Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Donald Douglas and religious bigotry: "Unitarianism is Nihilism"

In reply to: American Power: The New Humanism

(Not technically a moderated blog, but I can't trust Professor Donald Douglas to leave the comment, anymore...)
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Repsac3 has declared he's Unitarian, which has been discredited as disguised humanism amenable to atheism. It's nihilism, in other words, pure nothingness, just as Scruton shows.

I'd ask you to show where/how UU has ever been discredited, but I already know you never will...

Donald, when you start attacking people based on their religious denominations not measuring up to your own, you show yourself to be the very thing you claim to be fighting against.

I don't give a tinker's damn about things you say about me, but you really ought to think about whether you want to disparage every member of any particular religious faith, and how bigoted you sound when you do...

It's easy to disagree with and disparage others, Donald. But perhaps you ought to spend more time building your own house, rather than knocking down the houses of others...

For those who don't choose to take Donald's word as ultimate truth on the subject, here's some actual info about Unitarian Universalism:

UUA: Visitors

Unitarian Universalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Unitarian Universalist - Faiths & Prayer - Beliefnet.com

Think for yourselves, kids...
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Link to comment on AmPow, posted March 24, 2009 4:02 AM (AmPow blog time)

Friday, March 20, 2009

More of the petty...

In reply to:
I love… - Ennuipundit
and
I love… | WTF?! Obama
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Nope... Still kinda petty.

We now have a president who can do more than one thing at a time without choking himself.

You know as well as I do that the president doesn't hire everyone in the Treasury (or any other) department. I'm relatively certain that no president--Democrat or Republican--ever has. The time he took away from the office on these things you believe to be unsubstantial and nonessential did absolutely nothing to prevent the staffing of Treasury, the discipline of teleprompters gone wild, or much of anything else.

The truth of the matter is, the administration has made many of the unpleasant decisions you accuse him of putting off. To be sure, he's going to make many more, too. You just don't like the decisions he's made, or the ones he likely will make. If you're unhappy with the direction Obama would like to take the country, that's fine, but it's patently dishonest to pretend that the issue is his being asleep at the wheel--or God forbid, his doing a basketball bracket--instead. That, my friend, just doesn't fly...
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"By: repsac3 on March 20, 2009 at 12:06 pm (Ennuipundit blog time) Your comment is awaiting moderation."

"Repsac3 Says: Your comment is awaiting moderation. March 20, 2009, 9:11 am (WTF Obama blog time)"

Petty pickings and small-minded complaints

Reply to Like He Doesn’t Have Better Stuff To Do - Ennuipundit March 20, 2009, 6:24 am comment.
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Have it your way, Ennui…

I just think it’s a pretty small-minded way to look at such things… Some of the things you mention (staffing, loading teleprompter with the correct speech) really ain’t even his job. He’s got people for that, and his people have been dropping the ball…

Even in your imagined firm, the CEO wouldn’t be the one interviewing the potential hires for night cleaning crew, the secretarial pool, or even the accounting staff, nor would s/he be the one making sure the bathrooms had enough toilet-paper. And whether these things were accomplished efficiently or not, there’s little doubt that your fictional CEO would miss the weekly golf or poker game, or be all that worried about the whiney few who thought s/he should be manning the front lines of human resources, instead.

Sure, Obama could’ve recognized that the wrong speech was in the machine sooner, but again, it’s petty silliness to get excited because he didn’t… Even speaking the wrong words, he put them together better than the former president often did trying to speak the right ones. And, while both men have thus provided a few embarrassing moments during public appearances, each in their own way, it didn’t (doesn’t) affect either man’s ability to do the job at hand.

I just think that if you’re worried about appointments, or China, or Russia, or any of the other things that are his job to deal with directly, you ought to say so, and not hide behind or concern yourself with the chaff and flac that is so ultimately meaningless. It makes you folks look petty and vindictive.

Pickin’ on the President because he took 15 minutes or so to do a bracket–something that probably half of America does this time of year, and most of them while they should be busily working, I might add–just comes off as small.

You’re welcome to disagree, of course…

As far as my coming on over, it appears it was an accident… I thought you were someone else.

Earlier in the day, I read this post: Chuck for ...: So Long, My Boy, which is a terribly sad story of a man–a leftwing blogger–whose troubled 20 year old son committed suicide earlier that day. Truth be told, when I saw your name at S.logan’s, I thought I’d recognized your openID from the comments in sympathy over on Chuck’s site, and I thought that anyone who took the time to do that–especially someone who probably disagreed with Chuck much of the time–deserved a read.

But of course, it turns out it wasn’t you…
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By: repsac3 on March 20, 2009 at 11:22 am (Ennuipundit blog time)
Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Barack's Bracket

Reply to: Like He Doesn’t Have Better Stuff To Do - Ennuipundit
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All work and no play makes Barack a dull boy.

Really. Do you really think it prevented him from coming up with a solution?

There are legit criticisms of the guy to be sure, but this is just nitpicking…
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By: repsac3 on March 19, 2009
at 6:34 pm (Ennuipundit blog time)

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

"No enemies" enemies

In reply to: Riehl World View: The Cultural Values Discussion

(Not sure what the story with this one is... The blog doesn't appear to be moderated, but when I try to post my comment, I get a message that says: "We're sorry, we cannot accept this data". It's possible my reputation precedes me (he is a regular reader at Donald's, apparently), or maybe my comment is too long or has too many links... I intend to e-mail the blog author, so he can explain or laugh in my face--depending--and I post it here, the home of potentially (and occasionally "actually") refused comments.)
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Much of the let it all hang out cultural disintegration often associated with the Left in the culture war is a myth. When it suits neocons like Mr. Douglas, they recall that many folks on the left voted against gay marriage in California, and are just as concerned about cultural values as many folks on the right. But then when it's time to make another point, "the Left," en mass, becomes the enemy, again. And while your no enemies on the right campaign makes some sense--there are some core values that pretty much everyone on a given side should believe in and fight for--there are real differences in values and in tactics among the sub-groups on those sides that are almost as important. And while Mr. Douglas has some difficulty recognizing such differences on the Left, he seems to be wanting to have the unified cake you're baking, but slice up divisive pieces of it (Charles Johnson @ LGF, paleo-conservatives--AmCon, paleo-libertarians-Ordinary Gentlemen) when that better suits him.

Personally, I think you're both a bit right. Whether left or right, there are core values that make you a part of the group and should allow you to fight together toward the same political and social goals. But left and right, there are other values and ways of doing things that can divide. Defining a whole group by the worst few morons is wrong, whether those morons are kids dressed in black who throw things at cops and break store windows at peace protests, or people who shoot doctors or bomb clinics at anti-abortion rallies. While they claim to be working for the same goals you are, they do not represent the movement toward those goals as a whole, and it's foolish and dishonest to hold them up as though they do. (And, of course, the same goes for leather-clad pony boys as representatives of homosexual men. Many of us probably know a gay person or two, but I'm willing to bet that few of us know anyone who dresses in the leather chaps and codpieces featured in the picture at Donald's American Power blog. I'm not saying those folks don't exist--any more than I'm saying the black bloc kids or clinic bombers don't exist--but they are hardly representative of gay people, or even of the gay rights movement.)

There are real differences between the groups of Cons that Mr. Douglas approves of, and those he does not. But that doesn't mean you folks can't all work together toward those overriding common goals, as long as someone keeps an eye on the bomb-throwers in the group. Even in a "No enemies on the Right" (or Left) strategy, there sometimes are enemies, right there under your nose.
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Deemed unacceptable for reasons unknown, and thus unsubmitted. (Good chance I'll e-mail this post to the blog author though, to find out why...)
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UPDATE: on the advice of The Riehl World via e-mail, I commented there with a link to here: Riehl World View: The Cultural Values Discussion. Since I mentioned playing for the other political team, I don't know how many'll come, but at least my comment got posted...

And, should I ever be lookin' to move off of blogger, this'll serve as a good lesson as to why I will avoid Typepad. Spam filters shouldn't be refusing legit comments...

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Military service and vet benefits

In reply to: Screw You, Mr. President! - Old Soldier, repsac3 Says:

It sounds to me like it’s a bad, bad plan… but I’m not so sure who’s in favor of it and who isn’t, as I can find no one, liberal or conservative, who’s said anything in favor of this idea. (Perhaps Obama has, to the head of the American Legion, at least, but even he hasn’t spoken publicly about it anywhere I’ve found.) On the other hand, one of the first to publicly oppose the plan was Patty Murray, a Democrat.

Taking care of soldiers and veterans should be one of our highest priorities, and I agree that any cut to their benefits should be tied to cuts in benefits for all who serve in government, from the President on down. No soldier’s family should qualify for food stamps, and if they are, it’s obvious that soldiers are not receiving enough pay.

No veteran should have to pay for treatment of any service-related injury or ailment, for as long as they live. (Around the time the conditions at that Walter Reed building were exposed, I read about a proposed federal medical plan that would allow vets to seek treatment in the private sector at government expense, though… While I’d like to hear more about it, I think that may be an idea worth exploring…)

What I’m trying to say, Kanaka, is that neither “the right” or “the left” has any claim to higher ground, here… I seem to recall a few Bush cuts to and problems with vet benefits, as well…
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Your comment is awaiting moderation.
March 17, 2009 at 9:33 am (Old Soldier blog time)

Friday, March 13, 2009

Evil twins and places we ain't

Reply to: insert clever s.logan here: (Don’t Pay Any Attention to Me. I’m Not Really Here.)
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I didn't see a thing... You were never here.

Clearly, it was your evil twin, Skippy, who made this post. (I've "known" Skippy for years, and am very surprised to learn that no one seems able to pinpoint where the phrase "evil twin Skippy" originated... I always kinda thought I knew, but according to the references I did (and didn't) find via google, clearly, I don't... Weird...)

Anyway... You're still off somewhere, doing the right thing... ...just like I intend to be, tomorrow or Sunday.
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Comment submitted for approval March 13, 2009 5:05 PM (or so, Clever S.logan blog time)

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Once we let the little truths go...

Reply to: The Other McCain: Works on Several Levels

"Total retro fun for the Dementats and Dementites in the crowd."


Some things cannot pass uncorrected...

It's dementites and dementoids.

Please make a note of it.

plaze

Comment offered for approval Wed Mar 11, 06:04:16 AM (Other McCain blog time)

Monday, March 9, 2009

We're not all in it for the hits, McFly

Reply to: The Other McCain: How Not to Get a Million Hits On Your Blog, And Not Score With Hotties. Ever.

I guess JBW must've misplaced that Republic Party issued, all-purpose "THIS IS HUMOR!" disclaimer the rest of y'all are using... While I question whether it would've helped, it certainly couldn't've hurt...

hydenold

Comment sent for approval Mon Mar 09, 11:22:42 PM (Other McCain blog time)

"Democrat Party" silliness

Reply to: insert clever s.logan here: None of your Gosh Darn, business:

Jeremy said...

"One thing I've wondered is why everyone refers to the Democrat party as the 'democratic' party. In this video, Jason Mattera refers to the 'Democrat' Party, and Karl Frisch instantly tries to 'correct' him: 'Democrat-ic party'. So now I know that it is a concerted effort on the part of the Democrats to be called 'democrat-ic'. But then!! Jason Mattera instantly fires back with 'no, Democrat Party. There's -nothing- democrat-ic about them'. Go Jason!!"
- MARCH 9, 2009 4:19 PM


Actual history tells the Democrat(ic) Party story a bit differently, Jason.

As far as I'm concerned it makes the folks who do it look plum ignorant, but a good number of you folks in the Republic Party seem to've all gotten the same silly memo on this mispronunciation, so I don't expect it'll be ending any time soon...


Comment sent for approval March 9, 2009 9:43 PM (S.logan blog time)