Family Guy: McCain/Palin =Nazi's

[CelticPredator]

Thats cuz you're awesome!

 

[Jamal]

Id tap Palin.. thats about it

 

[gdb]

Damn! I've been out of town and so I missed the episode. Is it online anywhere yet?

After what he went trough on 9/11 it's understandable that McFarlane feels this way toward the Republicans who were in power that day and who, arguably, screwed up the war on terror in order to stage a war on Iraq. McFarlane was ticketed for the flight that flew into the North Tower on 9/11 and it was only confusion with the departure time that saved his life. That sort of personal experience has to leave an impression.

 

[Spartan Rex]

Damn! I've been out of town and so I missed the episode. Is it online anywhere yet?

After what he went trough on 9/11 it's understandable that McFarlane feels this way toward the Republicans who were in power that day and who, arguably, screwed up the war on terror in order to stage a war on Iraq. McFarlane was ticketed for the flight that flew into the North Tower on 9/11 and it was only confusion with the departure time that saved his life. That sort of personal experience has to leave an impression.

No matter how hard I try I just cant seem to roll my eyes high enough.

 

[DPrime]

I doubt it. In spades. The best within us is not our ability to excrete huge mounds of 'social capital' or the like.

If he wants our best, he should be talking about abolishing the income tax, capital gains tax, phasing out the Federal Reserve, ending threats of universal healthcare and carbon credits, and in general, promoting liberty instead of a creeping governmental conquest of the entire private sector.

lol, this argument is so crazy... I'm sorry, I don't mean to offend, but universal health care does NOT equal the "governmental conquest of the entire private sector". I don't think that's happened in ANY Western democracy with government health care, certainly not in Canada, nor is there any threat of it.

The fear that this would happen in the US really makes me laugh.

 

[Spartan Rex]

A former Newsweek reporter admitted in an article this week that he has no objectivity and imagined disabling Rudy Giuliani so he wouldn't run in the presidential primary race last year.

Michael Hastings wrote in GQ magazine that he had a "recurring fantasy" that he could somehow stop the former New York City mayor in his tracks.

"I quickly realized Rudy was a maniac. I had a recurring fantasy in which I took him out during a press conference (it was nonlethal, just something that put him out of commission for a year or so), saving America from the horror of a President Giuliani. If that sounds like I had some trouble being 'objective,' I did. Objectivity is a fallacy," he said.

Hastings said he wasn't the only reporter who despised Giuliani, although he frequently tried to appear sympathetic to his campaign staff so he could get information from them.

"I wasn’t alone in the press corps. I don't think I spoke to another journalist who ever said one good thing about the man. What did we say? We made fun of his divorces and his wives, that he’d married a second cousin, that he surrounded himself with corrupt cronies, that he had a piss-poor relationship with his children, etc. We talked about his megalomania and his cynical exploitation of September 11.," Hastings wrote.

Hastings also wrote that John McCain's view on war troubles him.

"He seemed to have gone just a little crazy, Captain Ahab-style," he wrote, referring to the main character in the novel Moby ^^^^.

The admission is the second time in a week that a reporter admitted he could not be objective. New Orleans Times-Picayune entertainment reporter Chris Rose said he and the entire newspaper staff looked at the world differently after Hurricane Katrina.

"There's no pretending to be objective. What we're fighting to save here is our city, our culture, and by extension, our jobs, our houses, our schools. When we write this s---, we don’t just report the stuff and let it fall where it may. We’ve got way too much at stake to be dispassionate observers covering a sporting event and not caring who wins," Rose said in an interview with Vermont Web site, 7D.

 

[devilof76]

lol, this argument is so crazy... I'm sorry, I don't mean to offend, but universal health care does NOT equal the "governmental conquest of the entire private sector". I don't think that's happened in ANY Western democracy with government health care, certainly not in Canada, nor is there any threat of it.

In referring to government conquering the whole of private enterprise, I was thinking more along the lines of the current incursions into the banking industry. It's just another brick in the wall (and a big brick, with far-reaching implications, at that).

But you're right. Universal healthcare only means government conquest of the healthcare industry. Cap and trade/carbon credit schemes only mean government conquest of the energy industry. Etc., etc.

 

[CelticPredator]

 

[DPrime]

In referring to government conquering the whole of private enterprise, I was thinking more along the lines of the current incursions into the banking industry. It's just another brick in the wall (and a big brick, with far-reaching implications, at that).

But you're right. Universal healthcare only means government conquest of the healthcare industry. Cap and trade/carbon credit schemes only mean government conquest of the energy industry. Etc., etc.

Well I'm no expert when it comes to the economy, or measures used to protect it by the government. I'm not familiar with incursions into the banking industry other than the 700 billion bailout.

However, when it comes to health care where I'm from, Canadians have actually had a mix of government and privately funded health care for decades. A complete take-over of the industry just isn't practical.

I just don't understand the fear that it will lead to full-fledged socialism, when that hasn't been the case in any western country.

 

[devilof76]

Full-fledged socialism is combustible upon contact with air. Anyone who tries to do it pure immediately burns everything straight to the ground. As you said, it's impractical. They need someone making money, otherwise there's nothing to redistribute.

A little socialism is enough to be a problem. A little more is a bigger problem. Some people are just opposed to having to deal the problem at all.

 

[CelticPredator]

So...whats so god awful about socialism? I read the Wiki page...and I dont see how everyone being equal is such an awful thing. Esp now in this day and age....is it because the whole communist thing?

 

[LordAzrael]

So...whats so god awful about socialism? I read the Wiki page...and I dont see how everyone being equal is such an awful thing. Esp now in this day and age....is it because the whole communist thing?

Here's a good article that should provide some enlightenment.

Socialism is evil
Walter E. Williams

July 28, 2004

What is socialism? We miss the boat if we say it's the agenda of left-wingers and Democrats. According to Marxist doctrine, socialism is a stage of society between capitalism and communism where private ownership and control over property are eliminated. The essence of socialism is the attenuation and ultimate abolition of private property rights. Attacks on private property include, but are not limited to, confiscating the rightful property of one person and giving it to another to whom it doesn't belong. When this is done privately, we call it theft. When it's done collectively, we use euphemisms: income transfers or redistribution. It's not just left-wingers and Democrats who call for and admire socialism but right-wingers and Republicans as well.

Republicans and right-wingers support taking the earnings of one American and giving them to farmers, banks, airlines and other failing businesses. Democrats and left-wingers support taking the earnings of one American and giving them to poor people, cities and artists. Both agree on taking one American's earnings to give to another; they simply differ on the recipients. This kind of congressional activity constitutes at least two-thirds of the federal budget.

Regardless of the purpose, such behavior is immoral. It's a reduced form of slavery. After all, what is the essence of slavery? It's the forceful use of one person to serve the purposes of another person. When Congress, through the tax code, takes the earnings of one person and turns around to give it to another person in the forms of prescription drugs, Social Security, food stamps, farm subsidies or airline bailouts, it is forcibly using one person to serve the purposes of another.

The moral question stands out in starker relief when we acknowledge that those spending programs coming out of Congress do not represent lawmakers reaching into their own pockets and sending out the money. Moreover, there's no tooth fairy or Santa Claus giving them the money. The fact that government has no resources of its very own forces us to acknowledge that the only way government can give one American a dollar is to first -- through intimidation, threats and coercion -- take that dollar from some other American.

Some might rejoin that all of this is a result of a democratic process and it's legal. Legality alone is no guide for a moral people. There are many things in this world that have been, or are, legal but clearly immoral. Slavery was legal. Did that make it moral? South Africa's apartheid, Nazi persecution of Jews, and Stalinist and Maoist purges were all legal, but did that make them moral?

Can a moral case be made for taking the rightful property of one American and giving it to another to whom it does not belong? I think not. That's why socialism is evil. It uses evil means (coercion) to achieve what are seen as good ends (helping people). We might also note that an act that is inherently evil does not become moral simply because there's a majority consensus.

An argument against legalized theft should not be construed as an argument against helping one's fellow man in need. Charity is a noble instinct; theft, legal or illegal, is despicable. Or, put another way: Reaching into one's own pocket to assist his fellow man is noble and worthy of praise. Reaching into another person's pocket to assist one's fellow man is despicable and worthy of condemnation.

For the Christians among us, socialism and the welfare state must be seen as sinful. When God gave Moses the commandment "Thou shalt not steal," I'm sure He didn't mean thou shalt not steal unless there's a majority vote. And I'm sure that if you asked God if it's OK just being a recipient of stolen property, He would deem that a sin as well.

Socialism is inherently in conflict with the individuals right to choose.

A Classic Example Of The Evils OF Socialism
Consider the following from the UK:

NHS may not treat smokers, drinkers or obese

Smoking, drinking, and obesity are not healthy behaviors, but they are not immoral either. They are traditionally personal choices, bad choices but legitimate choices. And yet here a national governmental agency will seek to control that behavior, robbing individuals of that personal freedom. They do so under the banner of cost-control since they have socialized medicine. This is something of a canard since people who make those choices are probably less likely to seek medical care save at the end of their life than people who enagage in more healthy lifestyle practices.

But here's what really bothers me -- would they consider doing this for AIDS and HIV, another behaviorially based pathological condition? Heck what about other less glamourous STD's for that matter? Or what about injuries resulting from participation in highly risky sports?

Socialized medicine forces, just like socialism in general forces, the society to encroach on personal liberty and make decisions about what is and is not acceptable personal behavior -- it cannot be avoided because resources must be allocated. And what's really awful is that in some countries with socialized medicine such people don't even have the option to seek private medical care.

One of the hallmarks of a free society is that we are free to make bad decisions as well as good ones. I, for one, do not wish to give that up.

Socialism and The Welfare State

The dangers of the Welfare State are:

1) it often is unjust in taking lawful property from individuals through excessive taxation,

2) it substitutes the collective judgment of the government for the freedom and judgment of the individual

3) it discourages initiative and entrepreneurship by individuals, and

4) it leads to excessive government power and hence corruption.

The danger of these tendencies of the welfare state were well summarized by Lionel Trilling, a respected man of the contemporary liberal left as quoted by Gertrude Himmelfarb in her book Poverty and Compassion (Knopf Publisher 1991) “Some paradox of our natures leads us, when once we have made our fellow men the objects of our enlightened interest, to go on to make them the object of our pity, then of our wisdom, ultimately of our coercion. It is to prevent this corruption, the most ironic and tragic that man knows, that we stand in need of the moral realism which is the product of the moral imagination”.

As the distinquished political economist F. A. Hayek has stated; “The guiding principle that a policy of freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy remains as true today as it was in the nineteenth century”.

 

[CelticPredator]

Intresting....

But with this I say, to whom ever wins the election. Please. For the love of god, do good. Thats all I ask.

 

[devilof76]

But with this I say, to whom ever wins the election. Please. For the love of god, do good. Thats all I ask.

Everything will hinge on how people define 'good'.

 

[CelticPredator]

I dont care what they think, I care about what McCain, or Obama do. Which ever one wins. They better do a good job. THEY.

 

[devilof76]

Ok. I'll just cut straight to the point and tell you that nothing that either of them is going to be any good whatsoever. There will be people who benefit from their Presidency. That's indisputable, and I'm sure those people will believe what they have done is good.

But they will necessarily be doing it at the expense of someone else. Every favor they bestow will be an injury to someone else. They both believe that this is the only way to satisfy anyone, and their only disagreement is over who should be sacrificed for the sake of the common good.

No one should be sacrificed. No one should be getting favors. Neither of these candidates believe that so to hell with them both. No good can come of November 4.

 

[CelticPredator]

As the Comedian says....God help us all....

 

[DPrime]

Here's a good article that should provide some enlightenment.



Socialism is inherently in conflict with the individuals right to choose.

The article provides some nice rhetoric, and talks intelligently about morals, philosophy, etc in much the same way as a Marxist might. The trouble with such extreme views is that neither works in practice. Fundamentalism, whether right-wing, left-wing or religious, NEVER works for long - it always ends in some kind of revolution. History is quite clear on this.

Remember, DEMOCRACY is what made the Western nations great, and that includes a healthy mix of capitalism AND socialism. Walter E. Williams' ideal nation would never, ever work.

 

[DPrime]

So...whats so god awful about socialism? I read the Wiki page...and I dont see how everyone being equal is such an awful thing. Esp now in this day and age....is it because the whole communist thing?

Socialism, in moderation, is good for the country and its people. Capitalism, in moderation, is also good. The problem is that the US has been at conflict with the old USSR so long that for many, socialism has come to mean the same thing as communism, or totalitarianism. The Republicans play on that fear, which is why you have some people thinking government funded medical care is the first step towards a communist state. I'm sorry, but some things HAVE to be government funded - roads and other infrastructure, military, police. Basically everything needed to PROTECT the people. That's going to require taxes, plain and simple. People are going to have to made to pay, and whether that's "moral" or not, is philosophical nonsense, because that's just how it has to be.

Whether education and health care should be provided by the government is a valid question, I think, but the fact remains - not everyone has access to the same level of education or health care than everyone else in the United States. Hard work should definitely be rewarded, but what about the sons and daughters who are born into wealth? Unless you want an aristocracy, you're going to have to have some measure of socialism. The disagreement over what measure to have is fine, but let's not pretend the Democrats=Communism or the Republicans=Fascism. It's quite ludicrous.

 

[Gruson]

FAMILY GUY ROCKS!!!!

That ep was great too...loved the Back to the Future and Indy references.



McCain / Palin part was also funny.

Go Seth!