Voicing Tepid Support for Ron Paul Is Apparently the Craziest Thing Ann Coulter Has Ever Said

Mike Riggs | 12.20.2011 3:05 PM

The night Georgia executed Troy Davis, conservative commentator and doyenne of Pulaski Ann Coulter tweeted, "ONE TROY DAVIS FLAME-BROILED, PLEASE." Followed by, "HOLD THE PICKLE, HOLD THE LETTUCE. FRYING KILLERS WON'T UPSET US."

In a column that was widely circulated by conservatives, Coulter argued that Davis had become a "baby seal" for the "media," and that "there is more credible evidence that space aliens have walked among us than that an innocent person has been executed in this country in the past 60 years, much less the past five years."

Davis, who allegedly shot and killed a police officer in 1989, appealed his sentence after seven of 34 eyewitnesses recanted their testimonies.

If conservatives thought Coulter's Davis column or her gleefully cheering the extinguishing of a human life were "crazy," they didn't say anything. Nor did they say anything when Coulter defended the openly white-supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens (formerly the White Citizens Council) or suggested that Justice John Paul Stevens should be assassinated, because those things are apparently hilarious and not crazy.

No, "crazy," according to a corner of the conservative interwebs, is Coulter endorsing Ron Paul over bloated-megalomaniac-turned-bloated-lobbyist-turned-bloated-megalomaniac Newt Gingrich:

According to the Right Scoop, "This anti-Newt sentiment has caused the crazy to come out even in Ann Coulter, who says that she'd prefer a President Paul over a President Gingrich." Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit: "What happened? I leave the country for a week, and Ann Coulter loses her mind!" One conservative radio host (and Palin supporter) who saw the clip concluded, "Dingbat hag media whore. youre [sic] over. Youre [sic] voice will no longer be heard."

What does it say about "conservatives" that they stood by Coulter's side when she was engaged in outrageous race-baiting, but have ditched her for supporting the only small-government candidate running for president?

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Citizen Nothing 13 years ago

What does it say about "conservatives"

?
What we knew all along?
1. The Other Kevin 13 years ago
  
  "Small Government" = "Less Democrat"
  1. really? 13 years ago
    
    It's not about left vs right anymore, it's about libertarian vs authoritarian.
    
    Pick your side; http://prowlingowlpolitiks.fil....._25per.png
2. o3 13 years ago
  
  "there is more credible evidence that space aliens have walked among us than that an innocent person has been executed in this country in the past 60 years, much less the past five years."
  
  _
  
  coulter's unaware of project innocence. its VERY likely innocent people have been executed since executions were resumed. it's VERY troubling & strikes at the heart of our judicial system.
  
  >one example - Michael Morton is Officially Exonerated. Michael Morton will be officially exonerated of the 1987 murder of his wife on Monday, December 19th. Morton spent 25 years in prison and was released in October of this year.
  http://www.innocenceproject.org/
  1. chris 13 years ago
    
    Amen to that. I hope Reason wont take it personally that my excess capital went to the Innocence Project and not to their office crack parties. Wished I could afford both, but not this yeat.
    1. Clich? Bandit 13 years ago
      
      are yeats like baktuns?
Guest1776 13 years ago

I was just over at the Washing Times site checking to see if anyone responded to the following post I posted over there only to find it was deleted and I have been banned from posting. HMMMMM!

Didn't the times endorse Romney? Why are they stomping on speech rights like lefties and ChiComs do? Pathetic!

Here's what I posted in the comments section of a piece about Newt.

Why wouldn't the establishment want Newt?

I say study his agenda very carefully and there has to be something they don't want because they know Newt can rally a majority of Americans behind him, twist arms as President and get things done unlike Obama he knows the in and outs. There has to be something Newt wants the establishment from BOTH SIDES doesn't.
Real reform?

As long as the conservative base behaves predictably they will have the MSM choosing their candidates for them by way of their predictable behavior.

If conservatives really want to see liberal heads explode within the MSM then nominate Newt and enjoy the show as the talking heads explode and demand conservatives play by their rules and behave predictably.

What the WT did speaks volumes about the GOP DC establishment insiders.

Here's the link I posted that at:

Negative ads taking toll on Gingrich
http://www.washingtontimes.com.....-gingrich/

Wake up folks! The establishment types at the WT are now behaving like ChiComs in support of their guy Romney.
1. Spoonman. 13 years ago
  
  Wait, you're a Gingrich supporter?
  
  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
  1. Guest1776 13 years ago
    
    Yep! I believe we should "churchill" Newt to defeat Obammunism an dhelp get us back on track to fiscal sanity then toss him after one term with great adulation for doing so.
    
    Just think if it worled out that way Rand Paul could be running for President in 2016 as the GOP holds primaries alongside the Dems. Win/win for everyone except Obama.
    1. Spoonman. 13 years ago
      
      whatthefuckamireading.jpg
    2. BrooklynChick 13 years ago
      
      Are you drunk?
    3. Clich? Bandit 13 years ago
      
      Almainian!!!! I am on to you.
    4. Uncle Joe 13 years ago
      
      I think your friends pranked you when they sent you over here with that pro-Gingrich nonsense.
      1. Guest1776 13 years ago
        
        Nobody sent me over here I've been posting with you stupid fucks for several years. 😉
        
        I figured libertarians would love the opportunity to pole DC in the eye because its quite clear both parties and the MSM are united against Newt. And Newt has that whole ,i>"these fucks added 10 trillion to the debt after chasing me out" line going for him that could bring a wave of "throw all the bums out" along with him.
        
        But just like the past decade you libertarians are just like Palestinians and never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Perhaps when you start strapping bombs to your chest people will pay attention to you.
        
        Libertymike 13 years ago
        
        Do you think the country wants to pay attention to a life long parasite who believes in, and took money from, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?
        
        Guest1776 13 years ago
        
        Yeah 1,600,000 over 8 years vs 10,000,000,000,000 in 12 years.
        
        Are you stoned or just stupid?
        
        Clich? Bandit 13 years ago
        
        Ohh, this is good. I hope you are real and not Almainian since we need some good old fashioned self deluded posters around here...I miss Joe and Lonewacko.
        sad face
        
        Ben 13 years ago
        
        I like how he uses the "anti-establishment" argument to SUPPORT Gingrich, the biggest establishment shill of all. Have fun waving the flag for your RINO FDR-wannabe.
        
        Guest1776 13 years ago
        
        Yeah, I can tell. The establishment is just gushing with love for Newt. Are you really that stupid? You seriously think the fucks that chased him out are pining for him to come back?
        
        newshutz 13 years ago
        
        Why did Napoleon got rid of Snowball?
        
        It's not about a difference in policy.
    5. Uncle Joe 13 years ago
      
      I think your friends pranked you when they sent you over here with that pro-Gingrich nonsense.
2. Montani Semper Liberi 13 years ago
  
  Newt Gingrich..real reform?
  
  OK, I see why they banned your account. They probably have something in their terms of service agreement about not letting clinically insane people post.
  1. Guest1776 13 years ago
    
    Newt is the closest thjing we've had to a fiscally responsible speaker in 40 years. Have you seen the debt they've piled up since chasing him out?
    
    Tick Tock
    http://www.usdebtclock.org/index.html
    1. Old Mexican 13 years ago
      
      Re: Guest1776,
      
      Newt is the closest thjing we've had to a fiscally responsible speaker in 40 years.
      
      I would rather have a fiscally responsible DOER than a SPEAKER, because that is the only good thing Newt is for: to speak.
      1. Guest1776 13 years ago
        
        How long has it been since we had anything even resembling a balanced budget? And the DC establishment which chased Newt out ran up 10 trillion in his absence and it looks like they certainly don't want him back and are pushing the non reformer status quo guy Mittens.
        
        fish 13 years ago
        
        I'd rather TEAM BLUE wears the next 4 years! Don't bring out these bloated retreads to try and entice me to vote TEAM RED.
        
        Guest1776 13 years ago
        
        Oddly enough he's good enough for your Libertarian pal Bob Barr.
        
        Mr. FIFY 13 years ago
        
        WE had nothing to do with Barr getting the nomination, asshole.
        
        Old Mexican 13 years ago
        
        Re: Guest1776,
        
        How long has it been since we had anything even resembling a balanced budget?
        
        "Resembling" is the operative word here, because accounting tricks do not bend reality... Or "balance" a budget.
        
        Guest1776 13 years ago
        
        What was it 1958 or so for the last actual balanced budget? Which speaker since has been close besides Gingrich?
        
        sloopyinca 13 years ago
        
        And **whoooooooosh** go the goalposts.
        
        Guest1776 13 years ago
        
        Its no fucking wonder Libertarians have made no gains in the political arena. You're too fucking stupid to see the writing on the wall.
        
        I mean seriously how many Libertarian Party candidates have you people put in office in the fucking political environment begging for it the last decade. Stupid is as stupid doesn't accomplish when the times were ripe. Shame!
        
        sloopyinca 13 years ago
        
        We've made limited gains in the political arena because we hold true to our principles rather than sell our souls to merely win elections.
        
        Oh, and we're too busy making a living for ourselves to worry about running the lives of everybody else. It sorta fits in with the whole nonaggression principle.
        
        Scruffy Nerfherder 13 years ago
        
        Trollin, trollin, trollin', keep those comments rollin'
        
        Guest1776 13 years ago
        
        Balk balk balk is the sound a chicken makes.
        
        Guest1776 13 years ago
        
        Then why bother? Do you feel smart wisecracking as the country crumbles around you? You don't have children whose future you give a fuck about. You sound just like the far right wing purist.
        
        Myself I'm someheere in between you fucks and the warmongering religious right so I don't know what'd you consider me but I do answer to asshole but you wouldn't be the first to call me it. 🙂
        
        Bender 13 years ago
        
        Its no fucking wonder Libertarians have made no gains in the political arena. You're too fucking stupid to see the writing on the wall.
        
        Ha ha ha ha ha.
        
        Oh, wait, you're serious. Let me laugh even harder.
        
        HA HA HA HA HA.
        
        Guest1776 13 years ago
        
        What are you trying to say? Are you taking credit for the TP getting Rand Paul elected?
        
        Mr. Soul 13 years ago
        
        That's all you get Jerks!
        
        Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
        
        Oh. Now I get it. My bad, SF.
      2. Guest1776 13 years ago
        
        And what exactly have you done Old Mex?
        Sit around and bitch because there's no one pure enough to earn your vote?
    2. tarran 13 years ago
      
      Here we see the danger of stupid, energetic men like Newt:
      
      People confuse the energy for intelligence.
    3. ALAN CLIFTON 13 years ago
      
      Let's see. Newt was forced out as Speaker on ethics charges. 1.6 million from Freddie Mac, (paid for by me and all other taxpayers). He tried to sell us on cap and trade, single payer health care which netted his "consulting" company 36 million from the drug company lobbyist. Yeah, he's a very principled player. I heard a quote once that said, "Newt is what dumb people think smart people sound like.
3. PaulR 13 years ago
  
  "....long as the conservative base behaves predictably..."
  
  Umm, voting for Newt would be predictable. Just as voting for McCain was predictable.
  
  In the end, conservatives will vote for Romney. They trust the hair and the teeth and the sheen of Imperialism.
  
  There it goes.....yep, that was my last little bit of "conservatism" rocketing into outer space. Whew. I feel better.
  1. Guest1776 13 years ago
    
    Not quite. The establishment didn't believe Newt had a shot but you've seen the brutal onslaught since his rise. There's a reason they don't want Gingrich and I'd say it isn't because they think he's one of them. In fact he might even hold a grudge. 😉
    1. PaulR 13 years ago
      
      Why wouldn't conservatives want Gingrich? In the past couple of months he has clearly stated that he is a Real Conservative with a bonafide conservative ideology- this always seems to work for other conservative candidates.
      
      Bland, Slippery Conservative Candidate: "I am a conservative. I have uh, values. Abortion. Uh, terrorism. Gays??"
      
      Pavlovian Conservative Voter: "Hmmm. He's a former drag queen who was the head of the Czech Secret Police. But....people change, and he did just say he's a conservative. Oh hell, I'm sold!"
      1. Pips 13 years ago
        
        My team is the BEST.
      2. Guest1776 13 years ago
        
        Libertarian Bob Barr disagrees. 😉
        
        sloopyinca 13 years ago
        
        Libertarian Bob Barr has nothing to do with us, asshole.
        
        Guest1776 13 years ago
        
        I know apparently he's not as dumb as you, dickfore! 🙂
        
        Libertymike 13 years ago
        
        He's a career statist - it was only his desire for attention and adulation which propelled his cynical and phony foray into Libertarian party politics.
        
        One who is a genuine libertarian would never support a statist stiff like Newt.
        
        Besides, your triple-chinned charmer sucks the scrotum of the claremont institute.
4. Joe M 13 years ago
  
  There has to be something Newt wants the establishment from BOTH SIDES doesn't.
  
  Hey, you're stealing Ron Paul's schtick!
5. Apatheist 13 years ago
  
  Didn't the times endorse Romney? Why are they stomping on speech rights like lefties and ChiComs do? Pathetic!
  
  Please, please, please go learn the meaning of the First Amendment.
6. chris 13 years ago
  
  They banned you over that? Are you sure you didn't pass along some spam? Nobody this side of feministing is that overly sensitive.
  1. Guest1776 13 years ago
    
    No spam! That's it.
7. Loki 13 years ago
  
  Look Newt, you're not fooling anyone...
Tman 13 years ago

Hooray. Coulter has endorsed the rEVOLution.

We're saved.
1. Guest1776 13 years ago
  
  Rumor has it Coulter lost her brain in NJ somewhere. She's just trying to divide and conquer. Coulter if anything is far more neo-con than she is fiscal sanity. Don't let her comments fool you her guy is Mittens.
  1. Bee Tagger 13 years ago
    
    Oh, cool. You're quoting yourself:
    http://www.therightscoop.com/a.....-390736195
    1. Guest1776 13 years ago
      
      Wouldn't quoting myself look more like:
      
      "Rumor has it Coulter lost her brain in NJ somewhere." -Guest1776
      
      You are stupid aren't you? No wonder your a teabagee you're just not on top of the situation. 😉
Guest1776 13 years ago

The GOP is pushing the "anybody but Obama" meme so they can force Romney.

I would just remind you all that the "anybody but Clinton" meme is what gave us Obama. 😮
1. Apatheist 13 years ago
  
  Perfect analogy. Clinton would have been sickening too just as Gingrich would be.
  1. Guest1776 13 years ago
    
    What's the matter Apthiest, did Newt fuck your girlfriend? LMAO!
2. Mr. Soul 13 years ago
  
  you make a good point. As a GOPer, Im tired of people talking about "winning". Its about "governing". Send up a Congress that cuts spending and spending will be cut. All we need from a pres is a self interested flip-flopper who will sign what Congress sends him, who in tern should send him budget cuts.
Liberty 13 years ago

... every now and then, as a liberal, I worry a little that a few of our... let's say, less educated left-leaning folks would actually be encouraged to vote libertarian.

All it takes a few Reason articles to set them straight. I can add to this the last.

Thanks guys!
Great work.

P.S. Do you run that Hinkle guy only on Tuesdays? He helps a lot, too.
1. Apatheist 13 years ago
  
  barf
2. chris 13 years ago
  
  What do you call an informed liberal? An ex-liberal.
Citizen Nothing 13 years ago

Perhaps the Paulites, Paultards et al will soon realize that they are not conservative, at least as "conservative" is currently defined. Seems like they're the last to know.
1. robc 13 years ago
  
  Neocons are not conservative. Paul is.
  1. Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
    
    I think you just made my point.
    1. robc 13 years ago
      
      Nope. No conservative defines trotskyites as conservative and neocons are trotskyites. QED.
      
      There arent that many neocons. They just have way too much power for their numbers.
    2. sarcasmic 13 years ago
      
      Another tenant of conservatism is World Police Team USA.
      
      Paul is not a conservative.
  2. sarcasmic 13 years ago
    
    One tenant of conservatism is legislated morality. Gays, drugs, abortion, etc.
    Paul is not a conservative.
    1. Pips 13 years ago
      
      However, the view of "leave it to the states" is no better. Allow it to happen anywhere in the chain of government is a nono.
      1. chris 13 years ago
        
        Riiiigghhht. Because leaving Californians to decide their drug laws, and Massachusetts to decide their marriage laws is not an improvement.
        
        Zeb 13 years ago
        
        It is an improvement in some ways, but locking people up in cages for no good reason is still completely fucked even people who live closer to you voted for it.
        
        Loki 13 years ago
        
        If a state government inacts fucked up laws at least you can vote with your feet and move to another state. If the federal government passes fucked up laws, where are you go? Canada? Mexico? Seasteading?
        
        Guest1776 13 years ago
        
        I believe that's exactly how the system was intended to work.
        
        Toasted 13 years ago
        
        We are a Constitutional Republic. Whatever your ideology that is how the country is structured.
Citizen Nothing 13 years ago

Since this is a Coulter thread, we definitely need sarcasmic here talking about why a Y can never be an X.
1. Joe M 13 years ago
  
  Double zing!
2. sarcasmic 13 years ago
  
  Being that she was born female and still identifies as one, I don't know what you're talking about.
  1. R C Dean 13 years ago
    
    You've seen the birth certificate, then?
    1. Old Man With Candy 13 years ago
      
      I've seen the genitals. Hack job by the surgeon. Vaguely resembles a vulva, but only vaguely.
  2. goober1223 13 years ago
    
    I did the Adam's apple check. "She" failed.
Joe M 13 years ago

What does it say about "conservatives" that they stood by Coulter's side when she was engaged in outrageous race-baiting, but have ditched her for supporting the only small-government candidate running for president?

About the same thing as everything else they do says: they're a bunch of team red assholes.
1. robc 13 years ago
  
  That doesnt make sense during a primary.
  1. Joe M 13 years ago
    
    About the same thing as everything else they do says: they're a bunch of team red assholes.
    
    Fixed.
    1. Citizen Walter 13 years ago
      
      Also, Dude, 'asshole' is not the preferred nomenclature. Anus-American, please.
2. Guest1776 13 years ago
  
  Team red/team blue what the fuck does that make you? Team yellow? As in cowardly. 😉
PaulR 13 years ago

Another example of the intense love conservatives have for our Imperialistic Foreign Policy. You can be the mostest conservative there ever was, but if you refuse to invade and and bomb other countries then you are the devil incarnate. It's sickening.

I think Coulter is just a bit frustrated and not very serious. She luvs war too.
1. Umbriel 13 years ago
  
  They, and she, love beating up on "bad guys", but I think the lack of public support from our "allies" has led all of them to appreciate the idea of taking our ball and going home, and then seeing how things go.
  
  They'd turn on Paul in an instant if, as President, there was a terrorist incident that he didn't retaliate indiscriminately against, but I really don't believe even the most warlike Republicans could bring themselves to endorse or vote for Obama over Paul.
  1. robc 13 years ago
    
    I dont think there would be any problem with him retaliating. He favored war in Afghanistan. He wanted letter or marque and reprisal issued against key Al Quada leaders.
  2. Montani Semper Liberi 13 years ago
    
    If there was a terrorist incident, Paul would retaliate. He voted to invade Afghanistan after all. However, we would go in, take out the people responsible and leave. None of this decade long nation building we have now or invading countries not even related to the terrorist attack.
    1. Cytotoxic 13 years ago
      
      But when Iran kills Americans or tries to, he ignores it.
      1. Fluffy 13 years ago
        
        I think you mean, "When second-hand proxies of Iran attempt to kill Israelis, he ignores it - since he's not running for President of Israel, and since if you added up every killing you can ascribe to a second-hand proxy of ours, just about every country in the world is entitled to kill lots of Americans."
        
        Heroic Mulatto 13 years ago
        
        Seriously though, even if America throws Israel to the wolves, do you ever think Iran is going to give up on their frothing-at-the-mouth hatred for the "Great Satan"?
        
        Montani Semper Liberi 13 years ago
        
        As long as it's just frothing-at-the-mouth hatred and not flying-planes-into-buildings hatred, I don't really care. No matter how hard you try, you'll never get everyone to like you.
        
        Heroic Mulatto 13 years ago
        
        As long as it's just frothing-at-the-mouth hatred and not flying-planes-into-buildings hatred, I don't really care. No matter how hard you try, you'll never get everyone to like you.
        
        Sure, so if they're not going to change, why should we?
        
        tarran 13 years ago
        
        If the U.S. government stopped waging war on the Iranian people for one generation, the two governments would probably be allies again like they were prior to 1953 when the U.S. govt started waging an escalating war against them.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        We are fighting a proxy war against Iran. That sucks but it beats a direct war.
        
        You can't have it both ways Fluffy. You can't say on the one hand the US is wrong for killing Iranians but then say it is okay for Iranians to kill Americans. It is a proxy war. And that is how those things work. I don't blame the Iranian mullahs for defending themselves. But so what? Yeah, it is in our interests for them to die and another government to take over in Iran. And it is in their interests for them to live and to make as much trouble as possible for the US.
        
        PaulR 13 years ago
        
        Having no love for Iran, I have to ask the question of why on earth Iran has no luv for 'Merica?? Because We're Free? Apple Pie? Jebus?
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        Iran actually has less love for a lot of places than America. They hate pretty much the entire Arab world.
        
        Some people are just assholes. They hate us for our freedom. They hate us because that is what they do. It suits their purposes. And no amount of crying and begging on our part is going to change that.
        
        I swear some libertarians are nothing but self hating liberals who once got a tax bill.
        
        Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
        
        They hate us because that is what they do
        
        Brilliant!
        
        Tulpa 13 years ago
        
        Some people are just assholes. They hate us for our freedom. They hate us because that is what they do. It suits their purposes. And no amount of crying and begging on our part is going to change that.
        
        It will be a lot easier to deal with the tiny number of people who truly hate us for what we are when we stop giving the vast majority of the Muslim world reason to hate us for what we do.
        
        Getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan and not getting into Iran is in America's best interest, regardless of what Iran chooses to think. It's not begging and it's not crying.
        
        Fluffy 13 years ago
        
        They hate us for our freedom.
        
        Iran is closer to us politically and culturally than Saudi Arabia, even now.
        
        But we somehow manage to get along with the Saudis.
        
        Because the Saudis obey.
        
        And we could have gotten along with the mullahs, too. If the Shah died 18 months earlier, or if Carter had run up to the revolutionary government waving a checkbook in one hand and strewing spare military parts with the other hand before the situation got out of hand, our relations with Iran today would not be that much different than our relations with the Saudis.
        
        Fluffy 13 years ago
        
        Sorry. That's a lot of hands.
        
        PaulR 13 years ago
        
        Yup. They just woke up one morning with a burning hatred of New Zealand and a small rocky islet in the Atlantic. This is why they are continually threatening these two countries. They also hate the Swiss (Who doesn't??)
        
        Tulpa 13 years ago
        
        American exceptionalism. Or something.
        
        It's pretty laughable to compare the deaths of innocent civilian foreigners and the deaths of American soldiers, but that's neocon logic for you.
        
        R C Dean 13 years ago
        
        Having no love for Iran, I have to ask the question of why on earth Iran has no luv for 'Merica??
        
        We were tight with the Shah.
        
        tarran 13 years ago
        
        The Iranian people, being persians, are culturally inclined to be allied with the U.S.
        
        The problem is that a significant faction of anglophiles in the CIA and the State department decided to intervene on behalf of England when the Iranians got fed up with the accounting fraud being engaged in by the Anglo-Iranian oil company and booted the English out.
        
        That intervention involved setting up a brutal dictatorship that used kidnapping, torture, murder and other forms of terror to maintain its power. The US funded, trained and assisted the secret police, initially to maintain the oil concession, but eventually with the added bonus of having a strategic ally bordered the Soviet Union.
        
        Then when a bunch of Islamists hijacked a broad rebellion against the U.S. backed dictator, the U.S. government encouraged a neighboring dictator (who had been kissing up to the Soviets) who wanted to invade Iran in order to shore up his own internal power with military and financial aid.
        
        My Iranian acquaintances, generally academics who fled the rule of the Shah, can't figure out why the U.S. government so hates Iranians that it keeps going after them.
        
        Perversely, the U.S. antagonism helps keep the Islamists in power, since it provides a convenient external threat to cite for all the austerity and repression.
        
        tarran 13 years ago
        
        I shouldn't say "can't figure out why" so much as "express baffled wonderment that"
        
        Tulpa 13 years ago
        
        And at this point, any scaling back of pressure on Iran will be viewed as a betrayal of Israel, too. We've really painted ourselves into a corner, in foreign policy as in everything else.
        
        PaulR 13 years ago
        
        Shut up! Facts don't belong here!
        
        The factual history of Iran-US relations is to conservatives what high pitched noise is to a wookie, ie Cloud City.
        
        Tulpa 13 years ago
        
        You mean it inspires them to fix their droids?
        
        PaulR 13 years ago
        
        No, the wailing with the hands covering the ears part.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        The average Iranian does like the US. But so what. I am sure the average German didn't have much of a problem with us during World War II. It is what their leaders think that matters.
        
        If the Iranian people are so pro US, great. Then I would strongly suggest they do something about their government that seems intent on antagonizing us and the rest of the world.
        
        Tulpa 13 years ago
        
        American exceptionalism again!
        
        American civilians (and apparently even American soldiers) are not proper targets for grievances against the US govt, despite the fact that we have a democratic system of representation.
        
        However, Iranian civilians, who have no meaningful democratic methods for changing their govt, are strictly responsible for their government's actions and beliefs under pain of fiery death from above.
        
        tarran 13 years ago
        
        Then I would strongly suggest they do something about their government that seems intent on antagonizing us and the rest of the world.
        
        Since the U.S. government keeps undermining their political factions, they really don't have much of a chance, do they?
        
        If the U.S. was serious about regime change, they would lift the fucking sanctions, restart the 2003 negotiations, and an increasingly wealthy middle-class who stopped seeing Americans as an implacable enemy, the government as the sole source of livelihood will have the means, the time, and the motivation to kick the Islamists out (unless the Islamists temper their rule in response to public pressure).
        
        But, no. Iran is a convenient bogeyman for the U.S. government.
        
        EDG reppin' LBC 13 years ago
        
        I have some friends that live in Iran and they are not frothing anti-Americans. They fled the Ayatollah, were raised in the Midwest, are college educated in the US and moved back to Iran because they got good jobs. I truly hope we don't try to pick a war with Iran.
        
        T 13 years ago
        
        Tebow?
        
        Tulpa 13 years ago
        
        It would be a lot harder for Iran to kill Americans if we didn't place tens of thousands of them in military uniforms carrying military weapons pursuing military objectives in neighboring countries.
        
        Gray Ghost 13 years ago
        
        It would be a lot harder for Iran to kill Americans if we didn't place tens of thousands of them in military uniforms carrying military weapons pursuing military objectives in neighboring countries.
        
        We have a winner. (Albeit Iran was never shy about sponsoring worldwide terror groups since the early 80s.)
        
        Though the U.S. will always have military personnel near Iran, simply due to the need of keeping Hormuz open. I have a lot less problem with the USN sailing all over the place, than I do with the US Army being stationed in 8 gazillion different countries, guaranteeing the safety of Uganda, Georgia, etc...
        
        califronian 13 years ago
        
        Which americans have the iranians killed again?
        
        Fluffy 13 years ago
        
        You can't say on the one hand the US is wrong for killing Iranians but then say it is okay for Iranians to kill Americans.
        
        I'm not.
        
        I'm saying if Iran gives money to Hezbollah, and Hezbollah gives money to some Lebanese militia, and that Lebanese militia shoots a rocket at Israel, that is really nothing at all like "Iran killing Americans".
        
        And if giving political or financial support to groups in Iraq that fought insurgencies against the US occupation constitutes "Iran killing Americans", then we better also start bombing ourselves, because NOBODY gave more money to groups in Iraq responsible for killing Americans than we did. Nobody.
        
        Yeah, it is in our interests for them to die and another government to take over in Iran.
        
        Not really. If we could launch a perfect decapitation attack against the government of Iran, whatever government replaced them would still be "hostile" to the US, as we define it. Because in the Middle East we define any state that is not our subject or client as "hostile".
        
        There are only two ways to have a client state in Iran again:
        
        1. Occupy and "nation-build" it so we can handpick the next government and/or set up a strongman.
        
        2. Tell the mullahs that bygones are now bygones.
        
        Those are the two choices.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        2. Tell the mullahs that bygones are now bygones.
        
        That is so stupid it is funny. Get it through your head. The country was taken over by religious nuts bent on spreading their brand of Islamic revolution world wide. That is who they are. They are never going to let bygones by bygones. They hate our guts. And they don't hate us for the Shah. They hate us for not being their particular crazy brand of Muslim. They hate the Suni Muslims just as much or more than they hate us.
        
        God. Why are you so comically naive and stupid about this?
        
        tarran 13 years ago
        
        That is so stupid it is funny. Get it through your head. The country was taken over by religious nuts bent on spreading their brand of Islamic revolution world wide. That is who they are. They are never going to let bygones by bygones. They hate our guts. And they don't hate us for the Shah.
        
        Wow, John. Whom should I believe: you, or the Iranian refugees I've known in the past few years?
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        I believe the Iranian leaders who say exactly that. I am sure the refugees love us. It would be nice if they were in charge over there. But they are not.
        
        How many times do these people have to tell the world what they plan to do before you believe them?
        
        tarran 13 years ago
        
        John, there are leaders in the U.S. who call themselves "Christian Dominionists" who have simmilar designs.
        
        Now, why do you the dominionists lack political power while their analouges in Iran have political power.
        
        Is it
        a) Americans are not very warlike.
        b) Americans hate Christianity
        c) The Dominionists dire warning of internal and external enemies gain no traction with the populace who consequently view them as bufoons?
        
        The Iranian belligerence against the U.S. is very much
        a) a reaction to U.S. policy
        b) a way of getting popular support from a populance whose experiences with the U.S. government have been uniformly negative.
        
        My prediction is that if the U.S. restarted the 2003 negotiations with the Iranians that Bush Jr scuppered, that within a generation, the mullahs bitching about the Great Satan would have less support than the homophobic wing of the Christian Right here.
        
        If the U.S. keeps escalating, though... well, the Ottomans could hold Iraq. They couldn't hold Persia. Caveat victor.
        
        The pathetic thing is that the Iranian government and the U.S. have a common enemy in Al Queda. Yet another fumble by the stunningly incompetent Bush Jr foreign policy team.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        Terran,
        
        If a Christian crazy who said that the US was going to rule the world and he planed to us the US military to do it became dictator of this country, the rest of the country should be very worried.
        
        That is what happened in Iran. And yeah, their neighbors and the rest of the world should be worried.
        
        There is no arguing with you people. You just refuse to accept the fact that some people really don't want to negotiate or be reasonable. It is an article of faith with you people.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        And Terran if you think the US is even 1/100th as religious as Iran, you know nothing about either country.
        
        PaulR 13 years ago
        
        "How many times do these people have to tell the world what they plan to do before you believe them?"
        
        Oh, we believe that. We just refuse to believe them when they tell us why. Like Osama.
        
        Fluffy 13 years ago
        
        Dude, it's bad enough that you absolutely refuse to learn anything about US-Iran history before 1978.
        
        Now you can't even be bothered to remember 78 or 79.
        
        The US would have rapidly normalized relations with the new regime if we had given them back the Shah and let them chop off his worthless mass-murdering head.
        
        An offer of the Shah's head on a fucking plate, along with the status quo ante on arms sales and oil, would have established friendly relations between the Khomeini regime and the US.
        
        Sometimes I forget that you really believe all this "dhimmitude" nonsense.
        
        R C Dean 13 years ago
        
        I think you mean, "When second-hand proxies of Iran attempt to kill Israelis, he ignores it
        
        Iran has been arming and training people killing actual American soldiers. I have seen reports that real live (well, temporarily) Iranians from the Quds organization have been directly involved in thee attacks.
        
        I don't think there's much question, actually, that a state of war exists with Iran. We just don't formally acknowledge it.
        
        Tulpa 13 years ago
        
        Heaven forfend! Killing soldiers? That's a war crime!
        
        PaulR 13 years ago
        
        Imagine how hard it would be for Iranian-trained agents to attack 'Merican soldiers if they were mostly stationed on 'Merican soil.
        
        Naive, I know. If we weren't over there I am sure the Terrorists would be storming Virginia Beach while Iran would be taking New Orleans. We must take the fight to them, gentlemen!
        
        Tulpa 13 years ago
        
        I'm just floored by the neocon belief that it's perfectly OK for us to kill anyone who appears the least bit threatening in any country on the globe, but it's an act of war for Iran to strike at military personnel from a hostile country that invaded two of its neighbors.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        It is an act of war both ways. We are waging a proxy war against Iran. They have been waging a proxy war against us since 1979.
        
        MJ 13 years ago
        
        "...but it's an act of war for Iran to strike at military personnel from a hostile country that invaded two of its neighbors."
        
        Actually, that is a good example of an act of war.
        
        Since when is Obama a neocon?
        
        Tulpa 13 years ago
        
        Wait a minute. Killing citizens of another country means you're in a state of war with that country?
        
        I guess we're at war with Yemen, Pakistan, and the new govt of Libya, too.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        If we are bombing those places without the permission of their governments, yes Tulpa we are at war with them.
        
        Tulpa 13 years ago
        
        None of those places have given us official permission to kill their citizens, and Iraq was hardly sovereign when the Iranian troubles began.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        Iraq has been sovereign since June of 2004. And you may have missed it, but they have been having elections there for about seven years now.
        
        Tulpa 13 years ago
        
        A country with tens of thousands of foreign troops milling around inside its borders is not sovereign in any meaningful sense of the word.
        
        Postwar Poland and East Germany were more sovereign than Iraq has been.
        
        MJ 13 years ago
        
        "A country with tens of thousands of foreign troops milling around inside its borders is not sovereign in any meaningful sense of the word."
        
        So Germany and South Korea are not sovereign, won't their governments be surprised!
        
        PaulR 13 years ago
        
        Elections! Wow! And all it took was a few thousand dead 'Merican soldiers!
        
        Though them North Koreans probably need elections more than the Iraqis did, but unfortunately for North Korea it does not reside in the Middle East and therefore is not on the Freedom List.
      2. Cytotoxin 13 years ago
        
        I love it up the butt, but you better be cut!
      3. califronian 13 years ago
        
        A bunch of spies blowing each other up on soveriegn Iranian soil does not count as Iran being at war with America. That is utterly disingenuos. WE ARE SENDING SPIES AND ASSASSINS TO THEIR COUNTRY TO MURDER THEIR CITIZENS. If they kill afew of those it does not constitute a justification for us to go to war. WTF.
joshua corning 13 years ago

her gleefully cheering the extinguishing of a human life were "crazy,

If that glee is over the death of a murderer i see no problem really.

Anne obviously felt the man was guilty...the poeple i think are murderers who are killed i get a special sort of glee when they die.

Of course her innocent poeple don't get executed remark is bullshit...and is why i am against the death penalty...i have no problem with killing murderers...my problem is with government and its incompetence...which virtually grantees it is killing some innocent people.
1. joshua corning 13 years ago
  
  Just a note: i am saying feeling glee for the death of murderers is not crazy...
  
  ..but trusting the government to not make mistakes is, especially for Anne Culture who claims to be the queen bee of government distrust.
2. Zeb 13 years ago
  
  I don't know. I am inclined to think that anyone who is actually gleeful at anyone's death is a bit fucked in the head. You can be glad it happened, or think it was appropriate and justice was served, but if it actually excites you, there is something wrong.
  1. Apatheist 13 years ago
    
    Beyond personal things that actually relate to you, what is more deserving of glee than the death of a tyrant like KJI? Your local sports team winning a game?
  2. joshua corning 13 years ago
    
    anyone who is actually gleeful at anyone's death is a bit fucked in the head.
    
    Humans have been gleefully killing each other for about a million years...pretty sure happiness over the death of ones enemies is the sane response....hard to imagine we would need the institutions of government and religion setting up rules about who can kill who and when if the human mind was as gentile as you wish it was.
    1. Zeb 13 years ago
      
      Happy, satisfied, OK. But gleeful? Sorry, there is something wrong with you.
      
      That million years of history? Except for the past 100 years or less it has been total shit for almost everyone (compared to life today). I'll happily move beyond that, thank you very much. Intentional killing of anyone is a necessary evil at best.
      
      I'm not too worried about it though. We already have been through all of this when Bin Laden was killed.
      1. joshua corning 13 years ago
        
        I'll happily move beyond that, thank you very much. Intentional killing of anyone is a necessary evil at best.
        
        there is one thing to change culture or institutional response or what we teach our children...it is another to change the evolved structures of the human mind.
        
        Bad does not equal crazy.
        
        Sorry, there is something wrong with you.
        
        and a natural human emotional response is not wrong...or right...it just is.
3. Fluffy 13 years ago
  
  Meh.
  
  If she was honestly gleeful because she thought justice had been done, that would be one thing.
  
  But murderers are routinely executed in the US and it doesn't make her gleeful.
  
  She was gleeful over this one because she thought it made anti-death-penalty people unhappy. Hence the "baby seal" comment.
  
  Being happy that someone died because you think it will make people you don't like unhappy is, in fact, a little demented.
  1. joshua corning 13 years ago
    
    Being happy that someone died because you think it will make people you don't like unhappy is, in fact, a little demented.
    
    Perhaps but that is not the argument Riggs made:
    
    her gleefully cheering the extinguishing of a human life were "crazy,"
    
    Of course the irony here is that I am making the argument that human nature is a product of evolution and that a feeling of glee over the death of an enemy is a natural (i.e. sane) emotional response...but I don't think Anne believes in evolution.
    
    I will say that feeling glee over the death of another human being is not very christian...which I think Anne does claim to be....as well as many conservatives who never called her out for it.
    
    Crazy? no
    
    Unchristian? yes
Bee Tagger 13 years ago

Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit: "What happened? I leave the country for a week, and Ann Coulter loses her mind!

Yeah, like I'm going to listen to someone who clearly hates America so much that he fled for a week.
Mike M. 13 years ago

doyenne of Pulaski

I won't lie: I wish I understood what this means, because it sounds like it should be pretty funny.
Umbriel 13 years ago

Recent polls actually show Paul doing very well with registered Democrat and Left-leaning voters, as well as with the hard Right. Pretty much only "moderate" Republicans -- i.e., "Family Values Big Government' have a problem with him. And his most significant weakness with voters overall is "perceived electability".

Most conservative pundits, whether perceived as "far" or "moderate", owe a certain allegiance to the GOP and media establishment for their perks and information, and thus are committed to the "unelectable" meme.

If he can get the nomination, Paul should crush Obama by co-opting his base while keeping the support of the GOP rank-and-file.
John 13 years ago

I am not a Paul supporter. But frankly the things other conservatives are saying about him are so embarrassing and stupid, they make me embarrassed to call myself a conservative.
1. Warty 13 years ago
  
  Ron Paul is the only serious man running for the TEAM RED nomination (other than Gary Johnson), and it drives the people who don't like him crazy. It's not surprising how unhinged they're becoming.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    With the exception of John Derbyshire, the people at National Review have lost their minds. They don't even listen to what Paul has to say. Frankly his positions on national security are not that radical. And I have no doubt would be moderated once he got into office. Beyond that, for Republicans to play the race card on one another is just disgusting.
    1. PaulR 13 years ago
      
      Oh, they listen to Ron Paul. They understand his Anti-Imperialistic foreign policy very well and that is why they hate him.
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        No they don't. And if Paul were to win, all of his Rothbard supporters are going to be wildly disillusioned. Paul will find out day one in office events dictate actions a lot more than he realizes.
        
        PaulR 13 years ago
        
        They don't listen or they don't hate him?
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        They hate him because they don't listen. They have a cartoon of who he is.
        
        Tulpa 13 years ago
        
        Paul will find out day one in office events dictate actions a lot more than he realizes.
        
        You're suggesting he'll abandon his non-interventionist stance? I seriously, seriously, seriously doubt that. Considering that his chances of getting elected would be MUCH better if he'd done so already.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        I am suggesting just that. You guys are pissing in the wind. Your remind me of Joe Boyle who was just sure the Democrats were going to defund the Iraq war when they took over Congress in 2006.
        
        Once Paul assumed the responsibility of being President, he would end up doing all kinds of things that would disappoint his supporters. His supporters refuse to recognize that we get peace when our enemies decide we will have peace and not before. That is why I don't lose much sleep over a Paul Presidency.
        
        PaulR 13 years ago
        
        You are right in that he won't be able to expand his agenda. Team Red and Blue will not stand for anti-imperialism.
        
        Speaking of enemies, the pertinent question is why are they are enemies in the first place?
        
        Tulpa 13 years ago
        
        If the president refuses to go to war, what can Congress do to overrule him? They can't really threaten Dr. NO by refusing to pass anything. If they raise a militia it's still under the command of the president.
        
        The only option they would really have is impeachment and conviction, but that would be a mess.
  2. Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
    
    I'm not one of those folk who shout "Follow the money!" at every turn. But I think many of the conservative "intelligentsia" (wow, it felt really strange typing those words so close together) really do fear that their time at the trough would be threatened should Paul actually gain traction.
    1. John 13 years ago
      
      Why? None of them work for the government? How funding for NRO be affected by a Paul victory?
      1. Heroic Mulatto 13 years ago
        
        Less Warfare trickle-down money, maybe?
      2. Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
        
        What happens to media like NRO when Ron Paul "conservatives" realize they're not really conservative at all?
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        They will still be read. NR has been around for almost 60 years.
      3. Tulpa 13 years ago
        
        NRO will be fine. Those writers won't be, if no one has an appetite for their warmongering anymore.
        
        They'll be like carburetor specialists in a world of fuel injectors.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        If we just elect Paul it will all be peace and love an puppies and rainbows because the US is responsible for all the evil in the world.
        
        I really want Paul to win just so I can laugh as you people get an education in reality.
        
        Tulpa 13 years ago
        
        There will still be evil in the world, of course. But we won't be in the middle of it.
        
        If your conscience compels you to keep people half a world away from massacring and otherwise mistreating each other, grab a few rifles and a bunch of like-minded friends and head over there to fight for your beliefs. But it ain't a job for the US military.
        
        PaulR 13 years ago
        
        No, but there will certainly be less American soldiers getting pressure cooked in Bradleys and HMMVs.
        
        And if we did go to war, it would be for a damn good reason. Not for oil, er, middle east stablity, uh, I mean Freedom.
        
        chris 13 years ago
        
        John|12.20.11 @ 4:28PM|#
        
        If we just elect Paul it will all be peace and love an puppies and rainbows because the US is responsible for all the evil in the world.
        
        I really want Paul to win just so I can laugh as you people get an education in reality.
        
        That is by far the stupidest shit I've seen you spew.
2. Tim 13 years ago
  
  Agree. The specter of a Paul Presidency has loosed more bowels than Cholera.
3. Old Mexican 13 years ago
  
  Re: John,
  
  they make me embarrassed to call myself a conservative.
  
  So don't call yourself a conservative. Call yourself a paleo-conservative, which would be more accurate, plus it would make you the target of attacks from conservatives calling you a neo-confederate sympathizer and rabid isolationist - a badge of honor to hold in front with pride.
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    I am not a paleo conservative. I can't abide by any of their "Germany was just understood and we fought World War II to save the British Empire" bullshit. Those people annoy the fuck out of me.
    
    In the end most people suck and all political movements are a waste of time.
    1. Fluffy 13 years ago
      
      Nonono, World War One.
      
      We fought World War One to save the British Empire.
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        That is not quite as repulsive although not really true either. Either way, the paleo's obsession with scoring political points about long dead controversies they usually know next to nothing about is highly annoying.
        
        R C Dean 13 years ago
        
        Thank God we never get any convoluted arguments about the whys and wherefores of wars from 150 years ago around here. Talk about tedious.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        It is wildly tedious. And I get into those for the same reason I sued to tangle with Joe Boyle or MNG. I can't abide by crap going unchallenged.
        
        Fluffy 13 years ago
        
        OK, how's about "We fought World War One because our cultural affinity with Great Britain made us unable to perceive the essential equivalence between Germany and the British Empire in 1914"?
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        That and that little matter where the Germans tried to get Mexico to attack us.
        
        And also, we fought World War I over German attacks on our shipping. Unrestricted submarine warfare was an assault on free trade. And we actually believed in that once upon a time.
        
        Gray Ghost 13 years ago
        
        While the UK's blockade of U.S.-Germany trade was all right in comparison...
        
        We challenged one de facto blockade and not the other because we were much tighter with the U.K. than with Germany. Insert JP Morgan chicanery and typically ham-handed German diplomacy and you have 116K KIA and 200K WIA in not quite 18 months.
        
        What a needless fucking war.
      2. Clevelandite 13 years ago
        
        Fluffy's totally right here. America had no business in the First World War beyond the personal affections of that Messianic-delusional, racist Anglophile, T. Woodrow.
    2. Old Mexican 13 years ago
      
      Re: John,
      
      I can't abide by any of their "Germany was just understood and we fought World War II to save the British Empire" bullshit. Those people annoy the fuck out of me.
      
      I understand completely as I would find such explanations totally wrong and inaccurate. The US fought WWII because that is what FDR wanted.
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        We fought it because the world was nearly taken over by fascism. And said fascism attacked the US on December 7th, 1941.
        
        The paleos are still so angry over the 1930s and the bad things Roosevelt did, they just can't accept the idea that there were things in the world that really were worse than Roosevelt.
        
        Old Mexican 13 years ago
        
        Re: John,
        
        We fought it because the world was nearly taken over by fascism.
        
        What do you mean "nearly"? Have we been freed of it? I still remember things like the Wagner Act and the Social Security Act and Income Tax Witholding...
        
        And said fascism attacked the US on December 7th, 1941.
        
        No, the Japanese government did... After the American government confiscated private property and abridged private property rights by imposing an illegal embargo. And NO, embargoes are NOT authorized by the Constitution: They require an actual FUCKING declaration of war.
        
        they just can't accept the idea that there were things in the world that really were worse than Roosevelt.
        
        Yes, but Roosevelt was over HERE. The other bad things were WAY OVER THERE. Paleos simply had their priorities straight.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        No. The paleos were outrigh fucking fascists who excused the crimes of Nazism and would have been outright collaborators had the Nazis ever come here. Those people were disgusting. As bad as the communists of that era.
        
        What do you mean "nearly"? Have we been freed of it? I still remember things like the Wagner Act and the Social Security Act and Income Tax Witholding...
        
        I am sorry OM, but that is gross. Fascism enslaved and murdered millions. It is surpassed only by communism in sheer volume of crimes against humanity. Few things make me more angry than when people piss on the graves of the victims of fascism by throwing the word out as a way to describe policies they don't agree with.
        
        And embargos are nothing but trade. They don't require a delcaration of war.
        
        In the end, you don't seem to understand that the Fascists were a million times worse than Roosevelt. And that is why I find Paleos to be such grotesque individuals.
        
        Old Mexican 13 years ago
        
        Re: John,
        
        No. The paleos were outrigh fucking fascists who excused the crimes of Nazism
        
        Then they were not paleos - they were Fascists. Let's get the concepts straight, John.
        
        I am sorry OM, but that is gross. Fascism enslaved and murdered millions.
        
        The US Gov got 1/2 that part right, at least. See the millions of Vietnamese dead by US bombs, just for starters; or the million Iraquis whose deaths were "worth it" according to teh High Priestess of Creepy Nationalism.
        
        Few things make me more angry than when people piss on the graves of the victims of fascism
        
        I am just as angry. The problem is that you think the US is blameless as if her version of Fascism was pure and white.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        There is nothing fascist about the US. To say so is to render the term meaningless. Ultimately paleos are nothing but American hating liberals in different clothes.
        
        Old Mexican 13 years ago
        
        Re: John,
        
        There is nothing fascist about the US.
        
        Not the nation per se, John. Only her government. That's all. It has been like that since Wilson.
        
        To say so is to render the term meaningless.
        
        No, YOU'RE rendering the term meaningless by thinking that Fascism is militarism with fancy and over-the-top uniforms.
        
        Gray Ghost 13 years ago
        
        Re: WW2, consider that in Europe, one of two disgusting regimes was going to end up dominant: Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. As vile as Nazi Germany was, what makes them worse as European rulers than the Soviet Union? The fact that they were more competent, and therefore more of a threat? The death tolls are roughly equal, in fact Stalin probably has more blood on his hands. Keep in mind that Aktion Reinhardt hadn't started yet in Nazi Germany.
        
        Agreed that things were going to come to a fight in the Pacific---Japan wasn't going to back down from expansionism unless forced---but I'm not sure that getting involved in Europe would have been inevitable, absent our friendship with the U.K., Lend-Lease, the open war in the Atlantic from 1/40 on, etc...
        
        Still if libertarians can endlessly rehash the Civil War, no reason they can't do it for either WW1 or 2.
      2. Heroic Mulatto 13 years ago
        
        Really? Even if Wendell Willkie had been elected, the Japanese still would have attacked.
        
        Old Mexican 13 years ago
        
        Re: Heroic Mullato,
        
        Even if Wendell Willkie had been elected, the Japanese still would have attacked.
        
        I don't understand why. Would it be because he cracks his cooked eggs on the small side instead of the big side?
        
        Heroic Mulatto 13 years ago
        
        Contrary to what you may believe, the Japanese had planned for Pacific hegemony since the 1920s. The three major obstacles were the U.S., Australia, and Siam (which at the time had the 2nd largest and 2nd most professional military outside of Japan). The Japanese allied with the newly Fascist Siamese, now Thailand, after the coup of 1939. This left Australia and the U.S. The Japanese hoped that the Commonwealth would be too busy with what was going on in Europe to lend Australia assistance, and they hoped to knock out the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor.
        
        While actions by the West, such as the breakdown of the Anglo-Japanese alliance and the unequal terms of the Washington Naval Treaty, did worsen relations with Japan, it cannot be denied that the "Army Faction" in Japan's government had dreams of conquest and were just looking for ANY excuse to go to war.
        
        Old Mexican 13 years ago
        
        Re: Heroic Mulatto,
        
        Contrary to what you may believe, the Japanese had planned for Pacific hegemony since the 1920s.
        
        Fuck - who didn't?
        
        The Japanese hoped that the Commonwealth would be too busy with what was going on in Europe to lend Australia assistance, and they hoped to knock out the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor.
        
        The US Pacific Fleet was not formally based at Pearl Harbor in the 1920s. It was moved from San Diego Harbor to Pearl Harbor in May of 1940 as FDR was making preparations to provoke a war with Japan.
        
        Japan's government had dreams of conquest and were just looking for ANY excuse to go to war.
        
        But they DID go to war - with China. You seem to think that Japan was interested in stretching out to occupy worthless real estate when everything her government thought was needed for her was in mainland Asia. This is why they invested so much in a puppet regime in northern China (Manchukuo) and in occupying Indochina. It was the embargo that made them look southwards, not their nights of cards and sake.
        
        Heroic Mulatto 13 years ago
        
        But they DID go to war - with China. You seem to think that Japan was interested in stretching out to occupy worthless real estate when everything her government thought was needed for her was in mainland Asia. This is why they invested so much in a puppet regime in northern China (Manchukuo) and in occupying Indochina. It was the embargo that made them look southwards, not their nights of cards and sake.
        
        I'm not disagreeing with you that the embargo was used by Japan as casus belli; however, even if we didn't embargo them, I still believe that Japan would have expanded into the islands of the Pacific, up to and including Midway and perhaps, Hawaii, under the banner of freeing the native people's from "Western imperialism". Folks like Sadao Araki were that bat-shit crazy to believe they could succeed.
      3. Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
        
        I thought we fought WWII because we fucked up the world so badly in WWI.
        
        Clevelandite 13 years ago
        
        Also true.
        
        Anonymous Coward 13 years ago
        
        We fought WWII because someone made a bet to see how many times America could wipe France's ass after the French shits on various parts of the world (WWII, Vietnam, Libya).
      4. Tulpa 13 years ago
        
        We fought WW2 to help the UN with UN-Naziing the world.
    3. Res Publica Americana 13 years ago
      
      OT: What's your opinion on why we fought World War II?
      
      On-topic: find yourself a more specific label. For uniqueness, go for 'Bourbon Democrat', since you seem to be a very solid classical liberal, and that might work, or a constitutionalist, or something. I don't label myself a conservative, and I've survived!
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        We fought World War II because Japan attacked us and Germany declared war. It is that simple. And the whole "Roosevelt forced Japan" is just bullshit. We were Japan's allies clear through the 1920s and excused their complete rape of Korea. We only confronted Japan when they set out to take over all of Asia and murder and or enslave anyone who wasn't Japanese. The war was entirely Japan's fault.
        
        PaulR 13 years ago
        
        I agree. Japan attacked us. We went to war. As opposed to Vietnam and Iraq and Libya and probably Iran.
4. Old Soldier 13 years ago
  
  Same here. I'm not sure who I'll be voting for in the Primary, but watching people lose their shit over Paul is amusing.
  
  I can't count how many times I've heard him called "crazy". When I ask for details I get no details.
  1. sarcasmic 13 years ago
    
    He's "crazy"!
    Why do you need any more details than that?
    He's "crazy" and that's all you need to know.
    The details don't matter because he's "crazy"!
    
    Just because ad-hominem arguments are a logical fallacy doesn't mean they aren't effective.
    1. Anonymous Coward 13 years ago
      
      It's more a bare assertion fallacy.
      
      Mouthbreather:"Ron Paul is crazy!"
      Me: "In what way?"
      Mouthbreather: "Because he is!"
      Me: "What exactly makes him crazy?"
      Mouthbreather: "The newsletters!"
      Me: *Checks my bottle of rum to see if it's empty because I would hate to waste good rum when I break this thing over a mouthbreather's head*
5. Loki 13 years ago
  
  The response now that he's gaining in the polls is quite predictible. Johnson they could easily just ignore, but Paul can't be disregarded this time around. Plus since he's now gaining traction that has the team red establishment crowd going nuts.
  
  It's only going to get worse as time goes on.
Hugh Akston 13 years ago

Ann, Ron Paul does not need your breed of support. Why don't you support Newt instead? That way, you'll split the sexually frustrated male red staters (the largest conservative voting bloc by far) between Newt and Bachmann, thus allowing Ron Paul to run up the middle.
1. Old Soldier 13 years ago
  
  Yes he does. A lot of people like and respect her. Her reluctant support is important if he is going to have a chance.
  1. Res Publica Americana 13 years ago
    
    The goal is to get the guy elected. Whether it's a pinko, block-voting Democrat or Republican, or reluctantly libertarian proto-environmentalists, more endorsements/support = better.
    1. Old Soldier 13 years ago
      
      I'm amazed at how many Libertarians don't get that. They never miss an opportunity to rehash old feuds or attack deviations from ideological purity.
  2. jacob 13 years ago
    
    What's ironic is the the folks at Free Republic, after hearing this from Ann, have started respecting Coulter less rather than supporting Paul more.
    
    http://www.freerepublic.com/fo.....2854/posts
Dan 13 years ago

How am I supposed to feel reading this, as a pro-death penalty Ron Paul supporter?
1. Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
  
  Gleeful, then sad.
2. Apatheist 13 years ago
  
  The same? Reason's opinions should have nothing to do with whether you should support Paul or not. I my self am anti-government death penalty but have no objections to real murderers dying for their crimes.
  1. Tuesday 13 years ago
    
    I my self am anti-government death penalty but have no objections to real murderers dying
    
    Interesting. How would the "real" murderers "die" in your world? Old age? Or would some non-governmental entity kill them? Who would that be, and under which system of objective law? Or is objective law impossible? Are you advocating the concept of private, competing gangs of enforcers and executioners? In other words, vigilante "justice"?
    1. Tulpa 13 years ago
      
      You're supposed to just nod and smile politely and change the subject. Just like when Grandpa muses on how good his farts smell.
    2. Apatheist 13 years ago
      
      Old age?
      
      Yes, until the time that we can be sure innocent people aren't being executed. Maybe that is never, I don't know. All I know is that in our current justice system that is not the case. I just don't have some belief that all life is sacred to the extent that death isn't an appropriate punishment for some crimes.
      1. Tuesday 13 years ago
        
        But you have avoided the implementation of that punishment. If you have no objection to murderers forfeiting their own lives, them somebody has to do the deed. It won't just happen. If "society" takes no action at all (against a murderer or any other criminal), then justice, delayed indefinitely, is justice denied.
        
        Apatheist 13 years ago
        
        Life in prison with no parole is a sufficient compromise for me for the sake of an innocent person not being executed. If "society" murders someone falsely convicted they get no justice either.
        
        Gray Ghost 13 years ago
        
        But life in prison w/o parole doesn't ever happen, unless you're Charles Manson or Sirhan Sirhan. Hell, even Hinckley is getting out soon. It just gets too damned expensive to keep 70 year olds in the pen, even murderers. Sure, some die in prison, but not most of them, I'll wager.
        
        Apatheist 13 years ago
        
        It does if your capital murder statute prevents parole. In Texas we have both capital punishment and life without parole. We could drop the first without affecting the second and other states could add it.
        
        Gray Ghost 13 years ago
        
        But we're still letting the guys out, no matter what it says on the paper, Apatheist. I live here too. The Chron had a story a few days ago about a guy getting paroled who had been in the pen since the 50s. It made news, I'm inferring, because most guys with life sentences get out long before then. Given that most murders are committed by the 18-30 cohort, life expectancy is, even for prisoners, probably in the high 60s, you'd expect that most life w/o parole prisoners would have to do 35-50 years before leaving feet first. And they aren't.
        
        Now federal time, AFAIK, is what is says on the tin, absent guidelines that permit early release for good behavior. But state time...the states don't want to be on the hook for shithead's medical care. As a geriatric, those costs are going to be considerable. Even with no parole sentencing, I'm going to bet that the state finds some reason to let his ass out at 75.
      2. Tulpa 13 years ago
        
        Yes, until the time that we can be sure innocent people aren't being executed.
        
        That time will never come, and neither will the time when you can be sure innocent people aren't being locked up for decades, a nearly equivalent eventuality you don't seem terribly concerned with.
    3. Loki 13 years ago
      
      "How would the "real" murderers "die" in your world? Old age? Or would some non-governmental entity kill them? Who would that be, and under which system of objective law?"
      
      One word: Batman
3. fish 13 years ago
  
  Horribly conflicted! Let us know how it turns out.
4. pmains 13 years ago
  
  A little chilly. You decide to put on a sweater
  
  Also, bemused.
5. jacob 13 years ago
  
  Same way I do. While I don't agree with those who want to abolish the death penalty, we can agree on getting Ron Paul elected and then go from there.
Eduard van Haalen 13 years ago

One quibble:

"Nor did [conservatives] say anything when Coulter defended the openly white-supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens (formerly the White Citizens Council) or suggested that Justice John Paul Stevens should be assassinated, because those things are apparently hilarious and not crazy."

Within that very sentence, there was a link to Little Green Footballs (which is conservative in the sense that water is wet) denouncing the CCC and Coulter's whitewashing of its record. There's also a link to a Fox News story about the poisoning joke, though admittedly that was more straight reportage than it was editorial.
1. Eduard van Haalen 13 years ago
  
  Wait - I checked the LGF site and it's liberal. Am I just nuts, or have they changed?
  1. Heroic Mulatto 13 years ago
    
    They did. Charles Johnson had an "awakening".
  2. John 13 years ago
    
    They changed. Charles Johnson was a liberal who was mugged by reality on 9-11. Then he slowly fell into a morass of paranoid lefty insanity.
    
    Think of him as Andrew Sullivan without the misogyny or Sarah Palin obsession.
    1. Eduard van Haalen 13 years ago
      
      Well, I'm out of touch - next I'll be complaining about President Carter.
    2. shrike 13 years ago
      
      Conservatism is dying, John. Whether it be the mullahs in the Middle East or the Baptists in the South.
      
      (Newt's dog whistles to the Wahhabi Christians notwithstanding.)
      1. John 13 years ago
        
        Take your meds Shrike. If anything retrograde forces are on the march and the nice enlightened West we have lived in is dying. He who wins the future is he who shows up. And right now, conservative and retrograde forces are the ones having children.
        
        In another 100 years there will be very few secular liberal leftists left. They will have all died childless. Math doesn't lie.
        
        You and everyone you know are dinosaurs Shrike. The world is leaving you behind.
        
        Fluffy 13 years ago
        
        Yeah, but somehow the number of nonbelievers or non-practicers (most of whom are discreet nonbelievers) grows every decade.
        
        Population growth in Middle Eastern and subsaharan African shitholes really doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot for the destiny of Da Earf, John.
        
        Leftists may be extinct in 100 years, but secularists won't. The problem for your scenario is that religious people keep having lots of babies, but then losing x% of their children to nonbelief because the major religions are all so abysmally stupid.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        But the biggest predictor of children's belief is their parents. They will lose a percentage sure, but it is a small one.
        
        I don't say this as a good thing. I look at it as a bad thing. But it is reality. The secularist keep not having kids. And that will doom them to obscurity over at least the medium term. Maybe in a few hundred years secularism will make a comeback on its own. But I really think we are living at the end of the enlightenment age.
        
        Yeah, I am really that pessimistic.
        
        Fluffy 13 years ago
        
        But the biggest predictor of children's belief is their parents. They will lose a percentage sure, but it is a small one.
        
        Actually, if:
        
        X = likelihood of child of believer parents turning to secularism
        
        and
        
        Y = likelihood of child of secular parents turning to strong belief
        
        If X > Y, secularism wins in the end, regardless of any delta in birth rates.
        
        Is X greater than Y? I honestly don't know, but I suspect that it is.
        
        John 13 years ago
        
        Even if it is fluffy, it doesn't matter. Lets say 90% of secularist children stay secular and 60% of religious children stay religious. That sounds great until you realize that religious people are having twice the number of children and already outnumber secular people world wide by a large number.
        
        The math doesn't lie. And it is against you. I know every atheist dreams they will some day be something besides a despised minority. But it isn't happening. At least not in this century.
        
        Fluffy 13 years ago
        
        Um...John, I think you need to check your math again.
        
        Let's say religious people have three times as many children as secular people per person.
        
        If we start with a population of 1000 religious people and 100 secular people, stipulate that each religious person will have three children and each secular person will only have one, and apply the 90% and 60% numbers you just used in your example, in three generations we will have 6755 religious people and 16092 secular people.
        
        Heroic Mulatto 13 years ago
        
        Population growth in Middle Eastern and subsaharan African shitholes really doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot for the destiny of Da Earf, John.
        
        The Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates, the Rum Seljuks, the Ghori and Delhi Sultanates, and the Timurids would respectfully disagree with you.
        
        Eduard van Haalen 13 years ago
        
        Fluffy,
        
        That's the problem with eugenic theorists like Mike Judge in Idiocracy - the "dumb" people are the ones having kids and ensuring their group's survival, but the "geniuses" are having a small number of descendants. All the smart people are intelligently taking themselves out of the gene pool, while the so-called stupid people are providing themselves with descendants.
        
        The "stupid" people sure seem to have what the "smart" ones don't - they know how cultures and civilizations are perpetuated, and they are willing to act on that knowledge. Gosh, how dumb!
        
        Libertymike 13 years ago
        
        Until its time to take out the stoopid.
  3. shrike 13 years ago
    
    LGF has gone anti-Creationist anti-science, anti-conservative nutcase.
    
    Which = the GOP.
  4. Old Soldier 13 years ago
    
    They changed a few years ago when the idiot running the site decided conservatives were "racists". In his feeble mind, he decided that it's impossible to be a non-racist conservative or libertarian - so he became a raging liberal.
  5. jacob 13 years ago
    
    I just had the displeasure of visiting the site LGF. I had a hard time pigeonholing most of their posters. Liberal? Perhaps, but then there were numerous complaints about "lefties."
    
    I visited a Ron Paul thread. Tons of hate for RP. Almost as bad as visiting Free Repugnant.
Tuesday 13 years ago

Davis, who allegedly shot and killed a police officer in 1989, appealed his sentence

Not to pick nits, but when a person is tried and convicted, it's commonplace to drop the "alleged." Unless you believe (contradictorily) that one can never be certain of anything.
1. Apatheist 13 years ago
  
  I agree, convicted should be used with the understanding that convicted =/= guilty.
  1. Tuesday 13 years ago
    
    As "not guilty" does not mean "innocent."
    1. Apatheist 13 years ago
      
      In the legal court sense yes. But in the moral sense no. The way I used it non guilty would mean innocent whereas not-convicted wouldn't. In reporting terms "not-guilty" is often used it as you said though.
    2. Tulpa 13 years ago
      
      Other than him, nobody knows with 100.00000% certainty whether he's guilty or innocent. Conviction is the proxy we have societally agreed to use.
      1. Apatheist 13 years ago
        
        Convicted means just that, he was convicted in court. Guilty means that he actually did it. I don't see the problem with this distinction even if false convictions are extremely rare. I have no opinions on the guilt of Troy Davis but he certainly was convicted.
        
        Tuesday 13 years ago
        
        Human beings are not omniscient. We haven't access to an omniscient being to judge our criminals for us. Humans commit the crimes, and humans must judge the acts. Minus omniscience, all we can do is judge the facts of reality based upon the evidence presented. The only alternative is to never hold anyone accountable for anything, for fear of making a mistake. That would be the annihilation of justice.
        
        Apatheist 13 years ago
        
        Which is why I think the distinction between convicted and guilty is important because human beings are fallible. It doesn't change whether or not the person goes to jail or not but it acknowledges that we may have been wrong.
2. Uncle Joe 13 years ago
  
  He didn't say "allegedly found guilty", he said "allegedly shot and killed".
  
  So long as innocent people can be arrested, tried and convicted, anybody continues to have a right to use the word "allegedly".
  
  To say that he did in fact shoot and kill a police officer, is to leave no room whatever for potential innocence.
  
  And you saying that "we can never be sure of anything" (and then stating is would be contradictory) is pretty weird (aside from a pre-emptive strawman against him), since you leave out the option that he might think that SOME things we can be sure of, but others we can't. Just because YOU think a conviction for murder is something we must be sure of, doesn't mean he has to be.
  And if he isn't, it still doesn't mean he believes we can't be sure of ANYTHING.
  1. Tulpa 13 years ago
    
    If you stick an "allegedly" in front of every statement or adjective you're not 100.000000000% sure of, your conversation is going to get pretty damn tedious, and you'll also dilute the meaning of the term "allegedly".
Robert 13 years ago

Frying kirrels? Rook dangelous!

Solly, stirr haven't lecoveled furry flom yestelday as The C?aw.
Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago

This points more to Newt Gingrich's repulsive gravitas.
SugarFree 13 years ago

As registration draws ever nearer, she gets more desperate for attention. And you guys keep shoveling it to her.
1. Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
  
  Wait. What? Where?
  Apparently my radar is less sensitive.
  1. SugarFree 13 years ago
    
    You think that's actually Tony? Tony hasn't posted here in at least a year.
    1. Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
      
      Wait. What? Tony? Huh?
      I feel like I just wondered into a David Lynch movie, and not the good kind where Naomi Watts and Laura Harring are making out.
      1. The Great Oz 13 years ago
        
        Pay no attention to that paranoid crackpot behind the SugarFree.
      2. jacob 13 years ago
        
        I'll send you a love letter....straight from my heart fucker!
      3. PaulR 13 years ago
        
        We are not going to talk about Judy.
Proprietist 13 years ago

Ann Coulter prefers Ron Paul
Ann Coulter is racist and insane
Therefore, it is proved that Ron Paul is racist and insane.
1. Colin 13 years ago
  
  Actually the correct logic, via modus ponens, is as follows:
  
  Ron Paul is racist and insane.
  Ann Coulter is racist and insane.
  Therefore, Ann Coulter likes Ron Paul.
  
  Quod erat demonstrandum.
  1. Proprietist 13 years ago
    
    Who said anything about "correct" logic?
califronian 13 years ago

To be honest, this is the most discouraging thing I could have heard about Ron Paul. Ann Coulter? That ghoulish harridan? She is godawful.
1. Old Mexican 13 years ago
  
  Re: califronian,
  
  Ann Coulter?
  
  It's funny but after linking to one of them, indicated to a bunch of neo-cons at Townhall that what was on that newsletter was no different than anything Ann Coulter wrote, and they answered saying I was full of shit. Guess I can actually link to something she SAID that makes my comparison true, huh?
  1. jacob 13 years ago
    
    Townhall is repulsive. It's like Free repugnant, but there are more Dems/non conservatives there.
    1. Fluffy 13 years ago
      
      I think HotAir is the worst.
      
      If space aliens come and say, "We are going to take away and eat either the HotAir folks or the Democratic Underground folks. You, Fluffy, get to choose," the HotAir folks better run and hide.
      1. Apatheist 13 years ago
        
        Ed Morrisey is a despicable douchebag but before he joined the site (and after Malkin left) there was period where AP was the dominant commentator and it wasn't so bad. The commenting section has gotten worse with each registration though.
      2. jacob 13 years ago
        
        Never been to HotAir. I've heard of DU but I've never been there. I hear it's hardcore lefties.
        
        Tuesday 13 years ago
        
        You guys need to get out less.
2. cynical 13 years ago
  
  She wasn't actually endorsing Paul, it was hyperbole to show how much she hated Gingrinch, the impact of which is derived from the idea that Paul is a ludicrous choice for a neocon hag.
  
  You could replace "President Paul" with "President Al Sharpton" and get the same result.
  1. califronian 13 years ago
    
    You are right, but she is still a ghoulish harridan and one of the most despicable of all 'conservative' voices in the media.
Nick 13 years ago

EVERY NOW AND THEN EVEN THE BOUGHT AND PAID FOR MEDIA SLIP UP THAT THEY ARE ROOTING FOR THE UNDERDOG THE MAN THAT IS TRYING DESPERATELY TO RETURN AMERICA TO ITS GREAT TIMES , ,
Enjoy Every Sandwich 13 years ago

The GOP establishment would rather see Obama win than Paul. Obama, after all, knows the rules: you can add stuff your party wants, but you can't take away stuff the other party did (e.g. the "Patriot" Act).
1. jacob 13 years ago
  
  ^THIS^
  
  Agree 10000%. Plus, with Obama, when things don't go their way, it's easy for Team Red to rile up the troops by proclaiming "See what this Muslim Kenyan usurper is up to!"
  It's a bit harder to scream "See what this damn pro-life doctor from Texas (by way of Pittsburgh) is up to!"
  
  RP is to most of Team Read as scales are to fat people. Nobody likes to be reminded of their faults.
Colin 13 years ago

Perhaps she read the newsletters and realized Paul wasn't so bad, after all.
1. dunphy 13 years ago
  
  i lol'd
GILMORE 13 years ago

What does it say about "conservatives"...

That the word doesn't mean what it used to mean.

What "Conservative" means now = Big Government, Religious, Self-Righteous, Fag-Hating, Mexican-Fearing, War Mongering fucktards.
1. jacob 13 years ago
  
  Tell us how you really feel
Old Mexican 13 years ago

By the way:

CNN Presidential POll

Obama 52% Paul 45%
Obama 52% Romney 45%
Obama 56% Gingrich 40%

Which means that Romney is losing his sole "electability" feature. BTW, Paul is up from 42%.

Unfortunately for Reason's anti-Paul detail, several kooky outlets have upstaged them regarding the "racist" newsletters, so now they have no new recourse against their hated favorite libertarian. Sorry, boys.
1. John 13 years ago
  
  I dont' buy that poll at all. It also has Obama's approval rating going up 8 points. What has happened that would cause that? That is a push poll put out by CNN. The whole point of it is to hide Obama's underlying weakness and make people feel like they are out of step with the mainstream for not liking Obama. I don't believe a single thing about it.
  1. Tulpa 13 years ago
    
    It could be the payroll tax debacle.
    1. John 13 years ago
      
      How so?
      1. Guest1776 13 years ago
        
        Because $20.00 a week extra on people's paychecks for two months just ask David Assholerod.
        
        Guest1776 13 years ago
        
        Because $20.00 a week extra on people's paychecks for two months creats almost a million jobs -just ask David Assholerod.
Fluffy 13 years ago

BTW Weigel is back at it.

That fucking snake.

I won't link to it.

Anybody registered at Slate? Please go tell him Fluffy says Go Fuck Yourself.
1. Tulpa 13 years ago
  
  Did he threateningly hug someone again?
2. John 13 years ago
  
  You made me go to Slate. I hate you fluffy. I couldn't help but click on Yglesias. Did you know that since money has a point of diminishing returns, it is totally efficient for the government to take any money it thinks you are not getting the most good from?
  
  http://www.slate.com/blogs/mon.....cient.html
  1. NoVAHockey 13 years ago
    
    "Rich people, simply put, don't get as much use out of their money as poor people do. This is particularly true because a lot of what rich people do with their money is bid up the price of scarce goods (beachfront property in the Hamptons, Park Avenue apartments) and compete with one another for status."
    
    Not liking how they use their money isn't the same as them not using it at all.
  2. califronian 13 years ago
    
    jesus christ, this is as bad as the one i read today in the guardian defending the principles of communism.
    1. califronian 13 years ago
      
      My god, the comments. My eyes may never recover.
  3. chris 13 years ago
    
    If the rich don't use money efficiently than how the fuck did they accumulate it? Oh, by 'efficient' Yglesias means 'waste'. What a dumbass.
3. Apatheist 13 years ago
  
  Um are you talking about the article addressing the newsletters where he says that Rothbard is dead and Rockwell has moved on? He seems to be dismissing it as old news. Blaming the newsletters on those too is perfectly fine with me.
4. Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
  
  I actually think that new Slate article (and the old Reason examination of the Rothbard/Rockwell shenanigans) could help Paul more than it hurts. Weigel, to my surprise, seems to be saying that basically Paul got caught up in a scheme run by R&R and has been regretting it ever since, so maybe we should give the old guy a break. But maybe I'm reading into it more than is there.
  1. Citizen Nothing 13 years ago
    
    Or -- what Apatheist said.
5. The Difference 13 years ago
  
  Roark to Toohey: "But I don't think of you."
  
  Fluffy to Weigel: "I think of you all the time!"
  1. Fluffy 13 years ago
    
    I just search Google News for things I am interested in.
    
    When Weigel chooses to write about something I'm interested in, he comes up.
    
    But yeah, I'm much more of a grudge keeper than Howard Roark. You got me there.
George H. 13 years ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....r_embedded

Spread the word. Paul's foreign policy is NOT wacky.
John 13 years ago

Question for the Paul supporters.

They are saying on Althouse that Paul called Bradly manning a political hero. True or untrue? I have never heard him say that. But maybe I missed it.
1. Gray Ghost 13 years ago
  
  Here's a question about Manning's claimed situation, not that it actually was that way. To what point does a security clearance trump one's moral duty to be a whistleblower? Again, Manning isn't this guy, but let's suppose for example the My Lai AARs and photo evidence was stamped Secret and flushed down the memory hole. Would you guys be willing to imprison Ridenour if he divulged classified material to uncleared people, for the purpose of bringing attention to an atrocity?
  
  Supposedly, this youtube video has RP making the statements you are citing from Althouse, John. You'll need to go to about 4:30 of the 5:09 clip, and I don't think Paul mentions him by name, but he does say,
  
  "So if we have an american citizen who is willing to take it, take the consequences and practice civil disobedience and say, "This is what our government's doing!" Should he be locked up in prison? Or should we, you know, see him as a political hero? Maybe he is a true patriot who reveals what's going on in government?
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    IN response to Manning. He wasn't a whistle blower. The video tape he released was of a lawful kill and had been edited to look like it wasn't. The cables were all just diplomatic bullshit. Some of it was embarrassing. But none of created some moral duty to release it. So I thin Manning is an dumb ass who deserves to go to prison.
    
    As far as the broader question, yest they would use national security laws against someone. And it is horrible. We classify way too much material. And are using that classification as a way to prosecute whistle blowers. It is a huge problem.
    
    Hell, it doesn't even have to be classified. DOJ is actively trying to find out who leaked the climategate emails even though those emails were not only not classified but being withheld in violation of the law.
    
    So, yes, a person could easily be a "political hero" for releasing materials under the right circumstances. That person is not Manning however.
    1. Gray Ghost 13 years ago
      
      Oh, we agree about Manning, I think. The van shoot didn't appear to be a war crime, just one of those terrible things that happens in a war zone. If you're going to minister to the wounded in a war zone, don't bring your kid along. And for the wounded, don't stand next to a guy with an RPG or carrying something that looks like an RPG.
      
      I just thought the larger hypo was an interesting one. That said, judging by the NYT's article on the Haditha massacre, which quoted Marines who were under investigation, lighting up civilians in Anbar Province, circa 2004, was commonplace. Or it seemed to be, according to the reactions of the involved Marines and their immediate commanding officers. War is hell.
2. Fluffy 13 years ago
  
  I think they are confusing Manning with Julian Assange.
  
  Of course, by "mistaking" what I mean is "That pig Althouse is pretending to make a mistake, when she knows damn well what the truth is, because it's a better smear that way and she can always claim later that she just got confused."
  1. John 13 years ago
    
    It is not Althouse it is her comenters. And Althouse is not a pig at all. She is quite a good blogger.
Curious George 13 years ago

Do you have four tabs open on four different blogs, commenting on all of them at once? Or is H&R your true love?
1. Guest1776 13 years ago
  
  Curious George|12.20.11 @ 5:17PM|#
  
  Do you have four tabs open on four different blogs, commenting on all of them at once? Or is H&R your true love?
  
  Are you asking me? This threading system is a fucking circle-jerk so it's hard to tell. I suppose the circle-jerk threading system is fitting here though. 😉
Ron Paul On Foreign Policy 13 years ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8NhRPo0WAo
Clich? Bandit 13 years ago

Can I get a ruling on guest1776...I am standing by my Almainian call, it is too late in the day for SF, he is currently enjoying a diabetic shock from a lunch comprised of donuts and Chicago Deep Dish!
1. Guest1776 13 years ago
  
  I can assure you I am not SF or Alm.
2. Rev. Blue Moon 13 years ago
  
  Gojira aka Jim. Possibly Cesar aka Neil.
  1. Guest1776 13 years ago
    
    Wrong again.
Max 13 years ago

Ron Paul is a small government conservative who also happens to be a flaming racist crackpot. Bo wonder Coulter likes him. She's carzy like a neo-nazi militia bitch.
1. Sevo 13 years ago
  
  Max|12.20.11 @ 5:55PM|#
  Arf
  Arf
  Arf
  Arf
  Arf
  Arf
  Arf
  Same, same trick.
  Tired, dipshit.
Resto Druid FTW 13 years ago

"Davis, who allegedly shot and killed a police officer in 1989, appealed his sentence after seven of 34 eyewitnesses recanted their testimonies."

Sorry, but this is meaningless. As one who would rather let 100 guilty go free rather than execute one innocent, I must say this merely inflames the ignorant. This is woefully insufficient to overturn a conviction. Typically, one of a few things must be proven to overturn a conviction, i.e. ineffective assistance of counsel or newly discovered evidence, etc.
Registered Republican 13 years ago

I'm hopping on the Ron Paul 2012 party bus and voting him into the White House!
Ron Paulllllllllllllllllllllll 13 years ago

Even the crazies are finally waking up an realizing Ron Paul is the only legit candidate to be President. Good for Crazy Ann! RON PAUL 2012!!!!
Buzz Fisher 13 years ago

You know what those radio hosts are going to think is REALLY crazy? The fact that, one week from now, the Ron Paul song will be at the top of the music charts!

http://itunesbomb.com/
Jim Walsh 13 years ago

I suppose this will finally put an end to the her weekly softball fests on the Hannity show. Still, given Coulter's schtick, this slap at her own fan club is brilliant...
Ian 13 years ago

It says....

...about what we all expected. Conservatives aren't very conservative when it comes to conserving anything other than big government and kickbacks. And also, there must be quasi-religious rhetoric that contradicts the tenants of that religion. These are the popular conservative values of the day.

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