) can make it easier. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senator-trent-lott-announces-retirement/427845/133 "2007-11-28T20:50:57Z")
[QUOTE=wring] I feel like a character from _Waiting for Gadot_ [/QUOTE] I want to be Vladimir this time! You _always_ get to be Vladimir! I’m _tired_ of always being Estragon! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senator-trent-lott-announces-retirement/427845/134 "2007-11-28T20:55:15Z")
Well, okay, I should have been more specific and said “it becomes harder and harder to maintain the increasingly large and complex set of major things that need doing in an increasingly large and complex society without the exercise of some form of coercive power.” You’re right that size and complexity are not necessarily a barrier to getting **certain** types of “major things” done, like large-scale collaborative writing projects; in fact, they can even facilitate them. (I note, though, that wiki and eBay do depend for their existence on that runaway offspring of coercive-power institutions, namely the Internet.) ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senator-trent-lott-announces-retirement/427845/135 "2007-11-28T21:02:08Z")
I can’t prove this, of course, but I think the internet was one of those things that was going to happen one way or another. Unless one were to postulate that it takes a government to network a computer. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senator-trent-lott-announces-retirement/427845/136 "2007-11-28T21:03:15Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] For the record, the term “liberal” as I use it is the way it is commonly understood in most of the world, including Europe. It is only in the US that the term has come to mean practically the opposite of what it once did. With hope, the term as used here will eventually revert to meaning advocacy of liberty. [/QUOTE] Until it does, please **stop using the word to refer to yourself or your politics.** You are an American, like it or not, and in America liberal != libertarian. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senator-trent-lott-announces-retirement/427845/137 "2007-11-28T21:04:18Z")
[QUOTE=Squink] What about Denny Hastert’s deep sense of loss? He resigned too, and on the same day as Trent. [/QUOTE] He did?! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senator-trent-lott-announces-retirement/427845/138 "2007-11-28T21:10:14Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] He did?! 🙂 [/QUOTE] Probably for a similar reason, besides the lobbying thing. The VECO oil company scandal in Alaska is heating up, and both Lott and Hastert have been private guests of VECO CEO (and convicted briber) Bill Allen at his resort. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senator-trent-lott-announces-retirement/427845/139 "2007-11-28T22:14:19Z")
[QUOTE=jayjay] Probably for a similar reason, besides the lobbying thing. The VECO oil company scandal in Alaska is heating up, and both Lott and Hastert have been private guests of VECO CEO (and convicted briber) Bill Allen at his resort. [/QUOTE] Caught an interesting segment of [NOW](http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/347/oil-corruption.html) over the weekend that dealt with this very subject. At one point they showed a photo taken at one of Bill Allen’s fishing retreats; among the happy campers were Messrs Hastert, Lott, and . . . Larry Craig. As to another matter (the recurring dispute about the definition of a free-market economy), I’ve long been partial to [Ambrose Bierce](http://www.alcyone.com/max/lit/devils/)’s views on the subject: > [@](#): > > PIRACY, _n_. > Commerce without its folly-swaddles, just as God made it. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senator-trent-lott-announces-retirement/427845/140 "2007-11-28T22:23:49Z")
[QUOTE=OttoDaFe] Larry Craig. [/QUOTE] Well, it IS easier to pick out the mortar in the wall of a log outhouse than to drill through the steel of a regular restroom… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senator-trent-lott-announces-retirement/427845.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senator-trent-lott-announces-retirement/427845.md?page=8)