The American Spectator

Liberal Reader| 3.19.10 @ 5:29PM

Although Lott is good enough to recall that liberals were concerned about the "unitary executive" theory propounded by Cheney and company, he doesn't do a good enough job detailing the vast difference between the last president and this one.

President Obama is working to pass health care legislation that will EXPAND insurance coverage. He's not setting up secret torture camps in central Asia.

How exactly we're to understand this as some deep, dark, wicked plot to destroy America is not beyond all surmise:

Many in the white middle class cannot understand what they're relative economic stability MEANS if poorer people -- poorer black people especially -- gain something like that economic stability.

Nietzsche called this "the pathos of distance," the way in which we secretly predicate our enjoyment or sense of security on a knowledge that others do not share that same security.

This is pretty awful and weak, but I think it's what's at work in the so-called Tea Party horror of health care reform.

The white reactionary asks, "What does MY health care coverage MEAN if poor black people have similar coverage?"

tonypal| 3.19.10 @ 5:34PM

Just further evidence that one can always tell how the liberal mind works by listening to how they describe others.

Interested Conservative| 3.19.10 @ 5:54PM

You don't like former VP Cheney. The rest of this doesn't make much sense.

Curtis Rasmussen| 3.19.10 @ 6:18PM

I am a middle class black man who will become poor if Obama achieves his socialist agenda. Does this mean I'll go crying to the government for assistance? When hell freezes over.

There is only one racist here, the one that uses blacks to push her own agenda with no basis in fact. This is a frequent fixture in the mindset of liberals that I have come across in my home state. I'm a pawn in their twisted thought process, someone who is not capable of achievement without the benevolence of arrogant douchebags such as themselves.

As I've said before, Lib Screeder is one of those douchebags, and frankly, others are better at hiding their racist agenda.

SoCon| 3.19.10 @ 7:05PM

Please consider the content of my heart rather than the color of my skin: I am an American just like you, and we are no different.

I want the best for all of my fellow Americans.

Liberalism is dehumanizing and destructive, and its only goal is to divide and conquer: That's exactly what liberal class warfare is all about. Tragic.

Stand strong, Curtis--WE SHALL PREVAIL! We have the numbers on our side. God bless you.

serfer62| 3.19.10 @ 10:10PM

Does that mean you are a racist in black skin?
.
With only 4% of blacks Conservative its allways amazing at the balls of the few...

SoCon| 3.19.10 @ 10:29PM

Why do you care about the color of my skin, bigot?

What's truly amazing is you liberals pretend you support minorities while you enslave them on your inner city plantations--always run by liberal masters.

Tell me, why does life NEVER IMPROVE in the inner cities despite the trillions of dollars we've poured into them? Because that's what you liberals want; the poor become a constant source of easy votes for you. It's against your political interests for minorities to succeed.

You don't care about minorities, you care about power and control, like all heartless Marxists.

Ugly racist.

SoCon| 3.19.10 @ 5:47PM

Regardless of what you think, Liberal Screeder, it's wrong to steal other people's money. WRONG!

It's always all about racism all of the time--with racists.

Curtis Rasmussen| 3.19.10 @ 10:58PM

To SoCon: Thanks for the kind words.

To serfer62: Sorry, I don't meet the definition of plantation Negro for you. Many people also assume that I'm a lib by virtue of the color of my skin. That presumptousness brings the racist count to 2. Get lost.

Nick| 3.19.10 @ 11:43PM

The moronic liberal asks, "How can I come up with new ways to mooch off of productive people, so that I can be a perpetual college student and study useless philosophy all day?"

p.s. I know the term "moronic liberal" is redundant.

JmsA| 3.20.10 @ 2:17AM

Liberal Reader,

Nothing but ad hominem attacks. If what Mr. Obama's and the Democrats' healthcare plans are so wonderful, why are they, given that the hold actionable majorities in both legislative chambers, having so much trouble enacting their proposed law? And please, spare me the nonsense regarding the obstructionist republicans scaring everyone;--they've had a year to do it, yet the vast majority, yes the vast majority of Americans oppose it.

As to your reference of Niestche, it was actually Aristotle who posited the concept of the pathos of distance in reference to the enjoyment humans derive from witnessing a sea storm from shore, given that they're not being afflicted by its inherent perils, others might be.

JmsA| 3.20.10 @ 2:23AM

Correction: ...though others might be.

JmsA| 3.20.10 @ 2:59AM

Liberal Reader,

"Honesty, granting that it is the virtue from which we cannot rid ourselvees, we free spirits--well, we will labor at it with all our perversity and love, and not tire of "perfecting ourselves in our virtue, which alone remains..."

--Friedrich Nietzsche

You should take that above to heart before bringing forth fallacious (canned) arguments, which not surprisingly sound like overused soundbites from a malfeasant (mainstream) media and unscrupulous politicians. No one is trying to keep anyone from improving their lot. On the contrary, just when black americans are finally gaining a measure of well-deserved socioeconomic parity like never before (please refer to the current President of the U.S., etc.) the retrograde socialist schemes of some will do more than anything before to prevent such continued attainment. Remember, true socialism, the kind that promotes absolute statist control, such in the former Soviet Union, and presently in Cuba, N. Korea, and in the not so distant future, Venezuela, etc., does nothing better than destroy, stagnate, and spread misery to all, except to those in charge--or as in my case, those who manage to escape it. In concluding, I bid you this:

"But love, like the sun that it is, sets afire and melts everything. what greed and privilege to build up over whole centuries the indignation of a pious spirit, with its natural following of oppressed souls, will cast down with a single shove. "
— José Martí

say this, only the truth and pure and absolute.

Heathcliff Thompson| 6.24.10 @ 7:20AM

It's not just right-of-center types who are concerned with our too powerful executive. During the Bush years, countless liberals warned of the return of an "imperial presidency." Liberal historian Garry Wills's latest book, Bomb Power (found it by torrent SE ), is all about how our modern executive has turned into a sort of elected monarch with few checks on his authority. Wills and company are more concerned with how the president treats matters of war and peace and civil liberties, but the president's ability to impose an unpopular agenda matters just as much, I should think. In the end, the difference between a president and a king is quite simple: you can say no to a president.

Allan| 9.21.10 @ 5:24AM

No one is trying to keep anyone from improving their lot(some documentaries about). On the contrary, just when black americans are finally gaining a measure of well-deserved socioeconomic parity like never before (please refer to the current President of the U.S., etc.) the retrograde socialist schemes of some will do more than anything before to prevent such continued attainment. Remember, true socialism, the kind that promotes absolute statist control, such in the former Soviet Union, and presently in Cuba, N. Korea, and in the not so distant future, Venezuela, etc., does nothing better than destroy, stagnate, and spread misery to all, except to those in charge--or as in my case, those who manage to escape it.

Jim| 9.22.10 @ 10:45AM

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Allan| 11.5.10 @ 5:59AM

During the Bush years, countless liberals warned of the return of an "imperial presidency." Liberal historian Garry Wills's latest book, Bomb Power (found it by torrent SE ), is all about how our modern executive has turned into a sort of elected monarch with few checks on his authority. Wills and company are more concerned with how the president treats matters of war and peace and civil liberties, but the president's ability to impose an unpopular agenda matters just as much, I should think. In the end, the difference between a president and a king is quite simple: you can say no to a president.