Americas Elect 2012 - the Not Party

[Razgovory]

I did hear that Rick Perry wants to debate Nancy Pelosi.  That's not a joke.  There is no punchline.  I have no idea why he wants to do this.

[fhdz]

I did hear that Rick Perry wants to debate Nancy Pelosi.  That's not a joke.  There is no punchline.  I have no idea why he wants to do this.

I'm pretty sure the punchline is "Rick Perry".

[Admiral Yi]

It's an ass that fits comfortably on your head

[Valmy]

I did hear that Rick Perry wants to debate Nancy Pelosi.  That's not a joke.  There is no punchline.  I have no idea why he wants to do this.

He is moving to San Francisco to run for Congress?  Huzzah!

[Razgovory]

Communism is sooooooooo 20th century.

So was a middle class.

There's still a middle class. It's in trouble, but it's there. Communism is one of those very modernist, very 20th-century throw-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater kinds of solutions. It's an imaginary fix for a real set of problems, just like libertarianism. Communism is a pink unicorn shitting rainbows. It's an ass that fits comfortably on your head when you don't want to think about the messy business of possible solutions, compromises, and, you know, real life. I'm so sick of magical-kingdom economics on both ends of the spectrum. What a distraction from reality.

Good for you.

[crazy canuck]

I have no idea why he wants to do this.

He is so good at it one can understand why he would want more opportunities to show his brilliance.

[fhdz]

It's an ass that fits comfortably on your head

asshat?

[Razgovory]

I did hear that Rick Perry wants to debate Nancy Pelosi.  That's not a joke.  There is no punchline.  I have no idea why he wants to do this.

He is moving to San Francisco to run for Congress?  Huzzah!

I have a feeling he just doesn't understand what he's doing.

[Admiral Yi]

asshat?

Gotcha.

[Ideologue]

It's an ass that fits comfortably on your head

asshat?

I thought it was a good turn of phrase.

[fhdz]

Good for you.

And that's not even mentioning the millions of dead which have resulted from failed attempt after failed attempt to install communist governments and economies across the world. At some point don't communists have one second of self-reflection and say "you know, this keeps not working, and people keep dying or being thrust into national poverty from all the not-working. Maybe the problem's the fact that you can't implement a magical solution on a nonmagical world."

They don't stop to reflect, of course. It is far easier to blame the Other Guy than it is to admit that your pet ideology is dead fucking wrong and causes misery, death, and poverty because it is impossible but continues to be tried.

No one's tried to implement a truly libertarian "state", thank goodness, but I can only assume the results would be equally retarded, that the failed implementations would be equally full of misery and unchecked awfulness.

[Razgovory]

I believe I argued that very point to a communist once.  I said that communism was like a perfect airplane.  It could fly faster, more comfortably, and for less fuel then any other possible airplane.  There is one catch though.  Everyone who has tried to build one and fly it has been killed.  Often it crashes spectacularly kill all the passengers and many people on the ground. Each person makes some modification to it that they think will fix the problem but it always ends the same way.  If someone offered you a ride on this airplane, would you do it?  Would you stop and think perhaps the problem is fundamental to the design itself?  Would it perhaps be wiser to ride an ordinary airplane with all its faults rather then ride on the airplane that has always crashed and killed lots of people.

[garbon]

I'd rather elect a party than a president, really.

I'd rather just have a party!

[Sheilbh]

But you say this like Communism's either a mainstream current of thought or as if the left never got over it.  Whole tomes of Socialist and Social Democratic theory emerged distinct from and critiquing Communism from a very early point.  Even if they still took some Marxist ideas as a starting point.

[garbon]

At her weekly news conference Thursday, Pelosi couldn't resist riffing on Perry's epic debate gaffe from last week.

She suggested she couldn't debate Perry on Monday because her schedule was booked with three events that day -- an event in Portland, a tour of labs in California and "that's two. I can't remember what the third thing is."

I hate when I like something Pelosi does.