Fairweather

Gotta love the attempts at in-text citation that you're including with your posts, but, hint: you're not writing a 200-level rhetorical analysis here. And style points only count when referencing scholarly work--which is far from the gurge you're trying to pass off as credible here.

The thing is, the revenue side really does need to be addressed--and letting the GWB tax cuts expire (for everyone) would be a good thing. Unfortunately, those on my side of the fence see useless unionist thug sponges like j_b screeching like baby birds in a nest and we ask ourselves whether tax increases are really going to get us out of this hole that we're in. Cuts first, public sector reform second, new revenues last.

Swiftboating. At least the Repubs had the decency to wait until a nominee was chosen, dammit.

I'll bet you were poppin Prozac like popcorn. Your therapy bill probably hasn't been this high since A.I. was in theaters.

Um, didn't your DNC buddies send you your talking points? Cain was last week. This week's topic is Gingrich or, um, uh, whichever R happens to be leading in the polls.

While I agree with you one hundred percent on this, I gotta smirk when I see you supporting your premises with citations from the same "tired, dusty old document" that you openly mock when it's contents prove ideologically inconvenient. No clue what your on about here...I'd guess it's yer brain not workin' right again, but that's coo! Think real hard. (Difficult for you, I know.) It may become easier once the smoke clears.

While I agree with you one hundred percent on this, I gotta smirk when I see you supporting your premises with citations from the same "tired, dusty old document" that you openly mock when it's contents prove ideologically inconvenient.

That's the first time I ever heard an innernutz assclown label Cronkite as 'trivial'. I don't think you did your already somewhat...um...tenuous credibility any favors there, laddie. It's unfortunately not the first time I see an assclown who doesn't understand what he just read. One incidence is trivial evidence by opposition to the behavior in general. You know what, fuckwad? I grew up watching coverage of the Vietnam war. I watched it pretty closely...my 2nd grade classmate's brother died there, and me pops was there for 2 years. The news didn't pull any punches in telling it like it was. Reporters risked and lost their lives telling it like it was. If your lilly-livered, I've-done-fuck-all-but-whine post modern ego requires denigration of that kind sacrifice, that's cool. And you also need to fuck off, you pusillanimous little fucking insect. Clear enough, or would you like another 'anecdotal' opinion? passmethefuckingpopcornIlovethisshit

Don't worry, they'll pull it out. (And spray it all over our backs.)

When will they address the problem of road head?

And if the government took all of our arms away, then we'd have to rely on them for, well, pretty much everything. Ya know.

I don't know what I'd do without my favorite arm.

As long as it's within the first trimester--before the teeth are formed.

I'm just glad we'll all be able to keep at least one arm. Who, after all, wouldn't support a limit on arms?

Ohhhh reaaalllyyyyy?

D.C. v Heller. God, I love the Supremes!

When my body is fully depreciated and unable to climb, I'm gonna build one of those things and summit-hop the Cascade Range.

Constitution, scmonstitution! Tvash & Co. have an even more better idea!

Not unless you blow the dust off that tired old document first. (And come up with something better.)

By Rob's logic the press portion of the First Amendment only protects newspapers. BAN THE INTERNET!

This is an outrage! I mean, next thing ya know felons are gonna want their voting rights restored! Geeeezzzz. Next topic please. (Preferably something more considered--and from someone not so, um, addled.)

I don't believe Immanuel Kant would agree with your first sentence. Or, I believe Immanuel Kant would agree with your first sentence. In any event, not sure what you're trying to say here--or who you've been reading. While it's still open to debate in some circles, I believe the fallacy of altruism in the natural world has been settled. Here, altruism and self interest are, essentially, one in the same. That said, if altruism exists at all (and I have my doubts) it is within creatures who are the sole bearers of intrinsic value--in other words, human beings. The down-side of this is, of course, that it is the epitome of anthopocentrism. The altruism/self-interest dichotomy is an irrelevant bore. That our understanding and experience, our getting on in the world is irreducibly social in nature goes without saying. There are no lone wolves in this chimp colony (the exceptions, like Kaspar Hauser prove the point). That we are enriched as individuals when our social orders are stable, functional, and mutually beneficial would also seem self-evident. Robert P. Harrison's essay, "Toward a Philosophy of Nature" makes good use of a caged Barcelona Zoo gorilla named Capito de Nievehas and has some good insight here that ties in well with what I think you're trying to say. One of my favorite quotes: "Axiom: Wonder is ignorance that is aware of itself as ignorance." "Hypothesis: Animals are not aware of their ignorance; hence they lack irony." Of course, I immediately thought of TTK and realized this author has failed to consider ego. Another favorite: "Axiom: Animals do not need to do justice to their nature, since they cannot betray it." "Hypothesis: Rights exist solely because they can be violated. Only human beings who are self-surpassing, are able to transgress the law of freedom that governs the natural order."

Not any more than Socialism--or even Cosmopolitanism. Part of Enlightenment appeal was its ability to free the individual from the oppression (real and perceived) of the community. While the unquoted portion of your post is apolitical and accurate, this last bit is way off base--or, at the very least, too narrowly defined. Liberalism and socialism and their variants are all part of the Enlightenment tradition. I'm not sure which Socialism you're referring to, but Marx's critique of the political economy of the time was founded on and strove toward a scientific examination and interrogation of actually existing conditions, the structure of ongoing social relations (political, economic, ideological) and their development through history. Classical liberalism elevates abstractions like a narrowly defined "human nature", natural rights, state of nature, individuality and the self at the expense of any thoroughgoing study of how those categories came to be or of society and the economic relations that Marx understood to underpin it. The Marxian critique of liberalism (and its efforts at explaining the world) is that, far from freeing individuals from oppression (or providing tools for its examination), it accepts the exercise of economic exploitation and class domination through capitalist market relations as the "natural", "apolitical", "neutral" state of things rather than as an outcome of ongoing historical processes. That Marx failed to properly synthesize empiricism and the rational is why he got it so wrong. We are, in fact, more than the Marxian sum of our economy and our history. We are, in fact, more than Hegelian products of master-slave relationships. Despite his flaws, it seems to me that Kant was closer to figuring out who we are than any of his later tag-alongs--particularly Marx.

I don't believe Immanuel Kant would agree with your first sentence. Or, I believe Immanuel Kant would agree with your first sentence. In any event, not sure what you're trying to say here--or who you've been reading. While it's still open to debate in some circles, I believe the fallacy of altruism in the natural world has been settled. Here, altruism and self interest are, essentially, one in the same. That said, if altruism exists at all (and I have my doubts) it is within creatures who are the sole bearers of intrinsic value--in other words, human beings. The down-side of this is, of course, that it is the epitome of anthopocentrism.