Patriotism is a lame duck, it's basically a religion. Pledging allegiance to a power structure designed to empower some over others (the others often being you). People say it's loving your country, but that's just an arbitrary piece of land - it does not do anything you can say you love, it just is. Patriotism is just bending over backwards for the leader do jour, "we love you, god emperor of my country", wrapped in a flag.

All the good things are the lands itself, while all the bad things are the people running it. It's confusing.

Maybe one day people will figure out there is no right and left, there is only business, the arguments just create a diversion.

Hm - only PARTLY correct. There is no right and left, there is only BIG GOVERNMENT. The arguments are just a diversion.

In his desire to have a Bi-Partisan government, he didn't push the Supermajority, to ramrod through all of the things he promised

Sigh. No. Just no. Obama is making the exact same mistake Bush did. He thought his popularity was so high that he could cram an UNPOPULAR agenda down everyone's throat with the co-operation of a lick-spittle Congress.

After 9/11 Bush was crazy popular. The radical left still hated him, but public support was high. So Bush decided to spend his political capital on an agenda that was NOT popular - the Iraq War. No one every was convinced that Iraq was worth going to war over. It wasn't popular. The political left saw this and jumped on the bandwagon. The left didn't 'create' anti-war hate. They just took shameless advantage of it. Bush kept pushing, went over the heads of the people, and did whatever he wanted because he had the Congress. Having Congress doing what he wanted (against public opinion) eroded his popularity badly until he left office a lame-duck with a legacy in shambles.

Barak Obama is doing the EXACT same thing. After election he was crazy popular. The radical right hated him, but public support was high. So Obama decided to spend his political capital on an agenda that is NOT POPULAR (Health Care, Cap & Tax, etc...). Polls are sour on his crappy health care plan, his cap & tax and a bazillion other things he's done. His stimulus plans have not accomplished jack, and people are steamed because all his 'shovel ready' jobs have resulted in nothing but higher unemployement. But Obama keeps pushing, against the will of the American people, and does whatever he wants because he has Congress. And doing whatever you want in the face of public opinion is a road to losing Congress, becoming a lame-duck one-termer and leaving office with a legacy in shambles.

Obama's only hope is to ditch his radical agenda and start focusing on what the people WANT instead of what HE wants.

Yeah, it's true, Obama sadly is increasing the possibility of ending up a single-term, lame duck, president. And unfortunately it's his own fault.

In his desire to have a Bi-Partisan government, he didn't push the Supermajority, to ramrod through all of the things he promised. Doing so would have angered the right wing, big deal, the right is never going to be happy about anything the left does. But, not using their collective supremacy has disappointed the left.

Only time will tell. But should next years elections see the left's congressional majority disappear, I think we'll have a good indicator of how 2012 will go. My worry is that the RNC will run Palin against Obama, and we'll end up with someone too stupid to even be a Fox News host running this country.

I don't approve of anyone evoking the Hitler thing. It's just provokative and stupid. There's plenty of stupidity in the house bill to argue against without this kind of baloney. It gives neolibs like Frank an excuse to pretend that the opposition to the bill is limited to a few lunatics, when in fact the opposition is a huge national groundswell which is against the creation of an unconstitutional federal entitlement in a time of economic recession and unprecedented national debt.

Newest news stories indicate Democrats are going to 'go it alone' now. What courage that must take when you have supermajorities in the House and Senate. You couldn't ask for a better recipie for losing Congress in 2010 than to pass this stupid House bill over the objections of the majority of the American people. Might as well just give the Republicans the congress right now and accept the concept of Obama as a one term lame duck.

But I must note with delicious irony the absolute hypocrisy of Frank and the neolibs on this Hitler thing. It wasn't too long ago that calling your President "Hitler", making movies about assassinating him, wishing he & his family were dead, and all kinds of other awful stuff was considered the 'new patriotism'. Now according to Frank it is, "vile, contemptible nonsense"... Ah - sweet hypocrisy... How you neolibs do so revel in it.

'Force'... Just the word we all like to hear from our oh-so-wise and benevolent Federal government... :eyeroll:

I do agree that the only way Obama is going to get what HE wants (single payer system) is by force. That's because the American people don't want the bull he's slinging and they are rejecting it. Everyone who even gives the the House bill a cursory examination rapidly concludes that it's a pile of steaming crap. The bill under debate has NOTHING to do with the platitudes and fantasy stories Obama is spewing out his pie-hole.

So go ahead. Force it. Do it and prepare for 1994-squared in 2010. Obama would be a fool to take this path. That's the same kind of idiocy and out-of-touch-with-the-electorate elitism that devastated the Bush presidency. It would annihilate Democrat party in the house & senate, and turn Obama into a single election president who was a lame duck for 50% of his term.

More neolib bull. Here are a few examples of times when the news media DIDN'T care that huge numbers of bussed-in rent-a-mobs were being pulled from all over the country to bolster opposition to a cause...
1. Sarah Palin 'investigations'
2. Any/all Barak Obama rallies
3. Iraq War protests
4. Bush nominations to cabinets & judicial positions
5. Scooter Libby & Cheney 'leakgate' investigations

And so on. But, who cares? These are private citizens who want to get involved in the political process. Good for them. I don't care that the Democrats constantly use thier rent-a-mobs to spike the political process. That's how the game is played. But it sure stinks that neolibs like MadCow will praise this kind of "community activism" on one hand, and condemn it when they don't like it.

I'm no republican. If anything, I lean Libertarian. The Democrat party is digging its own grave if it is going to start treating THE PEOPLE like the enemy. This anger is a reflection of national dissatisfaction with Obama's overall agenda. He ran as a moderate, and in 8 month's he's been the most radical far-left kook America has ever seen (and we've seen FDR). The voters are not happy with it, and they're letting the congress know. The congress and their liberal flaks like MadCow have no clue what kind of repercussions they're going to get if they keep trying to pretend this is all just some far-right plot by a tiny number of extremists. They're fixing to turn 2010 into 1994 times ten, and turn Obama into a lame-duck, 1 term loser like Carter.

At what point did I say Obama was 'against the law'? I said he is trying to make law that the American people don't want. Entirely different. And as far as Bush goes - look what happened to him when HE did something that was decidedly against the will of the American people. He ended up a lame duck, lost all his political capital, and had poll numbers in the 30s for almost his whole 2nd term.

And please show when I defended Bush. Well, I'll save you the time because you CAN'T because I didn't. In fact, I routinely criticized Bush's massive over-spending and reckless expansion of federal power. What I DIDN'T do is brainlessly criticize Bush using the standard neolib talking points.

they aren't doing away with private insurance, right?

Not overtly, but they are definitely 'doing away' with private insurance in a TACIT, backhanded way. The Lewin group did a study that estimated "The number of people with private health insurance would decline by about 119.1 million people (Figure 3). This is equal to about 70 percent of all people currently covered under private health insurance." Employers who currently offer health coverage as a benefit would dump the option en masse. Literally tens of millions will have to choose very quickly whether to go private or public. Since the public option doesn't have to show a profit, it's (initally) lower rates will cut the knees out from under private options. Private plans will have to essentially model their pricing on the public option.

In addition, there are several distrubing provisions in the bill that passed the house which make changing private plans very difficult or even impossible. The bill essentially 'freezes' private plans as they are, and they cannot be changed. Not being allowed to change the plans according to market needs is essentially a price control - and we know how well those work (see California utility fiasco).

So 'doing away' as it 'making illegal'? Not in name. But the gummint doesn't have to make something 'illegal' to get rid of it. Government has other, far less obvious ways to kill things it doesn't like in the business arena.

North Korea's test firing rockets, Pakistan's on the brink of anarchy, even Somalians are talking trash. The One's answer to it all?

Bow to the Saudi King. Bash America overseas.

It's in the mainstream-liberal-democrat-media's interest to highlight the dog, not the lame duck in the Oval Office!

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

^Exactly. He's acting like the lamest lame duck I've seen.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

The phalanx of SS-bots were a bit slow piling out of that back door. Maybe they are lame ducks too.

Ugh, when is the lame duck hunt?

*promote the lame duck

>> ^thinker247:
Maybe he's the lame duck with bird flu, and nobody wants to touch him.


Nah, he's just a lame dick, I wouldn't shake his hand either.

Maybe he's the lame duck, with bird flu, and nobody wants to touch him.

In reply to this comment by thinker247:
Maybe he's the lame duck with bird flu, and nobody wants to touch him.

Maybe he's the lame duck with bird flu, and nobody wants to touch him.