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When the Democrats were down they came up with the DLC and Blue Dogs to try to grow the party.

It’s interesting that the Republicans, currently in a far weaker position than the Democrats back then were, are choosing to go with a purge of non-believers.

Indeed, PNNTO. Every stereotype you used to hear about the Democrats– insular, unpopular, in the thrall of militant chieftains– applies about 10 times more to the GOP. And they’re determined to continue on that path, at a time when the country is in worse shape. It speaks very poorly for the nation’s white community.
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Also, Joe, I can’t really imagine you saying, “Both candidates are excellent” were there a dude as far to the left as Rubio is to the right… but that’s rather hard for me to verify.

Elvis I took JK to mean they were both excellent as candidates-Presentation, charisma, etc.
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But only Joe knows.

An annual election was held. Two opposing sides made their cases to the public. One side lost, one side won. This does not mean that freedom was lost or a way of life is under siege. The fact that a certain segment of the population cannot understand that is frightening.

Point of personal privilege – It really irks me when I follow a link to another article and it doesn’t open in a new window like most links in the rest of the world. Then when I automatically close the window I close down Swampland and have to rearrange my windows on my taskbar.

Not big, but annoying.

Frightening – but not surprising, given the record of that “Certain segment’s” behavior. The Republican approach has become the politics of the spoiled child.

You should be able to hit the back arrow key at the top of the page. It will take you back to where you were before, without shutting anything down.

Thank you qc, it’s just a matter of training myself to do it since all the other things I routinely read open in new windows or, as with Eschaton, allow you to choose the option that I automatically close the window.

This is came with the new Swamp and I wish the High Sheriffs would reconsider. It’s so hard to retrain my old fingers and brain!

Actually the feature you are asking for is extreamly easy to implement. I update web pages in Deamweaver and it is just a matter of making one little selection in a drop down box. Certainly it would be easy enough for the High Sheiffs to do.

Yeah, I thought so, too, PNNTO, but still thought that I wouldn’t see it were the shoe on the other foot. But it’s not really great of me to call out columnists for imaginary sins in a hypothetical universe either way, so… whatever.

“But it’s not really great of me to call out columnists for imaginary sins in a hypothetical universe either way, so… whatever”
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Au Contraire Elvis. Follow Peggy Noonan’s rule-Is it irresponsible to speculate? It would be irresponsible not to.

It’s simple a matter of them adding “target=new” to their links. HTML 101.

Nothing is a comical as liberals trying to determine what is wrong with Republicans. You truly should get out of Mom’s basement more often. I am not sure what is more frightening that our freedoms and way of life ARE being destroyed or the insistence of the faux-intellectual liberals who fail to see or acknowledge any of it.

But on the bright side we will have HC reform that will bankrupt the country and allow us to be taken over by Chinese without them ever firing a single shot.

How is your personal way of life being destroyed free? Elaborate please.

queencersei

Mandated HC insurance, “Net Neutrality”, Fairness Doctrine, Corporate takeover of public companies, Government authority over compensation, Government websites for reporting people who disagree with WH policies, Cap & Tax. This list goes on!

Fairness Doctrine,
Sigh. That favorite canard of the right. Will you please provide a link from a government document, not a right wing “news” site that shows the Fairness Doctrine is back in force. Personally I’d like to see Fox required to actually present fair and balanced coverage.
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Corporate takeover of public companies, Government authority over compensation, Let’s just call these the old Golden Rules. He who has the gold gets to make the rules. If you can’t make it on your own and want to live on the public dime, you play by whatever rules the public dime requires. Kind of like Pakistan taking US aid then complaining when asked to report on how it’s spent.
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Government websites for reporting people who disagree with WH policies, Ah yes, another carryover from the Bush administration. Remember Homeland Security and report your neighbor…

“Net Neutrality”
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Freeper, Net Neutrality is the status quo. This is an issue because Comcast and others want to change the law to LIMIT YOUR FREEDOM to use the internet as you see fit by choosing which sites will get the best connections and most bandwidth, by picking the winners and the losers instead of LETTING THE MARKET DECIDE.
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And you are defending THEM on the basis of greater freedom? Braindead nihilists the whole lot of you.
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I just wonder why Republicans really think that multi-national corporate conglomerates would have their best interests at heart.

I think that the difference between the left of center-Left’s efforts in 2000 and 2004 to pull the Dems leftward away from the false center and the same efforts to pull the GOP closer to the edge of the Right is that the far-right wingers have actually succeeded. There are few Repubs at a national level that can reasonably be considered moderates; Greer is correct about the whole ‘three purists at a table’ thing…not that it’s going to happen soon enough and not without a lot of collateral damage.

I still have no idea how the hell people like Glenn Beck and freep somehow manage to mangle the whole concept of “Net Neutrality” as “abridging freedom of speech”. It’s just such a perfect example of how they manage to twist such concepts to their own liking in order to enrich corporate controls.

@freeinpaBwahahaha!! The Net Neutrality movement is impinging on your personal freedoms? Do you even know what that means? Are you really that dumb?

I’d like to point out that if you middle click a link in Firefox or IE8(7) the link will open in new tab. This is of course dependent on having a middle mouse button (or wheel).

hotbbq – Nah, Freep’s just taking cues from Glenn Beck, who pulled the same spiel a few days ago.

Ivy_B
Speaking of a canard. “Show me a government document”…. There are many policies that get enacted without pointing to a particular document. Show me the document that states the government can take over the auto companies. Hint: Its not in TARP!

For all the whing and crying here about FOX they have the highest rating for fairness from groups other conservatives. Its the psuedo-intellectual far-left wing nuts who believe otherwise. Notice that you left out any mention of CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NPR and on and on since I am sure you beoieve to be dead center and fair. (Quick get your meds they are not).

As for the Corporate takeovers, the government should have walked away and I blame Bush as well. Having said that, Obama ignored decades of bankruptcy law and handed the unions controlling equity interest. And now we are told by Inspectors General that we see little chance of having TARP repaid by the auto companies.

Again I am not surprised to see a liberal have a problem with our government using every resource possible to protect its citizens (a duty actually outlined in the Constitution), and yet have no problem with the WH building essentially an enemies list of folks who disagree with their policies.

I’m not sure where you got your information from, but uh, Charlie Crist is not that popular here in Florida. He angered a lot of folks with big talk on home owner’s insurance and property tax reform that he didn’t deliver on. He could be readily ousted by a Democrat who comes off as Crist 2.0 (Now with more Obama!). If someone, Democrat or Republican, can step up and deliver a decent plan to deal with the horrible property tax situation, home owner’s insurance rates, terrible development planning, and the death of the space shuttle, Mr.Crist in a world of trouble.

@Ivy_BIs is that they don’t agree with the WH’s policies, or that they don’t agree with reality?

The current rules, which never went through an official rule-making process and are being contested in court by Comcast, give broadband consumers the right use whatever services, applications and devices they like, so long as they don’t harm the network.

Genachowski proposes adding two more principles:

1. broadband providers cannot discriminate against services or applications by slowing them down
2. broadband providers must tell customers how its engineers manage the network when it gets congested

The first new rule seeks to prevent cable ISPs from slowing down online video services and 3G providers from messing with internet calling services like Skype.

Those rules are necessary because there is little competition in the broadband market, Genachowski added. ”The net result is that broadband providers’ rational bottom-line interests may diverge from the broad interests of consumers in competition and choice,” Genachowski said.”

By the FCC’s chairmans own words the problem is lack of competition not government oversight.

And yes I would prefer leaving it to corporations than the government who will use policies to punish enemies and how they can get elected again.

But on the bright side we will have HC reform that will bankrupt the country and allow us to be taken over by Chinese without them ever firing a single shot.
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A deficit-neutral healthcare reform package will ‘bankrupt the country’ while fighting two wars on a Chinese credit card because conservatives love to give the wealthiest 1% of Americans a tax cut isn’t a big deal…right?
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It’s not us liberals who did all the borrowing and spending, turning a budget surplus into a deficit, remember?…Not that you’re willing to face it, but your side tried your ideas and they failed miserably. Pretending otherwise means that you’re just lying to yourself.

I’ll keep it short so maybe you understand (doubtful, but here is a try). Anytime the government is involved in any decision or mandate you lose freedoms and it becomes a complicated mess. Perfect example: check out the health care bill; net-neutrality for the sick.

freep, per my request for a government document – that is one provided by the government printing office or some official government source that indicated that the Fairness Doctrine was back in effect. That statement had nothing to do with the three paragraphs you took off on about TARP etc.
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And, if you were to search Thomas, the Library of Congress’ legislative search site and find some legislation that proved your points I would be more impressed than with your rambling above.
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As an aside to something you raised, I stopped watching CNN and MSNBC and think NPR is becoming a joke (unlike you, I think it has overbalanced to the right instead of as before reporting the news.)

Obviously they get there information from the Non-FOX unbiased mainstream media. Where else could anything be so wrong?

“When the Democrats were down they came up with the DLC and Blue Dogs to try to grow the party.”
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Well, it did take them a decade. 12 years in the wilderness presidentially, though they held the senate for 1/2 that span and congress the entire time. And it’s not like raving marxists were leading those majorities. I think it’s the fact that GOP party leadership, in large part due to safe, gerrymandered districts, must wage battles like Joe documents here–to prove who’s more of a nut. Pandering to a motivated, voting base, while moderate republicans are in despair, skeptical in a principled way about where Obama is moving the country, yet appalled by the likes of Time’s fav cover boy.
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What’d be grand is if the dems, including el presidente, would capitalize fully on this divided, reekingly-unpopular opposition to enact lasting progressive legislation that for generations convinces people (against GOP dogma and MSM disinterest) that the gov’t is on their side.
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If they don’t, if HCR fails, progressive dems may be feeling a lot like those principled GOPers–despair will seem fairly logical.

grape_crush

Deficit neutral? Stay away from the Hookah pipe. That is the biggest lie since “I did not have sex with that woman”. The spending is back end loaded while taxes and fees are front loaded- put over 20 years and we have Medicare, Medicaid and SS. Just as the estimates for those entitlements greatly underestimated costs and over estimated revenues.Or moving Medicare new ocsts out of the HC bill itself.

“While fighting 2 wars” Hmm I seem to recall Obama would be moving troops out and winding down the war. It is much harder to vote present now. But he did manage to spend 2 1/2 hrs speaking with Olbermann and Maddow, which is 87% more time than he spent with McChrystal. So the spending continues and I don’t think Bush is President anymore.

“Love tax cut” Here is a simple concept moron_ IT IS OUR MONEY NOT THE GOVERNMENTS

hotbbq

You are a scream liberals talking about reality and I bet you haven’t taken your meds yet

You’re right freeinpa, those Bill of Rights in the constitution the government mandates is a loss of freedom, I mean who really need this freedom of speech thing anyway? It’s really a loss of freedom of lack of speech if you ask me.

JC
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“…to enact lasting progressive legislation that for generations convinces people (against GOP dogma and MSM disinterest) that the gov’t is on their side.”
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Who is this government you speak of? Is there some fluidity that I have missed? What happens when the legislation one administration enacts with good intentions becomes a tool by which a less altruistic administration retains/expands power and manipulation over the people? Here is the very reason why power must always be limited, authority restrained. One can never foresee the exploitation of power in future governments, therefore however pleasing the face of one’s contemporary enacters, the face is always changing and thus can never be trusted to act on the people’s interests.

yogi

That was an indecipherable post even for a liberal

The Crist/Rubio primary should be interesting, but I’d have to say that the primary will be Crist’s hardest challenge. IMO, Crist would be a shoe-in in the general election but he will have a harder time in the primary. If Crist wins the primary I think he’ll be the next senator. If Rubio wins the primary, I have my doubts he’ll win the general election. Alot also depends on how nasty the primary gets. If they get down and dirty with each other and sling some mud, neither one might endorse the other in november.

Huh, strange discussion we have going on here.
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First, Obama said he’d wind down Iraq (which was going to happen anyway because Maliki ordered America out by 2011) and I’m fairly sure he was clear he’d be stepping up efforts in Afghanistan, but I suppose that between calling it a “war of necessity” and saying it had been ignored for 5 years, he didn’t explicitly say he was going to be stepping up efforts, just implying it. He’s also spent several multi-hour sessions with McChrystal in the recent weeks, the half hour report was over the course of the summer, not over his entire Presidency. I suspect you’d consider it a minor detail, but it is worth remembering.
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Social Security was designed with the stats being something like 40+ working people for every living retiree whereas today, the ratio is closer to 2:1 (which is partially why I’m not entirely against raising the retirement age as the solution to SS since it might bring us to restoring the original ratio). It really isn’t shocking that it’s failing at this point. I don’t know enough about Medicare and Medicaid to say much about them.
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Meanwhile, Americans spend more for Health Care than any other nation in the world, with 1/6th of the American economy being devoted to Health Care and there is no clear evidence to support the claim that America’s Health Care is the best – there’s plenty of evidence to suggest the former. BTW: if you want to refute that, don’t quote anyone from Fox News and get me an actual statistic that says that American Health Care is the best – I don’t even care what category, just find a stat. Learn something from the world out there rather than just Fox. Google is your friend, if a Stat exists, Google will find it.
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You might be right about Health Care costing more than the Health Care bill will provide (I doubt it’s that much more since the Public Option was nixed making what’s left have a more static value). However, I doubt there is a single person on either side of the aisle that truly believes that this bill, or any of the other proposed bills or proposed concepts or whatever, will fix health care on a permanent basis. What we do know, however, is we need to do something about Health Care.
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But that’s all kinda irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that the Fox News conservatives continually claim that the Republican party is fine and that Liberals should stop trying to claim it’s dying. Fine, perhaps they should. But the reality is that Democrats are signing up new individuals and growing their party while the Republicans, who are already in the minority, are shrinking – and the Republican response is to tell its more liberal members to get out. How do you win a majority if you’re already a minority and are telling more people to get out? How do you get more votes when you are getting rid of members? Do you think that you can convince the 80% of non-Republican Americans that Small-town (suburbs are fastest growing), white (shrinking voting block), pro-gun (ok platform), anti-abortion (70+% still support some degree of legal abortions even though pro-lifers now outnumber pro-choicers), anti-gay rights (next generation is far more pro-gay rights than the national average), anti-immigration (fastest growing voter block is the latinos), small government (good platform), pro-war (not so hot with Iraq and Afghanistan both being supported by less than the majority), pro-business (businesses are less trusted than government), christian nation (shrinking voting block) conservatism is the way to go? The problem isn’t even that you don’t have great things to lean on – a pro-business, small government, fiscal responsibility platform would win you the majority and you toss in the pro-war, pro-gun elements and you don’t get hurt too badly. The problem is that the ultra-conservatives want all of the above and are telling those who are missing elements from that list to get out. You might be able to convince people on one or two items, hell, you could probably convince 80% of Americans on at least one of the above items in the list, but you can’t get 300 million people to agree with you on every single item. It’s a philosophical impossibility.
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And perhaps the problem is that Glenn Beck is right – you are losing “your country”. The country defined by that list above. The problem is that America is a democracy, and a democracy is defined by its people as a whole, majority rules. Perhaps you’re not the majority anymore and the country that you describe as “my country” doesn’t actually exist. But guess what, that’s democracy. We, the people of democracies, have to compromise our ideal concepts of a perfect nation with the other members of our nation to become a country of “us”. Sometimes things don’t go our way. Sometimes they do. Ask some Liberals how much they loved the Bush years. I still describe the Bush doctrine as the time “America lost its way”. American exceptionalism is founded in its unparalleled freedom to hold whatever belief you want and that won’t be lost but rather enhanced because the other side won.
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So here’s a question you should ask yourself: what’s more important in a democracy: What the voters, as a whole, want, or what I believe is the right path for the country? The Republicans are saying thing like “I’d rather have 30 Republicans that agree with men than 60 Republicans that don’t.” I believe it was the non Graham South Carolina Republican Senator (DeMint?) who said that. That statement screams “my path for what’s right for the country is more important than what the voters want”. In other words, I think the Republicans are asking the wrong question.

Sorry if the post isn’t as coherent as I’d like….

freeinpa: This Liberal understood it. I’ll thank you for not trying to claim what my brain can and cannot understand in the future.

Exiled, if everything was legislated based on fear that somebody would abuse it later we wouldn’t have any laws at all. No matter what rule you set somebody will find a way to abuse it. Even the Bill of Rights is abused regularly because its broad terms can technically be used to justify a great many atrocities.

Oh and by the way, if you want to look up legislation that could be horribly abused to destroy the life and liberty of Americans go read the “Patriot” Act.

With these simple ingredients, you too can create your very own argument with freeinpa, right in the comfort of your own home!

1) False equivalencies between Bush and Obama
2) Absolute ignorance of all topics
3) Accusing liberals of using too many drugs
4) Accusing liberals of not taking enough medication
5) Seething rage
6) 4th grade argument tactics

Sprinkle liberally with spelling errors and a desperate need to prove your masculinity, remove all punctuation, and serve!

So now, everyone can do this at home and not clog up the comment threads with Freeper arguments, because they are all the same.

freeinpa, sorry buddy, I’m not a liberal or a conservative. If you can’t understand your only BS statement that “Anytime the government is involved in any decision or mandate you lose freedoms” includes the constitution, then maybe you should stop trying.

Anyone for a “No Feeding Thursday”? Anyone…?

Next thursday, can we?

Let’s limit it to days that end in a “y”.

Arrgh!

^ Damn. I miss pirate wench.

This is a very interesting thread.
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Thanks, commenters!

1) You confuse false equivalencies with you not be able to see them. For all the ranting on this site about truth, liberals have their “own truth” never to be confused with reality.

2) If by ignorance you mean I don’t agree with liberal BS guilty as charged.

3)Truth is a complete defense

4)Don’t confuse drugs with medication. The self delusions of liberals here is quite evident as many continue to maintain to be mainstream and yet are outrage as the Obama agenda is doused by true mainstream Americans

5)Again you confuse rage for an intolerance to abide by BS from the “truth tellers” here.

6) You make it to easy. I need to reach the audience of readers.

“There are 3 truths in every argument: your truth, my truth and the truth.”
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For example: Birthers believe the truth is that Obama was born in Kenya. I believe that Obama was born in Hawaii. The truth is that Congress, who are the only ones able to overturn a Presidential vote and remove a President from office, passed a resolution declaring that Obama was born in Hawaii effectively ending any possibility that the birth question can remove Obama from office (as Orly Taitz discovered with her recent fine).

forgottenlord

Sorry but a Congressional vote has no bearing on a truth. You accept as so because it aligns with “your truth”. They are politicians who lie to the public, their families and themselves.

I don’t pretend to know where Obama might have been born. I do find it curious that the whole controversy would have been shut down simply by having him produce a copy of a birth certificate. That always leaves a doubt as to his claim and credibility. That is not lunacy but a natural question or to quote Shakespeare, “Methinks the lady doth protest too much,”.

yogi

Sorry but maybe a refresher course in AMerican Government is needed for you. The Bill of Rights does not limit the freedom of anyone, it outlines what the federal government is able to do and so yes any further “refining” by the federal government does impinge freedom. Amendments to the original Constitution, such as Prohibition and Income Tax do impinge freedoms. So much that liberals believe that citizens earnings are the property of the government and not of the citizens

Here’s something about Faux News:

http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=15433

First, I must apologize, I apparently didn’t explain myself so that my point was blatantly obvious. The courts do not have the power to overturn an election despite what Orly Taitz might desire. The only body with the power to remove a sitting President who has rightfully won the majority vote of an election (a fact that no one has contested) is Congress. As such, Congress declaring that Obama is a natural born citizen creates an effective protection for Obama from being removed based upon his citizenship insofar as they have basically declared that they won’t impeach him on those grounds.
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In other words, my point is that the truth of his citizenship is irrelevant to whether he gets to play President.
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Now, as wondrous as Glenn Beck’s argument is that Obama didn’t produce a birth certificate (I point out that Obama did produce a copy of his birth certificate – the same one that every other Presidential candidate trying to validate his birth produces. No, they don’t, normally, produce a long form), I personally think that it’s a flawed argument. You see, Obama might not care. He’s busy trying to clean up two wars, a recession, a health care crisis, an environment crisis, an education crisis, and all his day-to-day activities that any President gets to deal with while Congress, the only body that would have any ability to act on this entire birth certificate issue, has basically said “we believe you’re an American”, he has no reason to worry about it. The next time he needs to care is in 3 years and by then, he’ll have 4 years of record as President that people are more likely to care about than whether his Birth Certificate is a fake.

Regarding your link, I can’t speak for all the networks regarding H1N1 but Sebelius has been on CNN and MSNBC and responded to question about H1N1 vaccine shortage. In addition, the Sec of Education has also been on CNN and MSNBC and questioned about the H1N1 vaccine. Over 300 schools were closed because of H1N1.
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People I talk to are very aware of the delay in H1N1 vaccine, that most of the influenza in most communities is H1N1, that the flu season will likely last into winter so that it is not too late to get the H1N1 vaccine, that guidelines suggest getting both the regular flu vaccine and the H1N1 vaccine, and that women who are pregnant, those with compromised immune systems, and children are at highest risk of complications from H1N1.
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I point out the above because among my acquaintances it is common knowledge, so that the Lieberman hearing would not be news. Locally there is a drive in and walk-in vaccine program put in place by government to administer regular flu and H1N1 vaccines. Again this is public information.
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Perhaps if you stopped using Fox as your news source, you would be aware of what is accepted as common knowledge by others.

But Senate hearings on the subject, not news, ok. How many stories did WaPo run on McDonnell’s college thesis?
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“People I talk to are very aware of the delay in H1N1 vaccine, that most of the influenza in most communities is H1N1, that the flu season will likely last into winter so that it is not too late to get the H1N1 vaccine . . . .”
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Quite possibly the dumbest thing said in a while. And if I have to explain why, congrats, you’re not eligible for capital punishment in America.

Y’know what, freeinpa, Net Neutrality Act is the government limiting the freedom of citizens from doing certain things. However, that does not make your argument illogical.
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See, freedom can be limited by a whole host of other methods. I am free to get any medical procedure I want so long as the doctor is willing to perform it. So my freedom is limited by the doctor’s willingness to grant me said freedom. My Doctor’s freedom is limited by whether the hospital he works at is willing to let him perform the surgery (via salary vs unemployment), who make their decision based upon whether they’ll get paid which is decided either by whether I have the money or my insurance company is willing to fork out the money. So in a way, my freedom is limited by the policies of the insurance company.
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Now, if said procedure is some important treatment for some disease I’ve got – say Cancer or something – I’d like the federal government to restrict the insurance company’s freedom so that it has to pay for my treatment. This is, in many ways, what health reform is about.
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The Net Neutrality Act works the same way. My freedom to use the Internet however I want is limited by my ISP. The Net Neutrality Act restricts the freedom of my ISP to infringe on my freedom of how I want to use the Internet. So yes, the government is infringing upon the freedom of individuals – specifically, the ISPs – but they are doing it to protect the freedoms of others.
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Those are the facts of this issue. You and I can debate about whether it is reasonable to protect the freedom of party A at the expense of the freedom of Party B, but I’d just point out that our choice to make robbery and murder illegal are exactly that and somehow I don’t think you’re “soft on crime”. You and I could probably have an interesting debate about whether the particular freedoms in play for the individual groups of people involved are a reasonable offset for this infringement of the rights of ISPs (in fact, you’ve actually made a reasonable argument to that point already). But this is not even remotely a simple “they’re infringing upon my freedoms” argument.
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“There are very few days where there is an absolute right and an absolute wrong, and most of those days involve body counts.” Freedom is not an absolute. It can’t be because if government dissolved and anarchy reigned – pure freedom – biker gangs would take over the streets and impose their own forms of order upon the land. Ok, maybe not biker gangs, but some form of order would eventually establish itself

Sorry, first paragraph, last line should read: “that does not make your argument logical”

The point is that those not infected will gain benefit from the vaccine. It’s a basic tenet of public health. The majority of the flu is H1N1. If you haven’t had the flu, get the vaccine. is that too hard to comprehend?
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This is like talking to Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin. There is o medication that will treat your stupidity.
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I really haven’t been following the Virginia Governor’s race that closely and rarely read the WaPo, so I can’t answer the McDonnell question.

Slaps-

That’s why I have always been a vocal critic of the Patriot Act. In fact, on this forum several months ago I called it a felonious piece of legislation, so that in no way contravenes my views here. I am always a critic of expanded government.