Whether it's your first Bonnaroo or you’re a music festival veteran, we welcome you to Inforoo.
Here you'll find info about artists, rumors, camping tips, and the infamous Roo Clues. Have a look around then create an account and join in the fun. See you at Bonnaroo!!
Post by EthnicallyCrimean98476 on Jun 29, 2012 10:06:22 GMT -5
Douglas Adams on American democracy:
[An extraterrestrial robot and spaceship has just landed on earth. The robot steps out of the spaceship...] "I come in peace," it said, adding after a long moment of further grinding, "take me to your Lizard."
Ford Prefect, of course, had an explanation for this, as he sat with Arthur and watched the nonstop frenetic news reports on television, none of which had anything to say other than to record that the thing had done this amount of damage which was valued at that amount of billions of pounds and had killed this totally other number of people, and then say it again, because the robot was doing nothing more than standing there, swaying very slightly, and emitting short incomprehensible error messages.
"It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like to straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"
"What?"
"I said," said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, "have you got any gin?"
"I'll look. Tell me about the lizards."
Ford shrugged again.
"Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happened to them," he said. "They're completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone's got to say it."
I thought that the act was going to be upheld because of the precedent it otherwise would have set. Conservatives often blast SCOTUS over not being strict constructionists. And this was Roberts doing just what he's supposed to do - lead the court in decisions that are in the best interest of the Constitution. So basically exactly what conservatives would've wanted him to do - had the ruling gone their way.
Anyone who doesn't agree with their political viewpoint must not be smart enough.
Apparently conservatives are very tolerant and agreeable people.
At the beginning, he said it goes both ways. I think there is just a difference in the stereotypical response from the less agreeable aspect of both parties. Liberals tend to go with the intellectual criticism. Conservatives tend to go with the anti-tradition criticism, i.e. "That's not the idea America was founded on".
So in light of the supreme court finding obamacare constitutional, I'm going to start going with the flow. So I propose we rename the country. We can call it the United Socialist Republic of America (USRA). I figured we couldn't use USSR again because nobody reading a history book would believe 2 governments would be dumb enough to try communism again. And I figure while we're at it I'm going to stop going to work. I mean wtf, there's plenty of people making far more money than I do, so I'll just make sure I get my share of their money. And while i'm at it I want some free healthcare to reward my permant unemployment, i'm betting it'll probably be better than what i pay for now. And lastly, i think i'm going to renounce my legal status as a citizen because I really want to go back to college but can't afford it. Who's with me!
Part of the issue is everything is so adversarial. Your assistant saying that a judge being bipartisan is 'untrustworthy' and that he's "gone with the other side" are perfect examples of the mindset of many Americans today. It's all about winning/losing.
This.
It also doesn't help that the two parties know this and feed off of it and there's no real bipartisan news outlet to just tell it like it is.
I thought that the act was going to be upheld because of the precedent it otherwise would have set. Conservatives often blast SCOTUS over not being strict constructionists. And this was Roberts doing just what he's supposed to do - lead the court in decisions that are in the best interest of the Constitution. So basically exactly what conservatives would've wanted him to do - had the ruling gone their way.
I can't really pinpoint a Roberts' court decision as intellectually dishonest. I think you can argue a decision should've gone the other way based on legal reasoning, I personally think this should've been held up under the Commerce clause too, but I don't think you can argue any decision was politically charged and intellectually dishonest. I might be forgetting one though. Overall this court is very fair.
Last intellectually dishonest case I can think of is Raich, and Scalia has consistently proved himself a slimeball since then.
I still haven't figured out how the plan to pay for the expansion of Medicaid? TNCare is a giant mess right now, and it has only gotten worse over the last 18 months. And Tennessee's Safety Net program isn't doing that much better.
I know alot of people who are praising this as the greatest thing since the Emancipation Proclamation, but I see some serious problems. Medicaid is going to have to be overhauled in a big way to handle the coming influx of new subscribers. I don;t have time to get into everything right now, but unless there is a major increase in Medicaid funding, the entire Medicaid program will fail, and rather quickly too.