Ian Somerhalder: Cat Detective

In this picture he looks more like a cat rapist.

obviciously “Pussies” are his game?

the gay is strong in this one…manscara anyone?

Ah yes, the old Little Rock Whittlin’ Chip…page 152 of the New Liberal’s Essential Political Playbook. It’s a classic variant of the Arkansas Knots Merit Badge Maneuver (see Chapter 13 “I Heart Huckabee”).

Took three kids to the gas station. I call bullshit. He hated the cat its entire life. Case closed.

Holy cow, Dr. Evil used to have hair…

“not unlike the way folks used to send messages to coloreds caught looking at white women.”

Just for the record…….those folks were Democrats. Do some research.

Could it have been the smoke monster?

That cat REEAAALLLYYY doesn’t like having that finger up its butt.

He probably killed his own cat and wrote “LIBERAL” on it just to muster some votes. Congressional Democratic running for election? His kid found it? He probably did it himself.

I have no problem killing men, women even children, it’s what I’m paid for, it’s what I’m good at, but I draw the line at cute fluffy little cats!

EQ, sounds like you and I are afriad of a very simular America.
We disagree and will never agree on who to “fear” For you, it’s capitalists. For me, it’s socialists leaners. We will never agree.

My entry into all these in-depth political discussions: poor kitty!

More of Ian Somerhalder PLEASE.

You took away the Skarsgard after only a few short weeks of his awesome music-accompanied posts.

More Somerhalder. And Skarsgard. He can come too.

Actually, I was thinking of Tawana Brawley :)

That guy had terminal cancer and wanted his family to receive his life insurance policy. It wasn’t actually a political statement, at all, in any way.

Wonder how long it will take Justy to get on here. Hahaha.

Seriously though, I’ve read most of your commentary and not only do I agree with you on a regular basis, I do enjoy your writing style.

cc, spending and deficits have gone crazy on his watch. 5 TRILLION since he took office. He has left bush and clinton in the dust in that respect.
Not to mention he LIED about shutting Gitmo down, he LIED about bringing the troops home (yes, we left Iraq, but we escalated in Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Egypt, and we are now sending troops into Kuwait and Israel since we are to be terrified of an Iran that is hardly a threat). We sent a 50 year old floating museum into the Straight of Hormuz this week, just daring them to take a shot at us.
Yeah, sure has been mopping up.

WAKE UP

Oh and I’d be remiss not to mention we have almos 3 MILLION LESS PEOP,LE WORKING than when he took office. He bragged about the 2.2 mil that have been created during his state of the union, but he forgot to mention the 5 mil that have been lost…since he took office and promised the :”stimulus” would keep the unemployment rate from rising above 8 percent.

Thanks, POWW. J actually reminds me a lot of one of my best friends, in that he is hard to pigeonhole, and in that much of what he believes is incomprehensible, but it seems to keep him content.

cc, that’s just silly. Bush and Clinton did not spend all of that money, Obama did and the Democratic Congress did.

Yeah, Mctex, except the Obama administration has allowed the Bush tax cuts to remain in place, continued subsidies (in some cases through the first two years and in most right through now) to old technology, financial and agricultural corporations to continue, failed to raise federal spending on infrastructure to even half what Japan or the nations of industrialized Europe are at (we spend less of our GPA on infrastructure than China). The health care Obama got through Congress is a somewhat more conservative version of what was Republican common wisdom for a healthcare policy at the time GW took office and Obama has not only not meaningfully rolled back the Bush assault on American civil liberties, he has expanded on them,

This isn’t about Democrat or Republican because sadly at this point both parties are absolutely in thrall to the money corporate international elitists who have no allegiance to any nation can use for or against them. Citizens United has cemented this into our political system in a way that will be extremely difficult to remove even if the American people find the political will to try.

This is about liberal and conservative ideology and I’m not talking about the social wedge issues here like abortion or gay marriage. I’m talking about the basic social contract that exists between the people and our government.

In the immediate post-war era, under Democratic and Republican administrations alike, followed a liberal philosophy. Higher taxes on the wealthy and on non-earned income. A robust investment in the infrastructure of our nation and in research into new technologies. Growing social programs to protect the elderly and the sick. We built an extraordinary nation, a shining city on the hill, a beacon of hope to the world.

The Reagan revolution changed this. We began to destroy the union movement, the middle class route to collective power. We cut taxes and ran deficits and cut taxes more, disproportionately in favor of non-earned income (the primary source of income for the rich) and cut spending on infrastructure and research into new tech. We used the ‘war on drugs’ to militarize our police and chipped away at the basic civil rights, turned the media into a rich man’s one sided playground by getting rid of the fairness doctrine and two Bushes and a Clinton all but dismantled everything Teddy Roosevelt (a Republican, by the way) did to protect the health of our Republic from the worst depredations of the bankers and robber barons.

We have had the grand experiment in conservative economics and this is where it has brought us.

Its someone with an obvious difference in political views making generalities about someone they dont know. Good thing you didnt do the same thing as them. Oh wait….

+50

Oh god, it looks like approved of the political asshat’s comment. Points for CC…

hey cc – don’t forget the PETA freaks being responsible for THOUSANDS of dead dogs and cats found in dumpsters!!! Offing animals ain’t just for rednecks.

“I remember when I had *my* first beer…” – always my favorite slam for hecklers – from the same album if memory serves?

Guys who like cats…..very sexy

Obviously it was a jilted lover cat, Sheesh. Have none of you ever owned a cat? You really think a rival Democratic Congressional candidate would kill a cat? Ian Somerhalder thinks a Democractic Congressional candidate killed a cat? In Arkansas?
Ian Somerhalder is claiming Democrats kill cats in Arkansas? Rival Democratic Congressional candidates? Could be a coon hound.

POWW, I don’t have to show up since cc and Equinox are doing splendidly. Can’t say the same for you and mcstex, though.

EQ: Ever think that sometimes things happen in spite of other influences or variables, rather than because of them?

Let’s cut to the bone, and in all sincerity on both our parts: explain how it makes sense to allow the Government to take from those who create, give to those who do not in a manner that not only does not encourage any change for the better, but actually fosters the opposite, while pushing us into levels of unimaginable debt, then have the Government take still more money, still accomplish nothing while never solving any problems. . .

etc. etc. ad infinitum. Or actually, we may very well have hit infinitum, as there is, as Ms. Thatcher said, no more money to spend. The idiots are actually printing more. Of COURSE Obama left the Bush tax cuts in place. Somebody managed to make him realize taking still more money out of the economy to spend buying old cars and such would eliminate even the ghost of a chance he has for reelection, because it would have brought a sputtering engine to a grinding halt. How you think taking money from a system which needs money could be beneficial — with the sole exception of paying down debt — is beyond my comprehension. I know you think you know something I don’t, so enlighten me. How does that work, AND (since you are inevitably going to provide what amounts to theory), when has it ever been proven in function, on a scale and circumstance as it would in this country today? Ye gods, and you talk about experiments. . .

And one caveat: don’t think I am arguing for a particular party. I’m only arguing for what I cannot help but recognize as true.

And my Mao/Stalin reference does not qualify as Strawman because what I said was true. Extreme, as acknowledged, but true. Both advocated collectivism, which is a nice word for the Socialism your never-ending tax levies would constitute. My intent was to point out that your ideas taken to the extreme lead there, not play the Hitler card lite. And my ideas taken to the extreme? I wouldn’t know. Despite your inexplicable claim about the “Conservative Experiment,” I’ve never seen my people in charge in my adult life. (41)

E:
My god, the way that woman gets under you guys’ skin is a wonder to behold. I truly have never seen anything like the genuine hate she can engender. Not that you are guilty of it here (close though), but think about it — you’ve seen it; you’re too smart not to have been exposed to it once or twice.
Yet again, you have gone off on an eloquent tangent, and not done what I asked you to do, and if it takes this to make you at least try, so be it: the whole idea is predicated upon my belief that I do not think you can. I do not believe you can provide a short, concise expression of what you believe and the best way to achieve it. (I almost said eloquent, but that you can handle.)
You know what you Feel, you know how you believe the world SHOULD be, but your ideas towards achieving them are based upon a questionable (at best) view of history, and at heart the deeply cynical view of human nature common to what we term the Modern Liberal. (I am a Classical Liberal. I am basically so Conservative my belief I have no right to tell other people how to live makes me pro-gay marriage and barely pro-abortion — a de facto you, but who believes those same rights extend to one’s pocketbook and life’s work. (You will then of course assume I am for rounding up the poor and putting them in pens, but hey, it’s only logical, right?)
I’m just going to go bit by bit. “Stripped bare”, absolutely. But I didn’t vote for the bastards. Check the net worth of some of your good Fighters of the Good Fight, versus their salary. Chris Dodd alone should warrant an investigation.
–The years preceding the Reagan Revolution were CARTER, for the love of whatever is holy, who now stands as the second worst President we have ever had. His foreign policy was based upon WWJD, and domestic life can be expressed by only being able to buy gas on days which coincided with your license plate. Are you even old enough to remember what you just cited? If I called Thomas Jefferson illiterate, you would have reason for the same reaction.
–With regard to the investing in our future notion, to what precisely do you refer? Alaska and the American South are now civilized, paved and not in need of any great Government projects. (Please, don’t say trains. Why must everything with you people come back to something quaint?) Even if — if — I cede the argument such efforts are necessarily good, could you at least provide some idea of what this great undertaking would entail? It is a grandiose idea with nothing attached, at this point. And I mean it, no fucking trains.
–The Space Program was gutted by your Maximum Leader, and believe me, from where I sit, we consider it a problem. The whole Muslim outreach program is so insipidly stupid it wouldn’t even make it as the worst joke on SNL, so it of course proves true.
–How the hell can my ideas destroy the Republic, when none of them are in play? YOUR PEOPLE ARE IN CHARGE. THIS IS YOUR FAULT, NOT MINE. Taxes are going up, not down. Do you get that the Federal Government is not the country, it is something that exists entirely due to largess, and if it were to hypothetically cease to be, the country would actually still exist? Or is that idea to horrifying to consider?
–Stop stealing my metaphors. I don’t borrow from Alinsky. Seriously, you’re like reading Rand in the mirror on some of these lines. Answer me this: how in the hell do I leach off of MYSELF? And the Witch doctor thing — are you going to mention Atilla too, and cause some sort of explosion of irony?
–The Somalia thing is the shortsighted view of someone who acknowledges whatever in Rand suits their purposes and ignores the rest. And by the way, I find her stance on philosophy itself — philosophy, qua — most useful. We often diverge — I looked for a philosopher, not a priest. I will actually acknowledge that some problems can only be solved by a variant of Socialism, but one that mis strictly controlled, and acknowledged as a necessary evil. You would trumpet it as a cure for all ills, and leave the cast upon a healed limb forever, as long as someone was being paid a pittance to take care of the cast. You would also insist upon choosing the doctor.
–”And the list is nearly endless. Police, fire, air traffic control, the building and maintenance of dams and bridges, the regulation of industry to ensure that our rivers are not on fire and our children do not die from mercury in the water or chemicals in the air.”
Why not burning children and rivers of mercury? You can manage to emote in prose, which is remarkable. That said, the list is not actually that long. It can be neatly summed up by the notion of genuine collective need. We need the roads. Everybody uses the roads. Everybody should pay for the roads. But such things should be kept as close to home as possible, and never be dealt with at the Federal level. Every mile between a problem and its supposed Governmental solution is like a lost unit of efficacy.
–”You know, there’s a conservative/libertarian canard that goes something like “if you took all the money from all the richest people it wouldn’t…” which is another straw man because that is not how taxation works.”
Uh, yeah, no kidding. It isn’t how the internal combustion engine works either. No one is saying outright confiscation is how taxation works. They are merely noting the terrifying fact that all the money grabbed at once is a drop in the bucket of what is required to feed the Leviathan you champion. See?
–TR was a progressive, not a Republican, political identities be damned. Hell yes, he and Woodrow Wilson did incalculable damage. And I told you, don’t throw Republican at me as thought it is Kryptonite. I could care less.
–Faith. Ye gods. I haven’t a religious bone in my body. Reason stands in place of every pathetic attempt to pretend there is any other way to think. The immutable facts you cite are on my side, not yours, predicated upon the laws of nature and the nature of Man.
–Re the whole Romney thing, I’d like you to stop and really consider the one thing which you guys always manage to overlook, and the corollary thereof which Rand used titularly, and which I believe engenders most of the hate previously mentioned. Here goes, hang on tight:
If you don’t let people make money, as Obama has so brilliantly succeeded in doing, THERE IS NOTHING TO TAX. We tax income, not wealth. And what’s more, once people realize all their profits are going to the Government, there is no point in working, investing or doing anything which generates growth or wealth, until our Grand Experiment in Socialism goes away for another 30 years. Welcome to Galt’s Gulch. Altruism CANNOT be enforced by law, and it is Liberal cynicism which states that only through Government can the helpless be helped. The mark of any true Leftist is an unerring marksmanship regarding their own feet. It is uncanny.
–ALL I believe is the “Western Ethics” — where do you think I’m working from, Hinduism? The greatest result of the Age of Reason and Enlightenment was the US Constitution. But the Age of Reason scared the crap out of certain people, who were convinced without the Church to take care of the poor, they would all wither and die.
(Sound familiar? Church equalling bloated Federal government?) Hence, Reason — the idea that 2+2 = 4, each and every time — became the subject of CRITIQUE. The majority of the misconceptions you carry can be traced directly to Kant, who more or less gave us the idea that feelings are more important than fact, and that Altruism is the greatest aspect of human nature.
– Might most certainly does not make right (Atilla! It’s unreal.). What is right is what is right, a=a.
“You would say that it is the right of a man who inherited a fortune from his father to pay workers a pittance and work them to death because they can choose not to work for him and starve.”
This is beneath you, and the kind of nonsense you build like a pillow fort every time you get near a fact you find uncomfortable. What the hell do you expect me to say to that? I’m above even pointing out it isn’t true.
–”Your way has led to revolution, chaos and death, over and over again, all the way down the long story of our history. Feudalism is it’s direct result, as those with money and power make certain all future money and power aggregate to them, always able to set the price they pay as that the most desperate man is willing to accept. And it has invariably led, finally, the pyramid stood on its head, to the system collapsing.”
Then where are my serfs? Seriously, the yard looks like hell. But actually, my way led to the Industrial Revolution, a period you tend to gloss over with the desperation of a Christian holding the skull of Christ, but hey, tomato, tomahto, right? And thank God you’re there to put a stop to my applied Reactionary Medievalism. If it wasn’t for you and those darned kids in the van with the dog. . .
From there you get madder and madder, and start in on mean ol’ Ayn again, so I’ll quit. (Seriously, you’re doing the falling to the floor fanning yourself thing again there, Scarlett.) But not before noting your truly fascinating inability to explain YOURSELF — not history, not anecdotes, nothing at all subject to interpretation or argument, but a simple statement of what you believe. You clearly can’t or won’t do it, and for that to be the case with a smart guy, is really sad. Why are you afraid to confront what you believe by writing it down? How contradictory could it be? Are you afraid that it is you, as opposed to me, whose hope has devolved into something very much resembling religious faith? Because believe me, arguing with you is not a bit different than arguing with a Christian about Genesis, sometimes. And no, length does not necessarily indicate content. There is no Kipling poetry in what you wrote either, nor biscuit recipes. In 70 or so words, tell me what (insert E’s real name) believes. I’ve already told you what Michael believes, and I’ll stand by every word. If you can’t do it, you can be sure you are wrong, because it means you have no fundamental philosophic foundation.

Boy, was I ever right about the endlessness of this argument. Re Rand, why is it everyone on my side of the table is expected to lead a pristine moral existence which borders upon the Puritanical, yet your side can be stuffing interns full of cigars in the Oval Office and that is a personal matter to be left undiscussed? So Rand had an affair. Big fucking deal. A will always Equal A, and that is all that matters, at least to me. She presented an ideal which she failed to achieve. So did Plato. Only one such example in human history can be said to have succeeded as such, and He is imaginary.
–Good observation about the train irony.
–Regarding your requested one example, how about if we factor in one indisputable fact that is the elephant in the room of your thesis: we live in an era where Science has eclipsed any conceivable rationalization for any of the great injustices of past centuries past. Your argument is apparently based upon the notion that the scary “unfettered capitalism” you so abhor would lead to kids working 12 hour days in factories, and slaves in the fields. Do I really need to point out the impossibility of either, and the subsequent absurdity of such thinking? The lack of anesthesia in those days in no way affects a surgery today. Capitalism, much as you are loathe to consider, is not a Theory, it is a Law. (HERESY!) It is simply the way things work, more akin to gravity than any abstract hypothesis. Market economics, the simple notion of supply and demand, cannot be reasonably assailed, at least not with someone capable of rational argument in the room. It’s just the way it is, despite any Utopian fantasies to the contrary. Your professors may have told you it is “discredited,” but well, “The science is settled” too. Again: look to the present application. You had the House, the Senate and the Presidency, and a President a nation desperately wanted to see succeed like none before. The amount of Good he could have accomplished was almost limitless. And can you name one thing the man has actually accomplished that you know damned well I won’t tell you is actually an affliction?
–”The Louisiana Purchase and Seward’s Folly were not paved over and developed when they were purchased, and in the scoiety you envision they would still be empty wastelands.” This is so bad it seriously makes me wonder about you. Your theory is that an unfettered, fully developed Capitalist System with every resource known to modern man, offered access to thousands and thousands of square miles of prime real estate ready to be utilized in every way possible, would become a wasteland. I’m not even going to ask how that one would work. Res ipsa loquitor. Really, man: that takes a very special type of mind. Broach that one in public sometime and see how hard they laugh.
“In your inability to understand this you demonstrate my point absolutely. And in you inability to see those great things we could do, in space, in the oceans, with a truly national program to achieve energy independence which would be on a scale with Roosevelt’s Tennessee Valley Project, the Space Program of the sixties or the other Roosevelt’s digging a canal through Panama that allowed the United States to project its power around the world, you demonstrate one of the most damning failings of your economic/social faith.”
Preach on, Brother! I feel like I should be putting money in a bucket. But why in God’s name must you involve Government? It is simple as that. Where is this world where the minds required to allow such things to happen would have any interest in being fettered by the Government if a private sector venture is allowed to be a plausible possibility. Why can’t Government AID AND ABET such things, without an unwarranted and wholly inappropriate measure of control? I believe in countless “great things we could do, in space, in the oceans” with Government out of the way. Why do you think Government’s help is in any way required? To pay for it? That is where investors come in, and for a provably promising project like you describe, they would be breaking down the doors. Why do you think [Insert Your Senator's Name] knows the first thing about oceanography? The role you see for Government is dangerously close to a substitute for a Deity, in that it is apparently all-knowing, all-powerful, and is what all Good people wish to have in their hearts.
You are the one, whether you know it or not, who has struck Religion, because you are operating on Faith. The world you envision is not a damned bit different than what a Christian hopes to see at the 2nd Coming, and every bit as possible. Always over the next hill, never quite there, but if we only had a little more money. Hell, this entire farce of a Presidency is like nothing so much as Christ returning for the Day of Judgement, setting up shop, and. . .it just not working. The disbelieving, irrational anger and frustration those imaginary Christians would evince is all any True Believer in BHO has to offer today.
So, for your one example, it is of course potentially this country today, if you will take the chains off, get out of the damned way and let things function. The incredible lie you let yourself believe is that we have had anything akin to a Free Market system since the early 20th Century; you in fact somehow manage to believe that even given Wilson and FDR, the system’s current condition can only be blamed on Capitalism. The obscenity of taxing income alone renders the possibility moot, as it discourages balls to the wall attempts at (shudder) PROFIT. Which is of course, what allows for investment, jobs, and everything else which keeps our economic world turning, and is the only thing which allows the needy to truly be helped — the generation of the wealth it takes to do it. But you can always look to the past and find an injustice and blame it on the prevailing system, and yet it is somehow wrong when I point out the relatively enormous monstrosities of Mao and Stalin. My men are always straw, while you achieve astute observation. What fun. Where is the Capitalist System responsible for millions of deaths? And of course, were I to list the Collectivist versions thereof, I’m committing crimes of rhetoric. There is only one way such thinking can be inculcated: it was taught to you. Ye gods, you paid for this.
–The simplest way to sum all this up is this: if you want to help people, help them. But leave me out of your plans, because I have the right not to agree with your methodology, just as you do mine. I will help people in my way, you do it in yours. You do not believe my way works, and I do not believe your way works. But the clear and glaring difference is that I do not have my hand in your pocket. Yours is in mine. I do not need you for my way to function, and you need me and what is mine. And that pisses you off in ways you may not even be able to truly comprehend. I say, “You will not take what is mine,” and you are left marveling at my selfish shortsightedness, and my inability to grasp the big picture of what you truly have in mind. (“Oceans! Space! Nothing specific of course, but If you’d only just give. . .”) Yet were you to say “You will not take what is mine” to me, I’d just wonder why you would thought I would want what belongs to another. And before you blow a gasket, yes: there are always going to be people who both need and deserve help. All I insist is that you find a way of helping them that FUNCTIONS, provably, before you ask me for a thing, or use your vote to simply take it.

Yes, because every guy who has terminal cancer chooses a politically charged shootout that endangers others to end his life. We don’t have cars and embankments anymore (or any of the other ways to end one’s life without it looking like suicide–and much more certain ways to boot). Just ’cause Rush told you something doesn’t make it true. Almost the opposite, really.

Err, no. Equinox, I was saying “the guy that killed himself and wrote “Fed” on himself to imply that some crazed right winger had killed him” was actually this guy. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/24/kentucky-census-worker-co_n_369336.html

And I was implying he did it more for the reason that his son could receive his life insurance policy, not so much as a tactic to make the crazies in southern Kentucky look even more crazy. I mean, considering his location, that was just a freebie.

Hi Justy! I am in too good of a mood today to go at it with you. You have a good weekend. I’ll be reading about
Utopia and how well it has worked throughout history.:)

J, either find your balls and answer my question, or sit quietly and let the grownups who are not afraid of ideas to talk.

EQ, well put, but we are never going to agree, so there is no point to arguing. Also, justifiable recently ran away when he was asked a question which damaged his delicate feelings, so in-depth discussions seem to lead nowhere. It would seem clear you believe there is a wisdom inherent in Government that gives it a right or even duty to the earnings of those it governs which supersedes that of those who earned it. Now if there were ever one example of such a system functioning in a large, multicultural environment, you might have a point. The reality is that such thinking is what led directly to the greatest atrocities of the 20th century. Any good Lefty professor has a soft spot for Stalin, and their admiration for Mao is on open display. (Anyone who scoffs at that, my sincere congratulations and envy on your choice of school.) How many hundreds of millions of deaths do those two have on their hands, and all in the name of “Progress.” I’m not saying what you have in mind is a direct path, but the road is in the vicinity, and mine another entirely. I don’t mind you proposing an idea, but when the idea has been tried and failed repeatedly, with the current Administration standing before us as both its greatest proponent and as the most spectacular political failure in American history, and when you are going to drag me and mine down with you, I take umbrage. You cannot tax your way to prosperity for the same reason you cannot bleed yourself to health. If there is a word for self-canibalism and its rather obvious flaws in logic, I’d like to know what it is.

msctex, you’re not even close. The society I’m pointing to is the United States of America during our rise to become the greatest superpower on the planet. These are simple facts, tex, and I’m sorry you have to try so hard to ignore them that you’ve invoked both Stalin and Mao. Wow, you threw up your cross and hung garlic around your neck. But see, the cats I’m talking about are a couple Roosevelts. And the policies I’m talking about…

taxation and spending priorities that our country practiced during the 50s and 60s when we built the greatest society on earth. Much as I admire the style with which you presented your ridiculous straw man I would rather you engage me on what I said and the immutable facts that inform my opinion. You win by explaining to me how I’m wrong, not by screaming “The Reds are coming!” Because the policies I’m talking about were the ones that beat the Reds and made America the most powerful nation on earth.

The policies you’re proselytizing are about to destroy our republic.

See, let me throw up a straw man equal to yours:

Well then, Somalia is your ideal of a political entity. There is no functioning central government at all so no taxation, rules are made entirely based on the laws of the jungle,and those who are powerful enough are free to enforce their will on all those weaker. You can’t get more libertarian than that, huh?

That is a way to demonize those who disagree with you and make sure no agreement is ever possible. It is avoiding constructive debate at any cost. It is the tactic of the man or woman who does not have right on his or her side.

You know what I like? This Biblical passage: By their fruit shall you know them.

We can see what kind of America the sort of policies I favor created. And we can see what 30 plus years of the sort of policies you believe in has created.

You think we should double down on those policies…they’ve got to work sometime, right? You’re like the dark ages doctor who always thought he was just one leech away from a cure right up until the moment his patient died.

Except they don’t Tex, and you saying they do doesn’t make it true.

You start from the faulty premise that a sane tax system takes from those who produce and gives to those who do not with no expectation of anything else ever happening. The golden age of American growth absolutely demonstrates that to be untrue. You’ve tried to dance around this by saying…well other factors caused that…but consider for just a moment…

The Space program, which not only spurred innovation in fields as widely separated as medicine and morning drinks but spurred an extraordinary amount of private sector growth.

The interstate highway system, which made it possible to link this great nation together, with all the benefits to commerce that were derived.

Social Security, which has allowed Americans to pay for a small degree of security in their old age, a program that conservatives initially claimed would go broke in the late 80s but which is still functioning as America’s greatest single social program and will continue to do so until or unless we destroy it ourselves.

And the list is nearly endless. Police, fire, air traffic control, the building and maintenance of dams and bridges, the regulation of industry to ensure that our rivers are not on fire and our children do not die from mercury in the water or chemicals in the air.

Public education, which was a cornerstone to our growth as the world leader in innovation, because rich people’s kids are no more likely to be the next Jonas Salk or Richard Feynman than those of the poor. And yes, as you can probably guess, both of these men came from very humble origins.

These are the programs that are being systematically destroyed under the policies you champion. You’re just reciting talking points, and not just talking points but ones that are particularly opposed to American and Christian ideals.

Now onto the other slice of bread in your Randian sandwich. That would be those who create wealth. You know, there’s a conservative/libertarian canard that goes something like “if you took all the money from all the richest people it wouldn’t…” which is another straw man because that is not how taxation works. Can even you argue that a million dollars taken from Willard Romney and used to educate children or rebuild a crumbling bridge would not benefit our nation and its future prosperity more than Willard is by hiding it in an offshore account?

And no one is talking about talking all of Willard’s money. Simply taxing it at the rate it would have been taxed under say…Ike. Or hell, even Nixon. And, best of all, that extra million (or ten million) is a renewable resource because it represents only a fraction of the interest Willard’s money is making. Willard keeps getting richer, just not quite as quickly. And if a bad year comes and Willard’s money fails to make him any more…he won’t have earnings to pay taxes on. And he’ll still have all the money he already had. That’s how taxation works, you see, not in this “gub’mint come take all my monies” way you seem to think.

And with that money we fund more research, we keep our infrastructure intact, we keep putting out fires and teaching kids and we build for the future. Just the way we did in America’s golden years…and the way we’ve forgotten how to do now.

It’s the difference between the foolish selfishness of wanting as much money as you can get today and not caring about the future of the nation in which it was made and wanting to make sure that the nation endures and prospers beyond the next quarterly reports.

That’s the sense in it, Tex. I’m sorry you’ve either forgotten it or never known it because it’s a sort of essential component in what makes us the United States of America.

Equi: Well put, but you did not answer my question. Thoughtful work, but you did not go as near to the bone as I requested. I want a nuts and bolts accounting (as it were) of the OPPOSITE of my Randian thinking (I’m pleased its obvious), or whatever opposing variation I can explain my thinking: producers produce and have a moral right to keep what they earn, while extending hand to those who need it, while not being expected to take care of people they don’t know. This with the caveat that it is a complex world and I’m oversimplifying because I would need to go on for many pages to be abundantly clear. . .and maybe that’s the problem. Let’s go at it this way. My socioeconomic philosophy, in however words it takes me to get it right; you are then allowed the same:
“Men must be allowed freedom to think, to live and to express themselves, with the only limit being the infringement of the same rights of rights of another. What they earn is their own, and their taxation should be on a level consistent with their relative rights to other men — equal — not a gradation which punishes success and relegates a majority of society to the status of leaches. Equal contribution, equal rights.”

That’s about 75 words. Can you get to the nuts and bolts of what you believe, as opposed to anecdotal, arguable instances of history? You cited Roosevelt and Social Security; ye gods, man. A strong argument can be made he prolonged the Depression, as opposed to ending it. And SS? Do you seriously expect a system to function that has more payees than payers?

And once again, Tex, the place would be the United States of America. The time would be the years preceding the Reagan revolution. War debt was paid down (somehow back then we knew we had to raise taxes during times of war) and the money was spent to build the nation that is currently being stripped as bare as Constantinople after the knights of the fourth crusade came to town. It’s not an experiment, it’s what our nation, the home of the yankee trader, has always been based on. It’s the same attitude that fueled Seward’s Folly, where we invested in a frozen wasteland called Alaska, or the Louisiana Purchase, where we took on a huge tract of savage wilderness. It’s the canal we built across a continent.

It’s investing in the future.

All right, Tex, you have made something clear to me. For you, this is a matter of faith. You believe in the law of the jungle. Might makes right.

The future prosperity of our nation means nothing to you if it violates your belief system.

This is not what western civilization was built on. It does not rest on the notion of the American Dream or Judeo/Christian ethics. For you the widow’s mitre of Christ’s parable means nothing. Her value is determined solely on the amount she placed in the collection plate.

I won’t bother to point out that no one becomes wealthy without the contribution of the society in which they exist or the labor of others because you don’t believe in the concept of proportion or the long history of western ethics that created it. You would say that it is the right of a man who inherited a fortune from his father to pay workers a pittance and work them to death because they can choose not to work for him and starve.

You’re wrong about Roosevelt of course, and it is only arguable if you ignore that the second deepening of the depression coincided absolutely with a decrease in the stimulus spending Roosevelt had used to jump start the economy. It also ignores the huge long term benefits to the nation of the flood control and countless other projects Roosevelt paid for. But I understand, these benefits were a negative, even though they led to the creation of greater wealth for the nation and opportunities for more men to become rich (and countless more to work and live lives of dignity) because it violated your religious/economic principles.

And of course, the same reason social security didn’t go bankrupt in 1989 is the reason the bogeyman of fewer payers than payees is such a canard. It does not count immigrants. But of course you would probably like to put a halt to immigration as well.

And what I’ve written, over and over again, is the bones of what I champion would accomplish. Your way has led to revolution, chaos and death, over and over again, all the way down the long story of our history. Feudalism is it’s direct result, as those with money and power make certain all future money and power aggregate to them, always able to set the price they pay as that the most desperate man is willing to accept. And it has invariably led, finally, the pyramid stood on its head, to the system collapsing.

Your heroine Rand, in addition, of course, to being an utter hypocrite, also failed to invent anything new in her cobbling together of Hegel and Nietzsche’s philosophies. We had this, during the Middle Ages. It is might makes right, which was replaced by the enlightenment belief in the dignity of man. You know, that silly old leach-based idea about the dignity of man.

But you’ve shown me everything I need. You believe in a philosophy that is neither American or Christian and seeks to roll back our nation, maybe even our world, to a time when children were worked to death in factories and a man could be owned for a debt unpaid.

Earlier I thought we were arguing about the best policy our nation could pursue to ensure its continued prosperity. I understand now that you are an ideologue and the welfare of our nation is not your concern. You would not have most men be leeches; you would have them be serfs.

I suspect when that time of infirmity came you, like Rand, would seek the help of others. But in the world you would create it would not be there.

Only the investment in education, technology and infrastructure can ensure the continued prosperity of our nation. Only the protection of basic human dignity, a living wage, health care and political freedom, can guarantee its continued security and cohesion. To this end all who are able should contribute to the extent that their means allow without posing onerous burden upon their continued personal prosperity, that all may continue to enjoy those rights and opportunities afforded by our free and democratic society.

There, I cobbled that together in about the time it took to type it. Best of all I didn’t crib it from the notions of a hypocritical adulteress who never read about how really, truly wonderful the 14th century was (I’d recommend Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror, if you’re interested). I bet by the time I wrote as many words as are contained in Atlas Shrugs I could do even better.

Oh wait, you did do it. Frankly, you got insulting there at the end, and I glossed right over it — long day. What you says makes perfect, crystal clear sense. It is the means to those ends where we diverge, to an incredible degree. Sorry about going off without reason.

You are clinging to a discredited economic model as a religion. You have crossed the line where a social model is a means to a desired end to one where the model is the end. At that point it became a religion to you.

And no, the philosophy of Hume, that great champion of reason, is diametrically opposed to the economic/social religion you follow. You want Kant? Well, you bet, I’m there with him, too. Otherwise we’re ants, with a nature no different than an anthill. If that is your utopia then you’re welcome to it, but I believe human nature holds something greater than that. And really, it must, or Kant and Hume (and Christ and Gandhi and on and on) would not have been capable of forming the philosophies they did. And the story of mankind would not have been the story of our struggle to create societies that equal them. And the most successful societies in the world would not have been those that came closest (although terribly far away) from realizing them. Your social religion argues against that demonstrated nature of man and calls for a return to the social structure of the lion pride, where the strongest lion always eats first and most and the weakest dies from lack of food.

As for Rand, I didn’t say anything about her that isn’t absolutely true. She was a bitter woman who championed dark ages ethics she’d cribbed from the same Germanic philosophers whose ideas formed the base on which fascism was built. She carried on a decades long affair with a much younger married man and flew into a ridiculously public rage when he ended their physical relationship. And when she grew old and infirm she turned to the very same social services she had spent her life reviling, the services of the federal government that would not have existed had her ideas triumphed.

And maybe you don’t have any serfs personally because you have failed to reach the Randian ideal but they certainly exist in the world. I’m not going to repeat all the countless examples I’ve already listed, right here in this thread, but you can read the news, and for a historical perspective on the unregulated capitalism you champion, you can read a history book.

Finally…TR did great damage. Only to the jungle you would like to live in, Tex. He was one of the five greatest presidents this nation has had the good fortune of having. His list of accomplishments, both domestic and international, helped shape the nation and ensure that it would become the great power it did.

And one last bit…if “my people” are in charge…why are they following policies much closer to the ones you champion than the ones I do?

By their fruit shall you know them. Yeah, I do prefer to Christ to Rand. But then again, that isn’t a very high bar.

Taxes are not going up. If you believe taxes have gone up since 1980 you are simply wrong. And the economic downturn that occurred during the Nixon and Carter years had very direct and demonstrable causes. I’ll be happy to enumerate them if you’d like, but that would be a long post in itself, and I rather suspect you already know them and are trying to score a pretty empty point here. And yes, I do remember the Carter years.

Funny, how a Rand lover could object to anyone droning endlessly about trains, but that is not at all what I was talking about and you know it. The Louisiana Purchase and Seward’s Folly were not paved over and developed when they were purchased, and in the scoiety you envision they would still be empty wastelands. In your inability to understand this you demonstrate my point absolutely. And in you inability to see those great things we could do, in space, in the oceans, with a truly national program to achieve energy independence which would be on a scale with Roosevelt’s Tennessee Valley Project, the Space Program of the sixties or the other Roosevelt’s digging a canal through Panama that allowed the United States to project its power around the world, you demonstrate one of the most damning failings of your economic/social faith.

And as much as you would like it to be true, maybe even as much as you would never engage in it yourself, the rick man working children to death has been the direct result of the sort of unfettered and unregulated capitalism you champion. Tell you what…give me ONE example…just one…of a nation where unfettered and unregulated capitalism has not led to the exploitation of workers on a mass scale…as a regular and sustaining feature of the economy. If you can, you’re right about my examples. If you can’t then you’re wrong. And you can’t.

Tex, either you haven’t read much history or you just ignore the parts you don’t like. Because history is full of those who died for the ideals they espoused. Not just the Thomas Moore types we know by name but countless thousands of, for instance, Christians and Moslems who during the Moorish conquest of the Iberian peninsula, the Reconquista, the crusades and the Turkish advance into Europe suffered terrible torment and died for what they believed in rather than deny their faith. You may not agree with what they believed, but really, what you said was just silly.

Another silly thing you’ve said here is that modern technology has obviated the need for terrible working conditions and child labor. Really? Because the reason American jobs have been sent to the third world is because workers there can be made to work in dangerous, torturous conditions for starvation wages. You might want to…uhh…read something. There’s your unfettered, unregulated capitalism. Like everything else I’ve told you these aren’t guesses or how I wish the world worked. These are observable facts.

I realize you have to ignore them, because for you your Randian philosophy is now faith based, so like any religious fundamentalist anything that would do harm to your belief system must be ignored or discounted. I feel sorry for you about that, but then again, a great many people live out happy lives by choosing something to believe in and never allowing any information to change their world view. There are still people who believe the earth is flat.

Your third silly statement has to do with the great government actions I pointed to. You know why Seward’s Folly was called Seward’s Folly, right? Because it was regarded, by your ideological fore-bearers, to be an enormous waste of tax money for a frozen wasteland. They could think of no way it could be made profitable in the short term. And one of the great and repeatedly demonstrated failings of unfettered, unregulated capitalism is the inability to accept short term losses in the pursuit of long-term sustainability. If you want to argue this point I will be happy to provide however many concrete examples you would like but this will be long enough already.

The fourth silly thing you said is that none of those great projects ahead have a concrete policy attached to them. Yeah, I noticed that you left energy independence off that list, but of course you would, you’re arguing from faith. But what was the concrete short term gain from Seward’s Folly? The people like you who so bitterly contested it then didn’t see it. And that is precisely the sort of short-sighted thinking your way leads to.
Yeah, hope that five dollars in your pocket feels good. Hope you like that extra Slushy and package of Ding-Dongs. Alaska and all her natural resources still belong to Russia? Hey, at least the gub’mint didn’t take your money.

And okay, you’ve brought up Mao and Stalin so many times now, I don’t like doing this sort of thing but I will. What is the difference between your leeches and the phrase “useless eaters”? Huh? Because whereas the policies I champion have nothing in common with those of Mao and Stalin and everything in common with those leaders who built a strong America, your philosophy was stolen by Rand from the same philosophers whose teachings fueled Adolph Hitler.

And if there is a difference between your leeches and Uncle Adolph’s useless eaters I would like you to explain it to me. In detail. And if there is a difference between Ubermensch and Wealth Creators you can explain that to me at the same time.

The difference between what you’ve been doing and what I’ve just done is that you’ve in no way connected anything I have actually said to Stalin or Mao. What I’ve put above is what you call them…concrete examples.

And by the way, the depredations of unregulated capitalism haven’t caused deaths on a grand and glorious scale? Ummm…the slave trade, the diamond trade, the private wars fought in Central America during the nineteenth century, not to mention uncounted individual disasters like Bhopal, The Triangle Fire and countless others and not even beginning to count the number of national wars fought to advance the interests of powerful business interests in one or more of the combatant nations. Geezy-creezy…are you just throwing up anything now, hoping something will stick?

All right, next silly thing…all those great things WERE done by government. None of them were done by private industry. Because they offered no immediate profit and great initial expense. Because they required a vision for the future that was not coupled with short term earnings. We live in a nation where over the last thirty years countless commercial enterprises that were viable in the long term were cannibalized because they offered more immediate profit if sold off for their parts. Did those men have the right to do this, once they had bought these companies? Of course they did. Is it a prescription for the long term welfare of the society in which they exist? No, it is not.

Then there’s a lot of blather…and I can understand why you’re angry, I’ve been presenting observable facts and you’re stuck with repeating the tenets of your faith…about how I’m always saying the great thing is over the next hill and how just a little more money is what I need…but everything I’ve pointed out is what policies our young Republic followed to become the most powerful nation on the planet and advocate a return to those guiding principles. I’m sorry that bothers you so, but no attempt by you to recast it in any other light would make sense to any person reading what we both have written.

And finally…you clearly have some problem with the academic world. Let me tell you about a professor I had. In many ways he was a great and admirable man. He built one of the largest oral archives in the world on the history of the great depression. He believed absolutely that FDR was a conman and that he followed the policies he did only out of fear for his class. That FDR looked at Russia and saw the coming wave and so allowed only the mildest reforms in our capitalist society so that he could protect the powerful and monied from revolution. That he was, in every way a stooge of his class, offering only distractions to keep the American proletariat in its harness.

I told him that what he saw as trickery and betrayal I saw as genius. Because FDR saw the horrors inherent in the extremist philosophies World War One and the subsequent economic crisis had unleashed in Europe and he determined a path that would avoid that horror, better the lives of all Americans and create an example all the world could follow.

There are times I feel as though I’ve spent my whole life arguing with extremist ideologues. And now I’ve argued with you. You’re welcome to keep that fiver in your pocket, Tex. Maybe this nation’s had its last grand Folly, at least if we’re producing citizens with no knowledge or understanding of history, economics or critical thinking. You value your Slushie and Ding-Dongs more, and Rand bless you for it.

Oh, and Tex…you’ve asked me to answer questions and give concrete examples and I have, I even came up with a statement of principle to answer Rand’s. (and really, you’ve never heard of the Cathars…Savonarola…any of the millions who have chosen torture and death before compromising their beliefs? I mean really, as soon as Rand got sick and ran low on cash she threw over all her principles and became a useless eater…sorry, leech).

I’ve asked you to give me concrete examples, actual observable fact, to support any of your claims and in not one case, to this point, have you done so. You have changed the subject, dropped the matter entirely or tried to add a caveat (like the silly technology thing in your last post) in every single case.

This fact is not lost on me.