Election 2010: Teabaggin' the Ds & Rs

[Adder]

But some wingnuts now argue that the Holocaust was all the fault of the gays. Fascinating.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally Posted by Adder

But some wingnuts now argue that the Holocaust was all the fault of the gays. Fascinating.

Okay, Bryan Fischer is as big a douche as ever has lived, and linking Nazism with homosexuality is laugh-out-loud funny, but I'm concerned that we aren't giving the anti-gay lobby the right kind of room to die a natural death. They've been marginalized into a group that's energized by being in the margin. Maybe that's what a successful tolerance campaign always looks like, but I'm not sure the SPLC calling them a hate group won't accidentally create some synergies between the AFA and (if you can believe it) even darker elements of our society.

Ideally the government adopts a position that one's sexual orientation is utterly irrelevant to one's ability to contribute to society and reap its benefits, but the lunatic ravings of the AFA (which is powerful and monied) would have been better left to their echo chamber. Unless this is a cynical fundraising effort by SPLC, I think it's a strategic mistake for their aims.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Atticus Grinch

Ideally the government adopts a position that one's sexual orientation is utterly irrelevant to one's ability to contribute to society and reap its benefits, but the lunatic ravings of the AFA (which is powerful and monied) would have been better left to their echo chamber. Unless this is a cynical fundraising effort by SPLC, I think it's a strategic mistake for their aims.

Perhaps, although I think the designation by the SPLC is largely irrelevant.

[Adder]

This guy is new to me as of today, but this (rather long) post on liquidity traps and inflation expectations is highly interesting.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally Posted by Adder

Perhaps, although I think the designation by the SPLC is largely irrelevant.

Probably. I just think it's an example of how the mainstream will soon be mishandling the religious fundamentalism of anti-gay holdouts. These are people who won't feel powerful until they're being affirmatively persecuted, and then they'll use the fact that the government (or, if not, alleged proxies of the leftist government, like the ACLU) persecutes them as evidence of their bona fides and their juice.

People with persecution complexes and Messiah complexes are unique species in the landscape -- they can't be fully neutralized by traditional means, and may be impossible to stamp out entirely. They can be made irrelevant if the grievances they use as fuel are preempted by other mainstream groups with stronger social ties. If the Southern Baptist Convention adopted a policy of "homosexuality is unbiblical and wrong, but it's a salvation issue, not a public policy issue," it would be an unqualified win for the good guys.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Atticus Grinch

People with persecution complexes and Messiah complexes are unique species in the landscape -- they can't be fully neutralized by traditional means, and may be impossible to stamp out entirely.

I think your last clause is certainly correct. I dont' think anything can stamp out the true crazies.

[sgtclub]

This is a welcomed change:

It's the ultimate I'm-not-a-professional-politician statement, reminiscent of the 1994 midterm elections, when a GOP House takeover led to a surge in House sleepovers.

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Eli Meir Kaplan for The Wall Street Journal

Incoming Rep. Joe Heck (R., Nev), who plans to sleep in his office, checks one out in the Longworth building.
.Audio
Listen: Danny Yadron discusses the pajama party on Capitol Hill.
.With voters again shunning Washington and fiscal excess, a number of incoming House members plan to demonstrate their scorn for both by camping out near their new desks. Many more are still undecided but may well join the sleep-sofa caucus.

"Since I'm here on a temporary basis, I don't see any need to have a permanent kind of residence," says Rep.-elect Joe Heck, a Nevada Republican, who was thinking roll-out cot when he looked at office space this month.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...DDLETopStories

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sgtclub

This is a welcomed change:



http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...DDLETopStories

Eh. Both silly grandstanding and not uncommon. We'll see how long that attitude lasts.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally Posted by sgtclub

This is a welcomed change:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...DDLETopStories

I hope he will have the decency to abstain from any votes relating to the District.

[Adder]

The money paragraph:

So: it's nice and fair-sounding to say that the party-first principle applies to all sides in today's political debate. Like it would be nice and fair-sounding to say that Democrats and Republicans alike in Congress are contributing to obstructionism and party-bloc voting. Or that Fox News and NPR have equal-and-offsetting political agendas in covering the news. But it looks to me as if we're mostly talking about the way one side operates. Recognizing that is part of facing the reality of today's politics

link

Lest you be temped to think only a liberal could think that, I give you "conservative" Andrew Sullivan.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Atticus Grinch

People with persecution complexes and Messiah complexes are unique species in the landscape -- they can't be fully neutralized by traditional means, and may be impossible to stamp out entirely.

2
the only person i know with both keeps "retiring" from here then comes back a few months later with a slightly different handle.

[sgtclub]

Originally Posted by Adder

Eh. Both silly grandstanding and not uncommon. We'll see how long that attitude lasts.

Really? That's a common thing?

[sgtclub]

Originally Posted by Atticus Grinch

I hope he will have the decency to abstain from any votes relating to the District.

That's actually an interesting thought.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sgtclub

Really? That's a common thing?

Common might be going to far, but to quote your article: "Nobody seems to know for certain how many lawmakers currently dwell in their offices; estimates range into the dozens. ... In the mid-1980s, then-Speaker Tip O'Neill (D., Mass.) rousted the office sleepers..."

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Since Hank likes it when I criticize the President, I agree with this completely:

I 100 percent understand the politics behind the President getting behind the idea of a freeze in federal civilian pay. If it were the case that political messaging gambits had an appreciable impact on election outcomes, this would be a smart political move. In the real world, however, they don’t and the real question is how does this impact the macroeconomy.

The answer, as I understand it, is that relative to other equal-dollar forms of fiscal contraction, this does a relatively small amount of harm. Which is to say that if you implemented a federal civilian pay freeze and used the money saved on job-creating stimulus, that you’d have a good policy idea. So for example you might want to propose a bargain that involved a spending freeze as part of a negotiating process. Instead, following the principle of “if it didn’t work the first 20 times let me try it again” the Obama administration seems to have decided that making preemptive compromises will strengthen their hand in some unspecified way down the road.

I’ll note once again though that for all the progressive huffing and puffing about rightwing misinformation, one very large challenge we face is that many Democratic Party insiders appear not to believe the New Keynesian diagnosis of the business cycle.

Yglesias