The Palin Phenomenon

[JPickettIII]

Five words to say about Sarah and the presidency:  I will move to Canada.

[indianasmith]

In all honesty, if this republic has survived Jimmy Carter, Warren G. Harding, Richard Nixon, Franklin Pierce, and someone named Millard Fillmore, it can survive an elk shooting hockey mom from Alaska.

She's a Christian and a conservative who seems to be more style than substance.

People said the same about Reagan, and now he has moved in the rankings to the "near great" category.

Bottom line: don't say you're gonna leave the country unless you're actually prepared to do it.  Otherwise you become a mealy mouthed hypocrite like Streisand and Baldwin and all the other Hollywood limousine liberals who said they were going to leave America forever if Bush won.

[Flick James]

In all honesty, if this republic has survived Jimmy Carter, Warren G. Harding, Richard Nixon, Franklin Pierce, and someone named Millard Fillmore, it can survive an elk shooting hockey mom from Alaska.

She's a Christian and a conservative who seems to be more style than substance.

People said the same about Reagan, and now he has moved in the rankings to the "near great" category.

Bottom line: don't say you're gonna leave the country unless you're actually prepared to do it.  Otherwise you become a mealy mouthed hypocrite like Streisand and Baldwin and all the other Hollywood limousine liberals who said they were going to leave America forever if Bush won.

Certainly we will disagree on this one, but I don't put Reagen in the near great category. Once I did, but I have since reconsidered. Reagan did a lot of harm to capitalism. He created a soft, temporary, illusory economic boom that created a lot of fake money. I'm not singling him out, believe me. The last several administations have been slowly moving us into a globalist and subservient posture to the rest of the world, and now the chickens are coming home to roost.

Reagan was no great capitalist. I always find it funny when leftists point at the S&L scandal as an example of the evils of capitalism and deregulation. Anybody who does a basic analysis of what created that fiasco, they will see that capitalism had nothing to do with it, and what's more, I find it funny that it's defined as deregulation.

The S&L scandal was the result of Reagan removing a number of tax shelters, sending investors running for cover. The big mistake made, the one that made the scandal possible at all, was the availability of federal charters, which allowed investors to back their investments with taxpayer money. Regardless of the success or failure of their investments, their money was covered. This is about as contradictory to capitalism as it gets. So what happened? Investors put their money in longshot high-risk, high-yield opportunities that had little hope of succeeding. No loss on their part when they fell flat on their faces, the taxpayers were there to bail them out. All thanks to Reagan and his "capitalist" politics.

Reagan was no friend to capitalism, just like very few Repulicans are. They are mainly corporatists, something equally as ugly as any supposedly socialist-leaning Democrat. It's about time people educate themselves about capitalism and understand the difference.

[indianasmith]

My admiration for Reagan stems from two sources:
1.  How he lifted the country out of the bleak, sad malaise of the Carter years and made us believe in ourselves again.
2.  The major role he played in destroying the Soviet Union without firing a shot.  Millions of Eastern Europeans live in freedom thanks to his heroic stand.  Ask the people of Poland, Latvia, Estonia, and the Ukraine if he deserves "great" recognition and you will see what I mean!

I have arrived, after years of observation, at the conclusion that the economy is a great sluggish beast that pretty much does what it is going to do regardless of who is in office.

[lester1/2jr]

The big mistake made, the one that made the scandal possible at all, was the availability of federal charters, which allowed investors to back their investments with taxpayer money. Regardless of the success or failure of their investments, their money was covered. This is about as contradictory to capitalism as it gets

this. it was the same in 08.


this book ranks the presidents in terms of how they actually affected peoples lives. Its totally different than the state version of that history/ ranking.

[indianasmith]

"State version"??
Independent polls of various historians by various news organizations are not exactly state-sponsored propaganda.  I get that you're libertarian and all, but the rhetoric wears very thin sometimes.

You admire Presidents who do nothing.  I admire Presidents who do great things.
That doesn't make you an idiot, nor me a statist.

We just have different criteria.

"State version."  Yeeesh.

[Allhallowsday]

My admiration for Reagan stems from two sources:
1.  How he lifted the country out of the bleak, sad malaise of the Carter years and made us believe in ourselves again.

WHAT'S THAT NOISE??  (Oh, sorry, I'd a li'l gas.)  NIXON nor FORD had any hand in the malaise?   Howzabout their years? 

2.  The major role he played in destroying the Soviet Union without firing a shot.  Millions of Eastern Europeans live in freedom thanks to his heroic stand.  Ask the people of Poland, Latvia, Estonia, and the Ukraine if he deserves "great" recognition and you will see what I mean!

My hero!   

I have arrived, after years of observation, at the conclusion that the economy is a great sluggish beast that pretty much does what it is going to do regardless of who is in office.

[Mofo Rising]

I have arrived, after years of observation, at the conclusion that the economy is a great sluggish beast that pretty much does what it is going to do regardless of who is in office.

I'm not one to toot my own horn, but I would like to say that is the soundness of my voting habits is in no small part responsible for all the upswings in the economy for the past decade and a half. Not to mention all those internet petitions I supported.

Sad to say, those who voted other than I did performed a serious disservice to this country, which is why the economy is in the state it is in today. Not to mention all those reckless internet petitions floating around these days.

[lester1/2jr]

Indiana smith- state version is an apt description. It is the one that glorifies the state and the one taught in state schools.

[indianasmith]

It's not a state, it's a COUNTRY.  A country I love and whose heroes I admire.
If you hate it so much, the exits are plainly marked.

[Allhallowsday]

It's not a state, it's a COUNTRY.  A country I love and whose heroes I admire.
If you hate it so much, the exits are plainly marked.

Oh, Indy, you know Lester by now, and his remarks are not "hateful".  But when anybody starts that "love it or leave it" sh!t, it's annoying.  You're not loving your national government right now, are you?  Are you somehow superior with your clutching Christianity and condemning jingoism? 

[lester1/2jr]

The state and the country are two different things. That's not rhetoric. The country is the people, the state is the ruling body. I hate the state but love the country. and where would I go? I hate ALL states. I have no opinon on allstate insurance.

[indianasmith]

I was a bit snippish last night, it was late and I was grumpy.  But seriously, I don't think I could live with your worldview.  It is very depressing.

As for you, AHD, . . . 

[Jim H]

The state and the country are two different things. That's not rhetoric. The country is the people, the state is the ruling body. I hate the state but love the country. and where would I go? I hate ALL states. I have no opinon on allstate insurance.

Somalia seems like the go-to place for "no government".  Antarctica?  Northern Canada?  Unpopulated Indonesian islands?

On that note, I do wish there were a few significant free areas.  Places owned by no one with no control over them of any kind.  I do find it rather depressing that the governments of the world insist on carving up all the major land areas, even the ones they have no real interest in.  Antarctica is the only exception, and even then only a partial one.  But, of course, as an American citizen, I'm considered to be under the purvey of US law even outside the US - which is complete BS, and a pretty good reason to renounce citizenship if you ever permanently leave the country.

[Barack Clinton]

Saran palin used violent overtones in her speech, reduces everything to oversimplified terms, scapegoats certain groups, promises easy fixes. invokes anger and depends on charisma.

Sounds like some other political leader who came out of nowhere while a nation was in a terrible time and suddenly rose to power within a few years...