"Stuff it", smitty_one_each.

That's your idea of a sincere exchange of ideas, right?

He doesn't sound insane to me at all. Arapaio sounds like a violent thug whose behavior has been legitimized by a badge, an officially issued gun, and a bunch of ignorant, hick voters who think his treacherous outlaw image is a "cool" Hollywood-style way of dealing with "criminals". He seems a violent bully hopped on power, totally lacking any empathy or decency. I don't think he's marauding against crime, I think he's just marauding in general, and he's going to keep marauding until someone stops him. Either he's going to be murdered by one of the numerous enemies he's made in his violent crusade against justice, or he's going to finally kick down the wrong door, trigger a shootout between him and a law-abiding citizen (or, as is more his M.O., an otherwise non-violent offender that he sends a veritable army after), and either get killed in the process or kill the innocent victim, and finally get what's coming to him from the courts.

Joe Arpaio typifies the unqualified thug lawman who thinks his job is to brutalize the public rather than protect it, and I can't wait for the day that his disgusting behavior finally catches up with him.

It's really all that needs to be said of Arpaio, and since it's the first instance of the statement, it's the most insightful post in the story.

I've seen this argument before, but usually in reference to fat or bald people. Some prejudices are just socially acceptable while others aren't, that has nothing to do with the definition of the terms involved.

If you're going to try and make an anthropological argument out of it, you could argue all sorts of things. Height-ism or fat-ism or bald-ism in relation to marriage or sex are prejudices that are probably invoked in response to biological processes that trigger repulsion based on potential mating concerns. Each "inferior" trait indicates a potential genetic weakness that causes the woman to be sexually uninterested through natural chemical processes in her body. Shortness is often associated diminished physical strength; baldness can be indicative of nutrient deficiencies, poor stress coping, etc.; and being overweight is a general marker for all sorts of potential health complications and diseases.

Normal variations in skin color, however, are not indicative of genetic weaknesses, so the source of the repulsion is probably not biological, but social, which is "repairable". I suspect, however, that the source of racism to begin with is also a hotly debated topic in its own right so we're just digging this little hole deeper and deeper.

Perhaps you could ask a more specific question. You don't really seem to want to know the definition of racism...

1. the prejudice that members of one race are intrinsically superior to members of other races
2. discriminatory or abusive behavior towards members of another race

Waka waka

http://waysandmeans.house.gov/media/pdf/111/AAHCA09001xml.pdf in its full 1018 page glory.

But if anyone tried to call out the legislation for it, they'd be met with responses saying that nothing too extreme would be allowed to happen...

Well, I'm all for reform and I think the language in that cybersecurity bill is too vague in that section, soooo....

whoever's criticizing it is just fear-mongering

But, there's your problem. This isn't the cybersecurity bill. The people opposing the health care reform legislation are just fear-mongering and lying. They're not saying "well, geez, this is awfully vague and open to a lot of potential abuse down the line", they're just making up increasingly irrational lies. And, I quote:

Congress would make it mandatory -- absolutely require -- that every five years people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner. -- Betsy McCaughey

The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil. -- Sarah Palin

People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless -- Investor's Business Daily (apparently unaware that Hawking has been under the care of the NHS most of his life)

...I want you to know that I have a daughter who was born with cerebral palsy. And when she was born, they said she would never walk or talk or feed herself. She went to college, they were wrong. This poster bothers me so much because the hand of the person shown in this poster reminds me of my daughter's hand. -- Glenn Beck, while holding up a poster from Nazi Germany

By all means, let's have a constructive discussion on the pros and cons of this particular plan and alternative possibilities. That's not happening right now, though, because one side of the "debate" has chosen to rest its entire opposition entirely on a bed of blatant lies, shouting, and extreme fear-mongering.

You fail.

Nine more posts and I have a degree!

Oh, wait, no... I actually had to prove that I'd learned some facts to get my degree.

I respectfully disagree on the grounds that I think the motivation for these little forays isn't racism at all, it's just that some people are dicks who only care about their own political gain.

Remember, these stupid riots the right is engaging in aren't grassroots in the least, they're just a bunch of poorly informed hicks that got all ginned up watching establishment republicans on Fox News piss and moan over generalities and make-believe fairytale nonsense ("Obamacare" is a great example of the strawmen they're attacking). The people working at the top levels to destroy Obama aren't necessarily racists, they're just selfish career politicians and muckrakers who are scared that their gravy train has run out of track (they may also, in any individual case, be racist, I just don't think that's the primary motivation here).

Which is why I think that the slogan is carefully crafted to appeal to racists, while also being obtuse enough to attract people who aren't racists, but simply morons.

It's not really clearly racist. Yes, most of the people involved are simply bigoted morons who get all their "news" from Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and activist websites and are, therefore, entirely incapable of having an intelligent discussion on the issues (hence the main goal of simply screaming and yelling until the speaker just gives up). However, the organizers of these barely-controlled riots are actually establishment groups that are simply opposing everything Democrat for their own political and economic purposes. They don't want to scare away the non-racists by being blatantly racist.

I'm waiting until one of them attacks a congresscritter (and I'm willing to bet it will be either a black or perceived "gay" member of Congress). These are not smart people that are rioting (if they were smart, they wouldn't have to just yell their fool heads off, they could actually engage in a reasonable debate), and the people ginning them up aren't going to be able to keep control of them forever.

Don't worry, I won't bother your pretty little head again. I only posted here because I thought you were one of the few remaining righties that had any common sense and decency left in them. My mistake.

A priori, I'm persuaded that the diametric opposite of anything the Administration says on, well, any topic, will be more representative of the truth.

Conspiracy theorist.

Your position is that what's being told to you is always a lie, so your position is unfalsifiable, which makes your position that of a conspiracy theorist. This is the exact same behavior of every conspiracy theorist from moon landing hoaxers to JFK to flat-earthers. Why, then, should anybody be concerned about your opinion on the issue when there is no route to an intelligent and factual discussion on the differences of opinion? Shouldn't you just be arbitrarily dismissed the way the flat-earthers are?

I'm sorry, but you're just too infuriating. I'm not going to sit and argue with somebody who has so little respect for the victims of the Holocaust that he thinks their trials were so minor that they can be appropriately compared to a forwarded email. You don't deserve the attention.

You can complain about this all you want, and there's some merit to complaining about it, but trivializing one of the worst genocides in history by comparing the torture and murder of millions of innocent people to forwarding an email is so unrelentingly vile that I refuse to continue to justify it. You're pathetic.

Are you implying that I'm a hypocrite who supports equating Bush with a Hitler, but not this, (a lie I'd love to see you try and back up), or are you implying that my point is invalid because I haven't identified and scolded every person who's ever made that comparison (a pretty ridiculous position to take)?

Or are you just being passive aggressive toward me because you don't want to chastise your friend here for minimizing Nazi atrocities?

I can't even imagine why people don't take republicans seriously. I mean, with the respect you just showed the tens of millions of victims of Nazi Germany, how can anybody NOT take you seriously?

Seriously, that was just sick. Absolutely sick.