The Atlantic - Latest Comments in The Party of Stupid

Re: The Party of Stupid

Reality Man — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 11:54:24 -0000

Wow, how could it be that every single Democratic nominee somehow has two positions on everything? Could it be that the GOP likes to repeat the same old tropes? You're just a troll.

Re: The Party of Stupid

Denia — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 23:10:02 -0000

Reality Man

The modern DP has put forth the least qualified candidate to be President. His poll numbers are down. With all his advantages, he is basically tied with McCain. The GOP is right that he is not even a flip flopper because he has two positions on everything.

Re: The Party of Stupid

Reality Man — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 16:18:47 -0000

DougEFresh, that was a fun episode of South Park. However,

"I have a larger problem when people who profess tolerance are more likely to tolerate Islam over Christianity. I remember even Bill Maher making a rare defense of fundamentalists Christians when he rebuked 9/12 thinking that all fundamentalists are the same."

Who are these people? There is a difference between trying to understand fundamentalist Islam and trying to promote tolerance of Islam in general. From my own past in human rights advocacy, when push came to shove it was liberals who were willing to get involved over things like stoning Muslim women over having children out of wedlock. Conservatives, meanwhile, couldn't care less.

"What a mess of ideas! Reagan was divorced by the time he met Nancy. He did not commit adultery. His daughter was in her 30s when she posed for Playboy. Do your parents have control over your silly posts or your life?"

Fine, but she was pregnant before they got married. I don't care what the Reagans do with their private lives, but the evangelicals and fundamentalists can't expect us to take their political advocacy seriously when they turn their religion into near-pure political advocacy and then work to elect and worship people who don't actually follow the "family values" they claim to believe in.

"Race baiting - You better look at "Precious" before you start throwing stones at the Republicans.

Posted by Denia | August 10, 2008 4:22 AM"

Oh come on. The modern GOP is largely the product of the Dixiecrat movement to the GOP. There is a reason why blacks, Latinos, Asians and Native Americans tend to vote Democratic. You can't be the party of Hurricane Katrina, Willie Horton ads, purging blacks from the 2000 Florida voter rolls, smearing McCain as fathering a black baby out of wedlock, Jesse Helms, Trent Lott as Senate Majority Leader, Cheney labeling Mandela a terrorist, Reagan's "I believe in states' rights" in Philadelphia, MS, etc. without being the party of race-baiting and racism. The GOP has much depended on playing the race card or homophobia since Watergate in order to get votes.

Re: The Party of Stupid

Denia — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 04:22:19 -0000

Reality Man - 1:05

What a mess of ideas! Reagan was divorced by the time he met Nancy. He did not commit adultery. His daughter was in her 30s when she posed for Playboy. Do your parents have control over your silly posts or your life?

Race baiting - You better look at "Precious" before you start throwing stones at the Republicans.

Re: The Party of Stupid

DougEFresh — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 16:58:54 -0000

Reality, I can't argue much of what you say, and I agree with it. Though the NE liberal is more likely to be Catholic which still brings about a negative view of divorce.

I don't mind the proper critiques or people pointing out the obvious about their distortions of the scriptures. I have a larger problem when people who profess tolerance are more likely to tolerate Islam over Christianity. I remember even Bill Maher making a rare defense of fundamentalists Christians when he rebuked 9/12 thinking that all fundamentalists are the same.

I am also at a disadvantage, I know many conservatives, and none of them are overly religious. So I don't have a ton of people asking me to convert to anything (other than the rare visit from the JW). In fact, if the average evangelical followed me around, there is a good chance he would think I was a godless liberal while I am neither. So understand it must get on your last nerve having judgement made upon you by people who claim God is the sole judge.

I also am a bit hypocritical, because I loved when South Park made fun of San Francisco liberals when Kyle's family move West because the rednecks in Col. wouldn't drive hybrids.

Re: The Party of Stupid

Reality Man — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 13:24:05 -0000

Also, Northeastern secular states like Massachusetts are rather religious. Such states also boast things like lower rates of teen pregnancy, abortion and divorce. IIRC MA and CT have the highest proportion of their population married than any other states. Overall, Northeastern liberals are closer to living the daily life that evangelicals and fundamentalists tell us we are supposed to live, yet somehow they get to act superior for preaching without following through.

Re: The Party of Stupid

Reality Man — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 13:05:03 -0000

DougEFresh, fair points. However, you really don't hear that much liberal mocking of mainline white Protestant beliefs. Even a show like "Family Guy," written by a guy who seems to be a New England liberal, mocks Irish Catholics (and the Pope) and Jews a lot more than evangelicals. The Daily Show and the Colbert Report make fun of liberals a lot as well. The evangelical movement is somehow allowed to mock us as a bunch of sushi-eating, latte-sipping, pseudo-cosmopolitan America haters who want to make public schools into 24-hour bisexual orgies, yet the movement's leaders can't take a few jokes in return. Everyone gets made fun of in America. That's one of the great things about our country.

What also gets a lot of liberals is the hypocrisy of the evangelical and fundamentalist movement. An evangelical like Carter who has been faithful to his wife and dedicated his life to helping the less fortunate and his country gets mocked by the evangelical base for not killing enough Muslims, yet they worship an adulterer like Reagan (who also raised a daughter who ended up in Playboy) because he seemed tough to them while also engaging in race-baiting. Establishment fundamentalism and evangelicalism claims to be the true American culture, yet also creates pop culture products with the explicit aim of separating the faithful from the American mainstream (the lack of ability of young evangelical and fundamentalist Christians in wider communities to be allowed to truly engage their classmates, etc. leads to depression, which is why religious retention rates among such groups is rather low).

If white American Protestant evangelical and fundamentalist institutions were primarily about faith these days, I doubt liberals would care that much. It was the decisions of the Falwells and Robertsons of the world, and their congregations to choose to follow them, to turn religion into a GOP regressive political machine that has done the most to earn them scorn. If you preach about how Jews, Muslims, gays, lesbians, bisexuals, Catholics, women, the Civil Rights Movement, etc. are evil, you are asking to be mocked. You can't preach hate and then expect to be respected.

Re: The Party of Stupid

vivisfugue — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 11:02:28 -0000

I swear I only hit submit once...

Re: The Party of Stupid

Vivisfugue — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 11:00:31 -0000

Reality Man: I am an avowed socialist, religiously agnostic, practically oozing with tolerance and non-judgementality. But you should not listen to rap music. It is depressing.

The secret key to politics in America, almost more so than party, religion, or race, and bleeding into all three, is square conformism. We talk a good game in this country about admiring the rebels and iconoclasts, but it's really all about not sticking out too far. The long boom of the 20th century middle class has bequeathed to us an accumulated mass of expected behavior, and anyone who behaves publicly in a manner that would be out of place in an episode of Happy Days is priming himself for a smackdown. The ultimate beneficiaries of this are White Protestants, our national subconscious "default setting" and white Evangelicals - squareness's missionary wing. The degree to which one is perceived to deviate from this unacknowledged norm is the basis of almost all social problems.

Re: The Party of Stupid

DougEFresh — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 10:31:34 -0000

REalty, I do plead guilty that I have used a bit of stereotyping of liberals, but I find that liberals often engage in a lot of this with respect to evangelicals. Not all of them are that way, but the most vocal and publicized ones are the ones that stir a lot of shit.

Maybe my perspective is skewed because many of the liberals I am friends with have a rather distorted view of that community. One in particular makes bizarre arguments that evangelicals have so infested the Metro Detroit area women, that so few of them put out anymore.

Of course it is a lame attempt to explain away why he can't get laid, especially since Detroit is not a hotbed of evangelicals.

With regard to your evangelical friends who not attempt to convert you, I wonder if they would attempt to convert you if you were Asian or Black, not because they are bigots, but maybe they just feel more comfortable preaching to those in their community. While Wright may have supported gay rights, many black churches are not very gay friendly. Obama had that one clown, Donnie ?, at an event preaching something insulting about gays.

I don't think these people vote Republican solely because they hold the Democratic Party guilty for the voices of the few. But if you hear a mocking of your lifestyle in the popular culture and 9 times out of 10, the mocker is a liberal, it will effect your view of the party of liberalism.

Re: The Party of Stupid

Vivisfugue — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 10:24:24 -0000

Reality Man: I am an avowed socialist, religiously agnostic, practically oozing with tolerance and non-judgementality. But you should not listen to rap music. It is depressing.

Re: The Party of Stupid

Vivisfugue — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 10:15:06 -0000

Reality Man: I am an avowed socialist, religiously agnostic, practically oozing with tolerance and non-judgementality. But you should not listen to rap music. It is depressing.

Re: The Party of Stupid

Reality Man — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 02:24:32 -0000

"Unfortunately, that mocking comes most painfully from the GOP, not the liberals. It was guys like Grover Norquist and Abramoff that considered the religious right to be a bunch of fools to be exploited, and the rhetoric about attitudes toward the midwest came from Rush Limbaugh trying to wedge long-time midwest Democratic voters toward Bush.

Sure, you find some liberals applying those labels on blogs and whatnot, but the arrogant preaching is generally nonexistent except from what guys like Rush fabricate for the audience.

Posted by Martin | August 8, 2008 4:17 PM"

In addition, according to Time, Bush didn't do more to help out Delay with his legal troubles because DeLay was a working-class former exterminator, which Bush couldn't relate to. Apparently Bush and Rove (who is non-religious and maybe even an atheist) used to mock the evangelicals together in the Oval Office.

"dearleader nyc, the type of liberal I have a lot of disdain for is the kind who states that we should be openminded towards Muslims who wish ill upon us, yet the same liberal practices closemindedness to the evangelical next door. Nicholas Kristoff, hardly a right winger, wrote a great piece on the hypocracy of some on the left who ran out an bought the Koran after 9/11, in order to get a greater understanding of those who murdered 3000 people.

Yet some of the same people who asked for understanding of Islam have never bothered to ask for an openminded view of Christians in America, many of whom practice a religion far less extreme than those who we were asked to show tolerance towards.

The other thing that bothers me is that a lot of these elitists love to mock the white churchgoer, yet would never direct their distaste toward the African American churchgoer. People who are on the right side of the aisle are mocked for believing in fairy tales of the Bible, but when Obama, Clinton, Gore, Carter and MLK talk about faith, they are exempt from the scorn.

I hope none of this comes off as a defense of the religious right, because I don't have a hell of a lot in common with them.

Posted by DougEFresh | August 8, 2008 11:59 PM"

Personally, I have found this in my experience to be a bit of a parody of liberals. I grew up in a rather Catholic town outside of Boston where nearly everybody worshiped the Kennedys, yet just about everyone sent their kids to CCD or Hebrew School. What Northeastern liberals have a problem with is a very specific type of fundamentalism that has become pretty much just another structure within the GOP apparatus; think of the preachers saying things like America is a Christian nation founded to destroy the evil of Islam, gays are evil, Jews are declaring war on Christmas, Bush is a savior sent by God, the US must support Israel so it can take over all of Biblical Israel to bring about the Second Coming and force all Jews to choose between conversion or death, global warming is an evil myth perpetuated by the leftist science conspiracy, etc. In many ways, establishment evangelical white protestantism has become purely political and has stopped being about faith. These are the preachers who talk about how secular liberals like us are evil because we do not share their faith.

My black and Asian evangelical friends have never tried to convert me or force their religious beliefs on me and also have many gay, lesbian and bi friends they accept and love, yet too often the white evangelicals in my life have tried to make the most normal conversations about why I should convert, why my lack of religious belief is wrong and my ancestors' faith in Hinduism was wicked, why my gay friends are evil, why science is wrong, why I shouldn't listen to rap and punk rock, why I am evil to not be a virgin anymore and why I must do God's will by supporting Bush and the war in Iraq.

In addition, the historical institutional racism of many white Southern evangelical and fundamentalist also plays a role, even up to this day with stories like churches refusing to allow half-white, half-black children who died young to be buried in all-white church cemeteries. Jerry Falwell's language about the religious organization of the civil rights movement does make it seem like he saw black religious Protestants as members of a completely different people despite sharing the Protestant faith. Meanwhile, Jeremiah Wright supported gay rights.

While I don't deny there are secular liberals who do go to the Bill Maher extreme of equating religious belief with mental sickness, how many atheists or agnostics are actually in Congress or heading the DNC? Voting against a party just because you don't like some of its supporters is stupid. I disagree with white Southern evangelicals on a lot, yet I would have no problem joining them in voting for Carter in 1976 and 1980 if I had had the chance. A lot of us secular liberals take a "live and let live" approach to such things, yet the GOP evangelicals and fundamentalists want to force us to adopt their lifestyle. The GOP mocks things like eating argula and drinking low-sugar iced tea as somehow un-American, yet we would never get away with openly mocking their faith in ads.

Re: The Party of Stupid

MoeLarryAndJesus — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 00:40:39 -0000

Ed Marshall writes: "Your average republican thinks he's an economic genius because he got told to like something he thinks of as capitalism at some point. Someone else told them, and I'm not kidding, I've heard this over and over "raising taxes destroys the economy, that's econ 101"."

I like pointing out to these people how both Reagan and Clinton raised taxes early in their presidencies and the economy grew anyway. They get this buglike look on their faces and barely know how to respond, but they always end up throwing out the does-not-compute data.

The GOP is a cult, not a party. It's crashing because only the true believers are left, and most of them are idiots or insane.

I'm enjoying this year.

Re: The Party of Stupid

MoeLarryAndJesus — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 00:35:40 -0000

DougE writes: "People who are on the right side of the aisle are mocked for believing in fairy tales of the Bible, but when Obama, Clinton, Gore, Carter and MLK talk about faith, they are exempt from the scorn."

This seems exceptionally silly to me, DougE. The reason I and many others mock fundamentalists isn't because they have faith. It's because they do things like try to inflict creationism on science classes, or claim that Jesus wants to ban interracial dating. Obama, Clinton, Gore, Carter and MLK did nothing of the sort. You're comparing apples to bowling balls.

"the type of liberal I have a lot of disdain for is the kind who states that we should be openminded towards Muslims who wish ill upon us, yet the same liberal practices closemindedness to the evangelical next door. Nicholas Kristoff, hardly a right winger, wrote a great piece on the hypocracy of some on the left who ran out an bought the Koran after 9/11, in order to get a greater understanding of those who murdered 3000 people.

Who is responsible for more corpses - Dumbya Bush or Osama bin Laden?

And I've gone out of my way to understand both Christian AND Islamic fundamentalists, but my familiarity with our homegrown fundies goes back to 1979, when I first encountered the cultlike Campus Crusade For Christ. I am very familiar with them.

Also you seem to be forgetting that Jimmy Carter - an unabashed born-again - won the support of "liberals" in 1976 and 1980.

Re: The Party of Stupid

Ed Marshall — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 00:31:44 -0000

You've answered your own question and, in the process, highlighted why the proposal is poor policy... which might also be why McCain is for it.

He has no idea what you just said. He doesn't get why what he said is self-refuting and foolish (and perfect fodder for the topic addressed).

This drives me mad. Your average republican thinks he's an economic genius because he got told to like something he thinks of as capitalism at some point. Someone else told them, and I'm not kidding, I've heard this over and over "raising taxes destroys the economy, that's econ 101". That's all economics is. You wonder why anyone even needs a four-year degree. They should probably make the subject a two-week certification.

Re: The Party of Stupid

Ed Marshall — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 00:26:11 -0000

You've answered your own question and, in the process, highlighted why the proposal is poor policy... which might also be why McCain is for it.

He has no idea what you just said. He doesn't get why what he said is self-refuting and foolish (and perfect fodder for the topic addressed).

Re: The Party of Stupid

DougEFresh — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 23:59:29 -0000

dearleader nyc, the type of liberal I have a lot of disdain for is the kind who states that we should be openminded towards Muslims who wish ill upon us, yet the same liberal practices closemindedness to the evangelical next door. Nicholas Kristoff, hardly a right winger, wrote a great piece on the hypocracy of some on the left who ran out an bought the Koran after 9/11, in order to get a greater understanding of those who murdered 3000 people.

I hope none of this comes off as a defense of the religious right, because I don't have a hell of a lot in common with them.

Re: The Party of Stupid

ed — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 23:11:46 -0000

In the insular academic world of Krugman and many leftists, what looks good on paper suffices as an alternative to reality.

To a lot of The Reality-Based Community, including The Kruggmeister (what the above person derisively calls "leftists"), invading Iraq and massive, highly regressive, and deliberately deceptive tax cuts looked horrible on paper. How'd that work out?

Re: The Party of Stupid

Sorn — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 18:04:07 -0000

Fair enough but what seperates the educated "evangelical" from the il-educated fundamentalist?

I remember Fr. Sullivan talking about how he had a bishop dispute with him about the merits of Evolution. Surley the bishop was 'educated' in the accepted sense of the word. The process of Education is often seperate from and sometimes antithical to the process of critical thinking and investigation.

Perhaps and this is my interpetation of what you are saying it would be better to say that people should strive to keep ideology of whatever nature from blinding them to observed reality. Would unimperical be a better term that uneducated?

Re: The Party of Stupid

MoeLarryAndJesus — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:22:12 -0000

Sorn asks: "Hey Moe

What do you mean by educated? "

Beyond having basic literacy and math skills I think being 'educated' should involve having critical thinking abilities. I don't see how people who think the Earth is 6000 years old or that "dinosaurs were on the Ark" can be considered to qualify for the label.

Re: The Party of Stupid

SavageView — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:17:17 -0000

See, I have taken Econ 101 and I think the answer is that there just isn't a lot of demand elasticity with gas. For example, suppose the federal government started a 10% peach tax. You'd probably see a significant decline in peach sales as people switched over to untaxed nectarines. But gas isn't like peaches; there isn't really any good substitute for it, besides eschewing driving and going with public transportation. And unlike produce, which one can always just stop buying altogether, gas is a pretty necessary item. So I don't really believe that if you eliminated an 18.4 cent gas tax people would start buying up more gas. It just defies common sense to suppose that if the price of gas drops from 4.00 a gallon to 3.82, people are going to start behaving that differently.

You've answered your own question and, in the process, highlighted why the proposal is poor policy... which might also be why McCain is for it.

Re: The Party of Stupid

SavageView — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:12:36 -0000

No need to be sarcastic Savage. He asked a completely valid question. For the record, I'd love to hear a serious answer, myself. My econ is awful.

Krugman has written on this issue several times on his blog, in particular when he was forced to call out Hillary on her endorsement of suspending the federal gas tax. Given short-run inelastic demand, tax incidence falls almost entirely on producers not consumers.

Re: The Party of Stupid

Asher — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:09:37 -0000

See, I have taken Econ 101 and I think the answer is that there just isn't a lot of demand elasticity with gas. For example, suppose the federal government started a 10% peach tax. You'd probably see a significant decline in peach sales as people switched over to untaxed nectarines. But gas isn't like peaches; there isn't really any good substitute for it, besides eschewing driving and going with public transportation. And unlike produce, which one can always just stop buying altogether, gas is a pretty necessary item. So I don't really believe that if you eliminated an 18.4 cent gas tax people would start buying up more gas. It just defies common sense to suppose that if the price of gas drops from 4.00 a gallon to 3.82, people are going to start behaving that differently.

Re: The Party of Stupid

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 16:36:44 -0000

No need to be sarcastic Savage. He asked a completely valid question. For the record, I'd love to hear a serious answer, myself. My econ is awful.