I heard Dennis Hopper, long time republican, on the view talking about meeting Obama. Hopper’s wife supported Obama and dragged him along. At some point during a hectic campaign day they wound up in an elevator together. Obama expressed his sympathies for Hopper recently losing his mother and spoke briefly of his own mother. Hopper was struck by the presence of mind and sympathy he had during a hectic campaign day. It spoke to him of character. from then on he supported Obama.
Somebody married that asshole? Jesus.
Is this like the unnamed distant negative of effects of SSM? No Matter.
Reason and a sincere desire to improve our society and solve real problems asks us to intelligently examine the possibilities and make a judgment call based on facts rather than irrational fears.
How do you suppose a democracy works? We survived 8 years of Bush and cronies. Surely we can survive health care changes.
I’m fine with rational thoughtful conservatives forming real coherent arguments and offering alternatives. Fear mongering and bullshit arguments based on irrational fears don’t help anybody. Look at the Jon Stewart clip. People saying they are afraid of Obama because he’s a socialist. Who told them to be afraid? Glen Beck. When their GOP rep suggests they turn off Beck {in favor of real education and information I suppose} he gets booed. They’d rather believe the crap Beck spouts. That’s more than a wee bit of understandable human bias we all experience. That’s cheerfully riding the flaming chariot of ignorance and fear. Grab the pitchforks and torches and storm the castle. Responsible patriots from either party need to discourage this mess.
I’m not sure how this relates but yeah. According to Dan Brown it was Mary.
Isn’t that a bit off topic? 
So, in your world, an illiterate populace who doesn’t know enough to make money and will inherently make bad decisions because they can’t learn from their mistakes is worth it just so those dirty poor people don’t get their hands on books?
A library gives you way more books than you could ever afford.
The fourteenth amendment indicates that all the restrictions on the federal government now apply to the states. There is no logical or constitutional reason that a state could do a better job than the federal government.
Oh, and your opinions on the constitutionality of anything is irrelevant, as the constitution doesn’t give you the right to judge it.
There is a logical reason. The federal government does not make separate laws for South Central Los Angelas and rural Wyoming, even though the needs of the two can be very different.
To add to this: If Jesus were alive today he would be called a bleeding heart liberal. Remember according to the Bible he hung around with sinners and was called a Wino. He wasn’t too fond of the letter of the law fundies of his day!
And He didn’t seem to have much of an issue with paying one’s taxes. Unless “Render unto Caesar” was a suggestion that the questioner pay his taxes using dead . . . no, better not give the teabaggers ideas.
Paying taxes was not the point of the story. The person sent to Jesus was a “spy” (the term used by the NIV) from the Pharisees and scribes, whose mission was to trick Him into saying something that would either get Him arrested by the Romans or else incite a revolt against Him by the Zeolots.
The fellow asked Jesus in front of a crowd if people should pay their taxes to Rome. If He answered yes, then the Zealots would have revolted against Him. If He answered no, then the Romans would have arrested Him. But Jesus responded by asking the man to show Him a coin from his purse. The man produced a coin, and Jesus asked him whose likeness was on the coin. The man responded, “Caeser’s”. That’s when Jesus said to give Caesar what belongs to him, and give to God what belongs to Him.
The point was that the fellow sent to trick Jesus was carrying around a graven image of a false god (or son of a false god), which was in violation of his own religious law. What Jesus did was to avoid the man’s trap by turning his trick around on him, and pointing out to the crowd that the man was in possession of Caeser’s image.
ALL things in Rome belonged ultimately to Caeser. From coins to piles of grain to the sandals on people’s feet. And so, aside from evading the man’s trap, Jesus pointed out that God is not concerned with earthly things, but with heavenly things — like goodness and worship.
It was NOT an endorsement of Roman taxation, which was infamous for its burden on the poor. Nor was it an endorsement of taxation in general. It was a reprimand to a particular man who represented people who both taught and disobeyed the Laws of Moses .
“SHUT UP! It’s DADDY, you shithead! Where’s my bourbon?”
The State of California doesn’t make separate laws for South Central and [insert California boonies here] either. The municipality/county of Los Angeles and Sisterfuck County can make their own different laws, of course, but questions of states’ rights are irrelevant to that process.
I find this somewhat ironic, coming in a thread where folks are saying we should just get out of the way of (the current) government, and let them do whatever they (in government) believe is best.
You had better not be implying this about me. :dubious:
I believe you are mistaken on this. It IS irrelevant – but that’s because he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about. He is entitled to his own opinion, though, no matter how full of shit it is. (Unless, of course, you mean “judge” as in make a legal decision.)
mlees – it’s only one individual who is saying that.
I have heard socialism defined as government ownership of the means of production. Government **control **over the means of production is Fabianism.
I don’t believe that states have rights, since that’s an hypostatization and therefore a logical fallacy.
No, Fabianism is a strategy to achieve socialism by a gradual reformative, rather than abrupt revolutionary, process. What you’re thinking of is probably dirigisme. The term applies to, e.g., the process by which Japan insdustrialized at breackneck speed after the Meiji Restoration.
You’re right. Thanks for that correction, BrainGlutton! 
Sure. But it’s not the first time I have run up against that type of philosophy of governance here on the SDMB. It’s not an unusual viewpoint, as far as I can tell.
I recall being involved in a discussion on McCain’s flipflop on the Immigration Reform proposals two years ago. I was told that in a representitive democracy, our elected leaders should just do what they know is right, even if unpopular (in other words, even against the express wishes of their constituents).
Fine. States’ powers. Whatever you want to call them. The point remains, and you are being obtuse.
Not gonna lie- I had to look up hypostatization.
It’s possible that I am obtuse, but I’m not being obtuse in the sense of deliberately being thick headed just because I don’t want to understand you. States do have powers, I’ll grant you that. But then that makes a different point entirely, in my opinion.
My fault for grabbing a rather obscure term. I should have said “reification”.