The Meaning of Life

"Finally, Monsieur, a waffer-thin mint."

Click image for full Tom Toles/Washington Post cartoon.

Mary Whitehouse has just taken Umbrage

Amusing and instructive when other countries also have trouble sorting out just exactly how they prefer to manufacture the consent of the governed...

Best to remember that there are many different ways to build a democratic election. Here in the US, picking a different way to decide winners decidely takes a back seat to the need to fix our ability to count votes honestly, transparently, and accurately.

Sclerotic stasis he can believe in

It's amazing that anyone who would write this could get through graduate school. But this is a rather commonplace occurrence these days when completely unjustified laissez-faire economics is so stylish on the right.

A few of Navarrette's abject stupidities:

• It's hard to "thread the needle" between LBJ's Great Society and Duhbya's lazy-unfair society. - Yah, if your thread is too thick to fit in a yawning chasm that dwarfs the Grand Canyon.
• With individual responsibility on full display, no one needs mutual responsibility. If you sink, it's your fault, and why should we help you? - People who assume this generally deny that the government has ever helped them. When they do, you can start asking them about the schools and universities they went to and who paid for them, the roads they travelled and who paid for them, the public safety agencies and who paid for them, the Internet and who paid for it, etc., not to mention all the crises that can befall us without making us morally defective or stupid or less than normal.
• Government can't to anything right, and his evidence is Katrina. - Republican government can't do much right. If Navarrette were even a schosh open-eyed, he could see public sector successes everywhere. Bill Clinton's FEMA would have been in New Orleans promptly; he took the mission seriously. Duhbya didn't, and the results speak for themselves, but Navarrette is saying, "Nah, nah, nah, I'm not listening."

He finishes up with:

This is a party that maintains power by trying to convince people that our country is a dark place, devoid of opportunities, and that the answer is to elect more of them.

Oh, fuck you, Ruben. There is no Democrat, not a single one anyone has ever heard of, who has tried to convince Americans of this. Lots of unprincipled Republicans like you have tried to convince Americans that that's what Democrats believe, but it's a lie. Yeah, I just called your smarmy, wingnut, no-account, willfully stupid ass a liar.

What Democrats actually believe is that America can and should be better than it is. You apparently think it's perfect, Katrina and all. Yeah, sclerotic stasis you can believe in!