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Comment Re:Face it ... (Score 1) 134

I didn't claim to offer a solution. I was just commenting on the parent, who claimed that it was wrong to mod its parent flamebait. I agree with the moderators. Unfortunately new moderators have come along and modded the article up. We don't need more hope-killing hysteria. Telling people not to hope, that we're already doomed and defeated, is the surest way to keep them down. It's a fairly safe assumption that when someone does that, they are doing it precisely for that reason: they don't want you to get involved.

Comment Re:Face it ... (Score 2) 134

Vote. In. The. Primary. If you are in a gerrymandered district, register for the party that owns the district. Participate in the campaign if you have time. Run for office if you have more time. Even if you don't win, if you get attention you can move the Overton window in your direction.

Comment Re:**waves arms wildly** (Score 1) 106

Essentially you are saying that you would rather risk crashing your car than have the health insurance companies know your health status. I think there's a teaching moment in here somewhere. If we can't admit to the system that pays for our health care that we have health problems, something is badly broken. If this is the model for why a car being able to tell you are impaired is "spooky," I think the problem is not with the car.

Comment Re:Classic Obama (Score 1) 211

Obama actually wasn't in favor of passing "Obamacare." That was Pelosi. Obama very nearly decided not to bother. Get your history straight. Obamacare is one of the most recent examples I can think of of Congress doing its job. And if you think I'm an Obama shill, you are just looking for a fight, because I agree with Obama about half the time at best. I'm sure you can find a better Obama shill without looking too far.

Comment Re:Classic Obama (Score 2, Interesting) 211

No, you're not getting me. I am not saying Obama is good or Obama is bad because of his good or bad qualities as an autocrat. I am saying he is good because of his good qualities as an executive. The stuff he's doing as an autocrat I sometimes agree with and sometimes disagree with, but it shouldn't be something he has to do as an autocrat. Congress should be doing the right thing, and it's not. We could debate the merits of the various executive orders he's given since he came into office; I certainly understand why he's been acting as an autocrat. Congress wants him to be an autocrat: they've made that crystal clear. But that's the problem. Congress is supposed to be making these policies, but they have abdicated them to the executive. First with Bush, by letting him do things they shouldn't have let him do. Now with Obama by forcing him to set policies they should have set, because they will not govern.

We clearly don't agree in general, but if you think it's okay for Bush to be an autocrat, you can't turn around and say it's not okay for Obama. And if you think it's not okay for Bush to be an autocrat, then we agree; the question is what to do about it.

Comment Re:Classic Obama (Score 5, Insightful) 211

It's really simple. I do not think Obama is perfect and wonderful. But I think he is less harmful than Bush Junior was, because he's competent. He gets things done. I don't like everything he gets done, but he is the head of the executive branch, not the legislative branch. It's his job to get things done.

Expecting the president to change laws is treating him or her like an autocrat: a king. The president is not supposed to make policy; he or she is supposed to implement policies made by congress and the courts. What sucked about Bush was that he thought it was his job to "lead the nation" and he did a piss-poor job of it, with Congress' help.

We really need to get over our collective feudal attitude toward the presidency. The founding fathers understood that the president was not a king; George Washington famously refused to be named king. Why have we forgotten this principle?

Comment Re:Piracy Warnings (Score 1) 135

Decreasing government revenues is a choice, not an inevitable outcome of some fundamental change in society. Part of the nature of the decreasing revenue is that we keep moving more and more discretionary spending into corporate welfare, like private prisons. The best part about this is that the worse you treat people in need, the more likely they are to wind up in prison. $$$.

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