2012 Is Calling to Get Its Naive Belief That Russia Is Not a Threat Back
“A few months ago, when you were asked what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia. Not Al Qaeda. You said Russia. And the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back, because, you know, the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”
It’s OK, because Obama is taking Russia seriously now. How seriously? He is thinking about canceling his latest vacation. That seriously, OK?
UPDATE: Crisis averted. The vacation is back on.
Local media reports indicate the Obamas will stay at the Ocean Reef Club, a private compound that still enforces a dress code “designed to complement today’s more casual lifestyles while still respecting the Club’s longstanding traditions.” It boasts 36 holes of golf for the President to enjoy and spas and restaurants for his family.
Earlier this year Obama tacked a weekend of golf in California onto a meeting with the king of Jordan at the Sunnyland’s estate near Palm Springs, California. And he golfed regularly on his annual Christmas vacation in Hawaii.
We dodged a bullet there.
UPDATE x2: Thanks very much to Instapundit for the link. What a nice surprise.
2005 is calling to get its “year x is calling to get its thing y back” phrase back.
Patterico (9c670f) — 3/6/2014 @ 9:52 pmPutin blinked pretty fast.
Also, that Putin wasn’t willing to stand by and let the Ukraine fall into the west’s orbit isn’t quite the same thing as Russia being a great threat to the west.
It would invade the west with what army?
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/6/2014 @ 10:03 pmHe is thinking about canceling his latest vacation.
I’m being only partly sarcastic (or, actually, not sarcastic at all) when I say that if he had gone on vacation starting back in 2009, and had remained on vacation since then, this country would be in better shape right now, or certainly in no worse shape.
Mark (5c1990) — 3/6/2014 @ 10:09 pmUh, Mark—Biden?
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/6/2014 @ 10:10 pmDeep concern is never having to say you’re sorry.
nk (dbc370) — 3/6/2014 @ 10:12 pm2. Your naïve, presumptuous Libertarianism is showing a little too much ankle, Sport.
The Saudi initiative to bring to heel the Qatari terrorist state is failed, at least four factions are shooting up innocents and Palistinians in Syria.
Il Douche has squandered Egypt, Saudi Arabia and soon Turkey as allies and all are moving in some fashion into the Russky oribit.
Possibly the most dangerous bad actor on the planet, in Iran, smiles under Pooter’s protection from Western wiles.
And Putin blinked you say?
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/6/2014 @ 10:17 pmObama is a joke, and not just in Russia.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/if-he-believes-it-it-must-be-so_783721.html?nopager=1
This piece is by Elliot Abrams and as the saying goes needs to be read in its entirety but this part jumped out at me as being so typically precious on the part of Prom Queen.
Obama claims to know the Iranians take his threats seriously, and when Goldberg presses him to find out how he knows that, he then gets the view from inside Obama’s bubble about why they should take his threats seriously.
Meanwhile, from Iran:
http://www.timesofisrael.com/iranian-general-obamas-threats-are-the-joke-of-the-year/#ixzz2v36894dY
Obama is delusional. He has been his entire life, and nothing will change that.
Nakamoto Satoshi aka Steve57 (3a2d39) — 3/6/2014 @ 10:23 pmso fast that you’re the only one who claims to have seen it.
my view was blocked by a sunken cruiser, among other things.
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 3/6/2014 @ 10:25 pmClearly President Beiber isn’t the only one who’s delusional.
FC must be a Beleiber.
Nakamoto Satoshi aka Steve57 (3a2d39) — 3/6/2014 @ 10:26 pmred herring.
Slow Joe would be an imporvement over our SCOAMF, if only beacuse lazy stupid people are less trouble than active stupid people like your hero Barry the Dimwitted.
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 3/6/2014 @ 10:27 pm1. I think Rico is on to an iconic imprimatur of Urkel’s Flim Flam Presentency.
As the opposition has inexplicably folded domestically in the face of unbridled fascism, foreign relations have been handled with an indifferent, laissez faire policy.
“Did I do that?”
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/6/2014 @ 10:27 pm8. Making good use of Soviet glory.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/6/2014 @ 10:30 pmUh, Mark—Biden?
FC, the important proviso to Obama going on an indefinite vacation is he’d have to take Joe Biden along with him, with Harry Reid (etc) pulling up the rear. Actually, if just about ever liberal in government were to vanish tomorrow, not only would that not have a negative impact on society in general, it probably would mean a US that was less flaky, feckless and corrupt (socially if not financially too, or both) than it otherwise would be.
Mark (5c1990) — 3/6/2014 @ 10:36 pm7. “Obama is delusional. He has been his entire life, and nothing will change that.”
And a number of Obots disillusioned. A crap sandwich has managed that.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/6/2014 @ 10:37 pmThe grand irony is that Obama is going to be with us just long enough to demonstrate that everything he said in 2008 was just fairy dust and unicorn rides. Forget Clinton, forget Carter — has there ever been a President which such an incredible gulf between what he believes in his heart and what reality shows us is true?
JVW (9946b6) — 3/6/2014 @ 11:12 pm2005 is calling to get its “year x is calling to get its thing y back” phrase back.
1787 is calling to get its Constitutional republic back.
JVW (9946b6) — 3/6/2014 @ 11:15 pmEvery year he seems stupider to me, as he plainly has learned nothing about the job despite being in it for five years. Seems to have no interest in doing it. Never seen a President so resentful of the fact he is expected to show up. Our worst presidents never demonstrated a fraction of his petulance about it.
SPQR (768505) — 3/6/2014 @ 11:43 pmwell, the underlying reason for the “meh” news coverage here has been discovered.
no wonder MSLSD is covering for Putin!
http://thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/putin-alleges-tea-partiers-in-ukraine-wins-over-us-media-t13277.html
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 3/6/2014 @ 11:58 pmYou do know that Russia can sell really bad stuff to really bad people, right?
We live in an age of asymmetric possibilities for warfare.
And Russia has about 2 million people in “what army”. It surely does seem silly that Russia would invade another country after this one, but you know, you aren’t in Poland right now. Russia has been pretty bad about what Poland does to protect itself.
China, too, is looking at how quickly we brush this off, before it acts to expand its territory.
Letting this stuff slide is the single most destabilizing thing Obama could do, but it is the easiest thing to do. It’s the voting Present of foreign policy. It could cost a lot of lives because we didn’t stop this stuff in a swift and authoritative manner.
Dustin (f5d273) — 3/7/2014 @ 12:04 amHillary: “…Russia has been an ally.” (snicker).
PerfectSense (4d5c72) — 3/7/2014 @ 12:04 amSPQR, I forget who said this first, but Obama is the first President who seems to believe that the job is actually beneath his dignity.
JVW (9946b6) — 3/7/2014 @ 12:35 amwho was the moron who thought Ear Leader had any dignity?
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 3/7/2014 @ 1:25 amBobby Jindahl:
Whether Dog is a smart man is in doubt, whether he is a comprehensive POS is not.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/7/2014 @ 3:02 am16. Nice, really.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/7/2014 @ 3:04 amhe needs “mirror time”
ColonelHaiku (03d049) — 3/7/2014 @ 3:54 amto make his putter flutter
should know that by now
standing in shadows
ColonelHaiku (03d049) — 3/7/2014 @ 3:57 ammirror and teleprompter
at his beck and call
Yes, Dustin, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and the Baltic states, say that’s ridiculous, snorfle,
narciso (3fec35) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:02 amputin plays teh chess
ColonelHaiku (03d049) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:03 amwhile obama plays checkees
modern Amos McCoy
our biggest threat to
ColonelHaiku (03d049) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:08 amnational security
barack obama
with a limp he cries
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:21 am“Luke! li’l Luke! where’s my checkees?”
yes we are so screwed
According to SPQR, Russia was going to be marching on Kiev. Didn’t happen.
As I said, they would take back the largely-ethnic Crimea and possibly East Ukraine. Far from being naive, that was a good analysis.
You conservatives need to read more Pat Buchanan, Peter Brimelow, and Michelle Malkin; and less of everything mainstream Republicans and leftists — if I haven’t repeated myself — say.
I didn’t become “Former Conservative” only because I’d moved to the left on some issues. In some measure, it’s because I’ve realized how hopelessly doctrinaire and delusional Republicans have become on the issue of nationhood.
Putin understands that nations are largely, nay mostly, ethnic affairs. The Crimea should be returned to Russia. Look what happened with it being in the Ukraine.
The western, ethnic Ukrainians’ will was thwarted, and several of them ended up getting shot by snipers at the orders of, presumably, ethnic Russians in their country. Not an ideal situation for anybody.
Most Republican Americans have this mistaken and insane view that just because their Constitution says a lot of nice things, this is what makes up their nation [ironically, libertarians share the same sort of folly: that ideology trumps all; they rarely if ever ask themselves why their philosophy appeals primarily to a small demographic and a narrow intelligence range within it]. That it’s based primarily on ideology. They were taught this is so, so much in school, by liberals, that they’ve bought into it, and they maintain their beliefs out of fear of what would happen to their social and economic standing if they didn’t.
So you have Republicans trying, for example, to pin their future hopes on Hispanics on the theory that Hispanics are Catholics and, therefore, naturally conservative. I won’t get into why this is so very wrong here, although I have several times in the past.
Over the past few years, I’ve tried to explain the folly of this, often using recent election results as examples as well as what I’d said in the run-up to them here at Patterico, at Ace of Spades, and at Hot Air. This has not gone over well, but Ace was smart enough not to take umbrage: Maetenloch significantly less so. A great conversation where people were beginning to think finally was broken up by him with great urgency and cowardliness. Michelle Malkin clearly would have been smart and brave enough, as her writing for VDARE indicates, but unfortunately I ran up against a lesser, and cowardly, mind on her former site, so that was that.
Patterico often talks about his admiration for his native-born Texas. Here is a 2006 debate sponsored by the campus Republicans at University of Texas—Arlington between Jared Taylor and Jose Angel Gutierrez on The Hispanicization: Good or Bad for America?
Even if you don’t particularly like Jared Taylor, and I’m not sold on the guy yet, listen to the facts he presents, but mostly listen to his opponent. Listen to his opponent. It’s chilling, frankly.
Now I like people from all over the place, I was raised in multi-ethnic environs, I’m mixed race, many of the people I like or love are mixed race or flat-out other races and cultures. But just because this, I am not so delusional that I don’t get that there are differences between groups of people and this raises strife and lowers cohesion.
You have America based on what is now a very, very flawed implementation of the melting pot idea since the immigration act of 1965 lambasting Putin for doing what any Russian leader would do. Meanwhile, Americans are fairly quickly casting aside large parts of their nation to people who are not, primarily, loyal to it.
Because somehow, Americans have bought into the idea that ideology is key. No, it isn’t really. I’m very very into ideology (or thinking anyway) — I think it’s cool — but if your ideology doesn’t take into account both biology (human biological diversity) and humanity’s tribal nature, it is lacking in long-term, epistemologically-sound, predictive power. Jefferson, Lincoln, and others understood this. Modern Republicans, not so much.
It is beyond ironic that I take both a realistic view of human nature and foreign policy realpolitik, including the military and/or asymmetrical application of force, and am derided as naive by Republicans of all people on the planet.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:20 amno dog in this hunt
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:32 amwhen they know teh honey free
that’s the Left for you
jobs report bullsh*t
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:35 amwhat’s high later moved downward
quietly of course
obambi’s asleep
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:46 amjay carney has no regrets
Mission to Moscow
31. “According to SPQR, Russia was going to be marching on Kiev. Didn’t happen.”
This is your evidence that Putin blinked?
You, virtually alone, predicted they would retake Crimea, their former Naval facility on the Black Sea and settled by Russian majority?
Now waiting for May elections in lieu of war that may well be obviated by intimidation of the electorate is blinking?
Lame.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/7/2014 @ 6:26 amPutin blinked mostly in result to markets crashing, with threats of sanctions and the like on the horizon.
What was lame is your post, but especially your rejoinder with, “Oh, you were one of those who were right. Lame-oh!”
Well done, gary.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 6:28 amI don’t see the blink, either. Unless by blinking we mean that he has not made a drinking cup out of Obama’s skull. That’s about the same size of straw man as “he’s not marching to Kiev” — yet.
nk (dbc370) — 3/7/2014 @ 6:33 amPutin didn’t blink, he winked, which is as good as a nod to a blind horse.
ropelight (ff875c) — 3/7/2014 @ 6:33 amThis weekend, the Obamas are going to the Florida Keys and the Bidens to the Virgin Islands (for the second time in 3 months). The burden of leadership.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 3/7/2014 @ 6:53 amwith a face like that
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 6:58 amgot nuthin’ to laugh about
stay with me ropelight
Obama Biden
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:01 amit’s why they call it “acting”
no adults in charge
high definition
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:04 amShepard Smith has some bad skin
terrible wardrobe
Time for vacation
felipe (b5e0f4) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:04 amWinter ice melts into Spring
My taxes at work
trash that obama
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:07 amralph peters like dog with bone
he barks AND he bites
no time for weak sucks
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:10 amtwo comedians at helm
we can’t catch a break
Elijah Cummings
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:13 amlooks like old gary coleman
if he were not kilt
Maybe someone should ask Putin to compare his impressions of Reagan and Obama:
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:14 amhttp://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/when-putin-met-reagan/
Of course, no one will, and even if they did, would you trust a KGB agent (I’ve heard tell that there is no such thing as an ex-KGB agent.)
have fun felipe!
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:16 amand take friend dustin with you
that dude needs some fun
wait minute MD
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:19 amPutin ain’t no Frank Gorshin
but does do mean Bush
Bamma and Biden
felipe (b5e0f4) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:20 am“M.I.A” cackles Putin
His favorite things
this got out of hand
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:23 amhaiku rhythm took over
somebody stop me!
when dog bites bee stings
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:26 amsimply thinks of barry joe
he don’t feel so bad
Thanks, Col. Spring break is next week and I am feeling spry.
felipe (b5e0f4) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:28 amfeeling spry is good
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:33 ambut feeling Megyn Kelly
is my wildest dream!
I didn’t become “Former Conservative” only because I’d moved to the left on some issues. In some measure, it’s because I’ve realized how hopelessly doctrinaire and delusional Republicans have become on the issue of nationhood.
I don’t disagree with your contention that gut biases related to aspects of people’s “tribe” — superficial or otherwise — can trump ideology, in that members of Group A or Group B regardless of whether they’re liberal or conservative will share emotions that go beyond politics. But the very fact you focus on that and, at the same time — for any number of reasons — admit to moving left as you’ve grown older also needs to be focused on.
Studies and surveys have shown that left-leaning biases apparently — ironically enough — make many people do and feel just the opposite of what they like to spout off in public and fancy about themselves. Perhaps your own gradual tilt to the left is making you overly conscious of the dynamics of racial/ethnic/religious solidarity or group think, but in a worse way?
I’d think if you truly believed right-leaning people (assuming you deem Republicans and the right to be more closely related than Democrats and the right) are delusional about racial/ethnic solidarity, you’d move to the right, not the left, since the left actively, aggressively promotes policies and rhetoric that truly corrupts and perverts the idea of racial/ethnic diversity.
Mark (5c1990) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:36 amthank God it’s Friday!
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:37 amexcept for a few brave souls
This dang place snoozes
UPDATE: Crisis averted. The vacation is back on.
We dodged a bullet there.
Patterico (9c670f) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:38 amCol., only you could make the phrase “feeling 7 up” nasty!
felipe (b5e0f4) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:39 amhope suckah gets lost
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:44 amin Bermuda Triangle
one can only hope
oh oh doctor’s here
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:50 amhere comes Thorazine Express
ridin’ CrazyTrain
It’s mostly that I oppose child abuse, which conservatives don’t really: they practice a lot of it, shrouded in tradition. Spare the rod, spoil the child. Threatening children with hell. Etc.
And no, I don’t practice them in private.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:54 amI think it’s nice of him to give the African crocodiles in Florida a chance at a meal from home finally.
(This will bar me from running in the 400 meter in the next summer Olympics, I know.)
nk (dbc370) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:55 am“It’s mostly that I oppose child abuse, which conservatives don’t really: they practice a lot of it, shrouded in tradition. Spare the rod, spoil the child. Threatening children with hell. Etc.”
pls excuse my candor, but that’s a crock of sh*t.
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:58 amIt’s mostly that I oppose child abuse, which conservatives don’t really
FC, when you write things like that, I can tell you have plenty of left-leaning gut reactions or biases. As such — and, yea, this sounds snide, but I truly believe it’s applicable (ie, I don’t say this to be flip or snotty) — I don’t think you should trust your perceptions of the world.
BTW, liberalism infuses black America — one of the LEAST generally right-leaning demographics in this nation, by far — and yet some of the harshest, meanest forms of scolding children can be found in that part of our society.
Mark (5c1990) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:01 amThe social science data on these things, hitting children anyway, and how they lead to increased obesity, diabetes (cortisol breaking down the endocrine system), depression, suicidality, and on and on and on, isn’t based on “delusions”. It’s based on mountains of science.
And yes, some self-reflection on my childhood and others’. There is delusion going on here, but it isn’t in those who oppose threatening children with hell.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:03 amConservatives don’t oppose child abuse? Not really? You just made that up.
Yes, the left is so much kinder to children that they make sure every mother can kill their child for any reason. Oh, wait “IT” is not a child so that’s different! Nice to see the gentle left deciding who gets to be human, and when.
Hell is real, dude. Wake up.
felipe (b5e0f4) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:07 amI was thinking about Mathew Warren the other day. Sad, of course.
But Rick Warren’s despicable take on it, accepted as, pun intended, gospel by so many … showed so many flaws in reasoning, epistemology, and ethics.
No, I’m very comfortable with leaving these aspects of conservatism.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:08 amI’m not a leftist either, felipe.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:08 amThe late ’70s called and they want their president back.
Patricia (be0117) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:10 amThis thread is still too young to be lured into Mark’s and FC’s van.
Liberalism has nothing to do with either the invasion of Ukraine or Obama’s non-essence.
nk (dbc370) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:10 amlol
Gots to prioritize.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:13 amhey… FC sez teh science is settled. He’s cereal.
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:13 amThe “church” does not “threaten” children with hell. This thought lives rent-free in your mind. you create this false situation just to pretend yor are a hero. You may not be alone in your belief, but neither is a member of the flat-earth society alone (in their belief).
felipe (b5e0f4) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:16 amI do find it interesting that I can write:
… and then get accused of simply being a leftist. Really — life isn’t as simple as Democrat/Republican.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:21 amHe’s not a serious man, felipe. He tosses a turd out there and deems it factual… the data is in… the science supports this turd. Again, not a serious man.
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:24 amReally — life isn’t as simple as Democrat/Republican.
Comment by Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:21 am
I agree with this. But this simple truth does not favor any argument, rather, it undermines them.
felipe (b5e0f4) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:26 amLook, I was merely answering a question before that came up in context. I don’t want to turn this thread into a social science one. The thread’s topic is quite interesting enough.
But you are flat-out ignorant (at best) if you think there isn’t a strong science base behind the long-term harms caused to children by hitting them.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:28 amI completely agree, col. Perhaps my attention honors the unworthy, but every soul is precious to Our Lord.
felipe (b5e0f4) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:29 amyou’re the ninny who contends conservatives abuse their children, weasel.
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:30 amIndeed, felipe!
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:31 amConservatives aren’t the only ones. Daycare is problematic also. We evolved to need a bond when young with a primary caregiver.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:38 amdon’t engage the crockmeister… lefty toady.
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:43 amAnyway, one of the writers I suggested you check out was VDARE’s founder, Peter Brimelow. I wasn’t expecting a lot of self-initiative, so I’ll try to walk you along a little bit.
A few days ago, Brimelow posted about an article by Roman Skaskiw. In part, it said:
While I just found this article a moment ago, that is what I have been getting at. It is at least a potential silver lining.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:45 amWhat cannot be ignored in this whole affair is Putin’s racism. He would never have done this to a white President. He simply cannot stand the thought of a black man in the White House. His homophobia is established, as well, with Russia’s draconian anti-gay laws on full view in Sochi. Putin is a racist homophobe, and he is on the wrong side of history.
nk (dbc370) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:48 amAnd he probably does not believe in Climate Change either.
nk (dbc370) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:50 amThat may be a factor. Like, I’ve been arguing all along that Putin is motivated by Russian ethnic nationalism.
But which Russian President would just let the Ukraine drift off to the west without lifting a finger, and even take the Crimean peninsula with it?
I mean, come on!
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:52 amOK, I got sucked into a bit of humor. lol
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:53 amRe: 85… and he abuses water fowl!
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:55 amAnd let’s not ignore the fact that this is another mess that Bush left behind for Obama to clean up. The facts are the facts — Bush invited Putin into his own home at Crawford. It was a wink and a nod that he was inviting him into Eastern Europe as well.
nk (dbc370) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:59 amActually FC, with his automatic writing, is kinda, sorta on topic.
Just as the Sage from Ayer’s Neighborhood labors in one of an infinite number of possible inner worlds FC populates another with his virtual creations.
As Narcissist Interrupted, they’ve become discouraged meeting denizens who do not acknowledge their vision, their sublime transcendence of our vulgar actuality.
What a burden such brilliance adrift on a sea of flotsam must seem.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/7/2014 @ 9:38 amFar from it, gary galrud.
Take child abuse, for example.
Many jurisdictions around the world are banning spanking, as did Delaware. The circumcision rate in America has roughly cut in half in a decade or so. People are, despite many still in denial, becoming aware of the relationship between childhood trauma and neglect and worsened life outcomes. Even breastfeeeding, which is obviously old hat, is making a resurgence.
No, my views on these important issues are winning in the real world, to the moral betterment of mankind, and the practical happiness of people, and the protection of the innocent — and I’m part of this successful fight.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 9:44 amYes, Gary, the Mantle of the world must weigh heavy – Oh, wait, Micky is the Mantle of the world!
felipe (b5e0f4) — 3/7/2014 @ 9:46 amerects straw man… check
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 9:51 amslanders those he allegedly once shared common cause with… check… views his own participation and beliefs as heartfelt and heroic… check… walks like water fowl, talks like water fowl… check… all the makings of an… eggplant!
Winning! He said the magic word! He gets a $100.
But seriously, OMG.
“No, my views on these important issues are winning in the real world, to the moral betterment of mankind, and the practical happiness of people, and the protection of the innocent — and I’m part of this successful fight”.
Someone put that on a T-shirt.
Or better – in a fortune cookie:
“Your views on important issues are winning in the real world, to the moral betterment of mankind, and the practical happiness of people, and the protection of the innocent — and you’re part of this successful fight”.
felipe (b5e0f4) — 3/7/2014 @ 9:51 amFC!… he’s my hero, yes he is!!!
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 9:59 amHey, Google says it’s Happy International Women’s Day. I’ve known quite a few international women and I liked the happy ones best. Good for them to have their own day. Unhappy international women can be real downers.
nk (dbc370) — 3/7/2014 @ 10:40 amnk wrote:
You mean, that was on the table, and we lost it? Crap!
The disappointed Dana (3e4784) — 3/7/2014 @ 10:51 amFormer Conservative wrote:
Yes, and that explains why, back when parents believed that spanking was a normal part of child rearing and appropriate discipline, the crime rates were so much higher.
The Dana rolling his eyes (3e4784) — 3/7/2014 @ 10:56 ambut… but… teh science is settled, Dana!… besides, it’s so heroic.
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 10:58 amFormer Conservative wrote:
You know, I’m wondering why, back when spanking was considered a normal part of discipline, we didn’t need security guards in our public schools, why we didn’t have so many kids under some sort of state supervision, why people could walk down the streets at night in relative safety, and why we didn’t have every other child born out of wedlock. One would think that, were Mr FC correct, our society would have been so much worse two generations ago, not so much better.
Oddly enough, though I was circumcised, the trauma of that never made me a felon. Strangely enough, though I was spanked when I misbehaved badly enough, I haven’t been menacing people on the streets. In an apparently beat-the-odds case, though I suffered all of those things — and poverty as well — whilst growing up, my “life outcome” does not seem to have been that bad.
And, “despite (being) still in denial,” neither of my daughters have been brought home by the police, come home stinking drunk or stoned out of their minds, gotten pregnant out of wedlock or dropped out of school. Both are in the Army, meaning more discipline, and self-discipline, and passed drug tests, and passed security clearances, and personal responsibility. Amazing how that happened, isn’t it?
The Dana who is actually a married father, with kids who didn't turn out to be felons (3e4784) — 3/7/2014 @ 11:11 amI’d be willing to bet that NJ teener who lost her case suing the ‘rents for private school tuition, habitation and board got the belt at home.
Like her lawyer alluded, all those words she threw back at mom were learned in the home.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/7/2014 @ 11:11 amI blame the movie Irreconcilable differences, Colonel!
felipe (b5e0f4) — 3/7/2014 @ 11:12 amIf you spent time in a typical Democrat inner city neighborhood, you would generally see much harsher discipline of children than you see in more suburban and rural neighborhoods correlating with more conservative politics, FWIW.
Been here, done that.
In addition, there is “spanking” and there is “spanking”.
“Spanking” is two swats on the bottom with a hand while looking the 3 yo child in the eye and saying, “No, do not run into the street without having mommy’s hand”.
“Spanking” is hitting the child in obvious anger for not sitting still and letting you watch the football game undisturbed.
There is a difference.
Poking a needle in a child’s arm is child abuse, unless it is done to give a vaccine to protect the child’s life.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 3/7/2014 @ 11:13 amlol
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 11:14 amFormer Conservative wrote:
Perhaps you might look at the crime rates in Wilmington, to see how well that has worked out.
A hint: if you are driving from downtown Wilmington toward Hockessin, up Second Street, you might want to lock your door.
The Dana who lived in Delaware for two years (3e4784) — 3/7/2014 @ 11:15 amYes, I know. There are other factors that drive behaviour other than political or religious ideology (although religious ideology would be a factor in some of that).
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 11:16 amBy visual inspection let’s look for any pattern among those enlightened Western Developed Economies that lock one up for clobbering your kid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_unemployment_rate
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/7/2014 @ 11:17 amSo — if I understand you correctly, you’re blaming a law against spanking children in late 2012 on you having to lock your door because of criminals in early 2014?
You’re just throwing out mountains of data on how spanking causes increased criminality down the road, and hanging your hat on a law banning spanking of kids didn’t immediately end crime?
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 11:19 amTypical of the US liberals to have it backwards. The rest of the world has been learning that circumcision reduces the transmission rate of various STD’s, including HIV, and that for a population may be a good thing,
sort of like HPV vaccine….
Having once been asked to do a circumcision on a newborn and almost passing out at the thought of it (the supervising doc decided I didn’t have to when she saw me turning green…), I think a lot of the anti-circumcision crowd is motivated by some kind of illogical fetish about the male sex organ. Male circumcision of the foreskin is not at all physically analogous to the mutilation of baby girls.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 3/7/2014 @ 11:19 amI have to do work now, bye.
Y’know, FC, the things MD says are demonstrably true. This “mountain of data” you keep clinging to, not so much. You can’t sweep history and experience away with a fiction alone. You need the media to do that.
felipe (b5e0f4) — 3/7/2014 @ 11:27 amI knew we were going to get to fapping*.
*Foreskin Awareness Project
nk (dbc370) — 3/7/2014 @ 11:30 am108. “You’re just throwing out mountains of data on how spanking causes increased criminality down the road, and hanging your hat on a law banning spanking of kids didn’t immediately end crime?”
And you, Sport, are just haphazardly tossing out social convention as an indication of social evolutionary progress.
Sorry, you are grasping more than you imagine them to be.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/7/2014 @ 11:30 am110. LOL, and again, LOL.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/7/2014 @ 11:34 amThe daughter has gotten maybe five single swats in her life — the first one from me on her behind when she stood up in a shopping cart, the last one across the mouth when she told her mother “Bite me”. But that doesn’t make us liberals, we just don’t hit our kid as a matter of routine discipline.
nk (dbc370) — 3/7/2014 @ 11:36 am114. Same here, all me; I’ve been wrong a couple of times but the others were for defiance during safety infractions, like defeating child-proof devices to get a butcher knife.
Usually when its my fault I don’t raise my voice.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/7/2014 @ 11:44 amThis is a great post. And while I haven’t read all the comments so I’m not sure how the topic changed to childhood spanking, there are some great comments, too. (Especially MD.)
DRJ (a83b8b) — 3/7/2014 @ 11:53 amThe nk who’s obviously a parent wrote:
And that’s the point that our friends on the left don’t seem to understand. Spanking for every minor infraction lessens the effectiveness of spanking as discipline for any infraction. Sensible parents reserve it for when it is needed, as a serious attention getter, rather than something which happens every day or even every month.
The Army-daddy Dana (3e4784) — 3/7/2014 @ 11:55 amFormer Conservative wrote:
No, because you’ve (deliberately?) failed to understand: the law followed the trend, not the other way around, with the idiotic state legislature — it is controlled by the Democrats, which makes it, by definition, idiotic — following the advice of supposed child-rearing experts. But the problem with driving up Second Street is the problem of lax discipline and rotten child rearing, and a welfare state mentality, for a couple of generations. It’s a heavily black and Hispanic area, but black and Hispanic families didn’t have these discipline problems to any notably greater extent than did white families in the 1950s. Our liberalizing society has destroyed the culture, and child rearing is a part of that, ever since the explosion of the welfare state.
The reasonable Dana (3e4784) — 3/7/2014 @ 12:01 pmWhile I don’t think it’s ever the right thing to do (I once did, and I was wrong), the harms of spanking are shown to be in a dose-dependent manner. So she’ll probably not be harmed by this much if at all.
I can tell by your other posts that you love her very much, and it speaks well of you and your wife that your instinct was to refrain from spanking by and large.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 12:23 pm“Male circumcision of the foreskin is not at all physically analogous to the mutilation of baby girls.
I have to do work now, bye.”
C’mon, MD… yer gonna leave us hanging here!?!? Sheesh!
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 12:28 pmDo you have an actual quote? Because this sounds like one of your typical straw men. You’ve demonstrated you can’t be trusted so at this point you need citations.
Nakamoto Satoshi aka Steve57 (927d18) — 3/7/2014 @ 12:50 pmPrecisely what I mean. State your ideological and unsupportable assertion that “spanking = child abuse” and then argue against the straw man that conservatives support child abuse.
I’m sure you can cite some one-sided studies by anti-spanking advocates that support their preconceived conclusions. That’s what propagandists do.
Hell, back when Obama was on the board of foundations such as the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, if nobody was producing “studies” that supported his preconceived notions about the power of government to intrude on the private rights and decisions of citizens he’d send some grant money somebody’s way and pay them to produce such a “study.”
Steve57 (927d18) — 3/7/2014 @ 1:07 pm‘Holy mutant squirrel’
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-07/russian-troops-storming-ukraine-air-force-base-crimea-time-reports-citing-crimea-tv
narciso (3fec35) — 3/7/2014 @ 1:12 pmi haven’t been reading all the posts here, but has the Strawman King come out with a rant on how vaccinations are child abuse yet?
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 3/7/2014 @ 1:17 pm“Having once been asked to do a circumcision on a newborn and almost passing out at the thought of it (the supervising doc decided I didn’t have to when she saw me turning green…), I think a lot of the anti-circumcision crowd is motivated by some kind of illogical fetish about the male sex organ. Male circumcision of the foreskin is not at all physically analogous to the mutilation of baby girls.”
My hub was with both of our babies during circumcision because he couldn’t bear not to be there to try and comfort them. He almost passed out both times but was glad they weren’t alone.
Male circumcision of the foreskin does not viciously and barbarically remove – with diabolical intent – the ability to experience sexual pleasure. And it does not produce a lifetime of pain, infection, and loss.
I will say we have Dutch friends and as he was not circumcised 60 years ago, they opted not with their own sons. Sons identify with their dads, this he didn’t want them feeling strange by looking so differently. Seems reasonable. No fetish there. Just parents making a decision for their sons.
Dana (c3ab4c) — 3/7/2014 @ 1:28 pm… Not that witnessing a circumcision is anything near actually performing one.
Dana (c3ab4c) — 3/7/2014 @ 1:36 pmwhat’s teh DIFF* ?
*Democratic Intact Foreskin Front
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 1:39 pmwell all is well, clearly;
http://freebeacon.com/poland-confirms-u-s-sending-f-16-jets-for-training-drill/
narciso (3fec35) — 3/7/2014 @ 1:42 pm#124… no, red, we were talking about… hey! How did… WTF… Foreskin Kiev?
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 1:47 pmI guess that date, with Miss T, didn’t work out, or maybe it did, I can’t tell.
narciso (3fec35) — 3/7/2014 @ 1:51 pmso, does 12 f16s = a pin prick?
felipe (6100bc) — 3/7/2014 @ 2:10 pm84. Comment by nk (dbc370) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:48 am
What cannot be ignored in this whole affair is Putin’s racism. He would never have done this to a white President. He simply cannot stand the thought of a black man in the White House.
I think that’s a silly statement.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 3/7/2014 @ 2:12 pmPutin promotes racism, yes, in and outside of Russia – it’s one of the ways he tries to gain some suuport.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 3/7/2014 @ 2:13 pm“I think that’s a silly statement”.
Pat Sajack: would you like to buy a clue for $20?
Sammy: No, thank you.
felipe (6100bc) — 3/7/2014 @ 2:21 pmHey, felipe… Sammy knows silly.
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 2:25 pmPussy Riot, who also got attacked on the street during the Olympics, should be offered asylum.
And a Noble Peace Prize.
(As in the US should spirit them out of the country and use them to highlight the situation in Russia, as well as for the moral reason of protecting them. They are as brave as any soldiers, with great moral courage on top of their physical courage.)
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 2:25 pmIn a country where they kill reporters, who do speak truth to power, that’s kind a stupid stunt
narciso (3fec35) — 3/7/2014 @ 2:57 pm“Give me (and my fellow man) liberty, or give me death.”
Pussy Power lives it.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 2:59 pmSorry, “Pussy Riot”. lol
I was thinking about something else. Debating something with a feminist, if you can call what they do “debate”.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 3:01 pmFC, It’s difficult to believe that you want to be taken seriously after some of the comments you made in this thread. Can the brush with which you paint conservatives be any broader?
Amalgamated Cliff Divers, Local 157 (f7d5ba) — 3/7/2014 @ 3:02 pm‘Facts not in evidence; ACD,
narciso (3fec35) — 3/7/2014 @ 3:04 pmI don’t know that I want to be taken seriously by irrational people who believe Hell is real, who think god told people to cut baby’s c*cks, that children should be hit and — in particular — on the arse. Etc.
Being correct is enough. Imparting a different way of looking at things on some things they can somewhat relate to such as foreign policy or a realistic view of human nature or the counterproductive results (including on their liberties) of global wars against disapproved plants is a bonus.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 3:12 pmPlease let me know what comment he/she made that contained a fact. All I’ve read are basically the usual caricatures of what liberals believe conservatives are like. He/She just committed genocide against a population of erected strawpeople!
Amalgamated Cliff Divers, Local 157 (f7d5ba) — 3/7/2014 @ 3:12 pmhttp://www.interpretermag.com/ukraine-liveblog-day-18-moscow-and-washington-are-far-apart-on-crimea/
narciso (3fec35) — 3/7/2014 @ 3:13 pmhttp://www.interpretermag.com/ukraine-liveblog-day-18-moscow-and-washington-are-far-apart-on-crimea/
Yeah, quite, and Obama’s going to find himself quite out of luck. He needs to define limiting the loss of Ukrainian territory as at least a partial victory, because that is what is going to happen.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 3:17 pmOh, I didn’t realize I was addressing another SEK. Please don’t let me interrupt your written onanism.
Amalgamated Cliff Divers, Local 157 (f7d5ba) — 3/7/2014 @ 3:20 pmFC @31 wrote:
If that were the case, that this was the plan all along, then Putin didn’t “blink.” He had certain limited objectives in the Ukraine, he achieved his objectives, then stopped.
So FC’s argument is logically inconsistent within itself.
In any case I doubt SPQR said what FC claims he said. For two reasons. First, FC argues like the Ear Leader. Against straw men of his own construction since his arguments are so weak.
Second, Putin has a track record. To this point what he’s doing in the Ukraine mirrors what he did in Georgia and Abkhazia. Putin constested some territory on the pretext of protecting Russian minorities. He then established buffer zones into uncontested Georgian and Abkhazian territory, signed a cease fire, then withdrew his troops but not as far back as agreed in the cease fire based upon “mutual defense” treaties he signs with his puppet regimes.
SPQR is intelligent enough to know this, which leads me to conclude FC is mangling what he said to suit himself.
Steve57 (927d18) — 3/7/2014 @ 3:25 pmtitles are kind of fluid over there;
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/03/crimean-prime-minister-former-gangster-receives-standing-ovation-in-moscow/
narciso (3fec35) — 3/7/2014 @ 3:28 pmUnpossible!
Amalgamated Cliff Divers, Local 157 (f7d5ba) — 3/7/2014 @ 3:28 pmIt’s curious, I was reading about the Uighurs in Zinjiang, the Chinese have tried the same trick over in their Chechnya, displacing the natives, marrying Han into the region,
narciso (3fec35) — 3/7/2014 @ 3:30 pmThat could be. The specific moment I was talking about was when his stock market was beginning to tank and he ordered troops back to their bases to diffuse the situation, and also reduce speculation of an attack on western Ukraine.
Intelligent he may be, drive on Kiev by now he did predict.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 3:34 pmAnyway, I do think he’s intelligent. I took some time to consider his position. Later, I rejected it and explained mine.
It is what it is. Doesn’t mean all my foreign policy judgements are correct, but as I said, read a little more Pat Buchannan, and a little less GOP-favored neocon luminaries.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 3:38 pmThere’s more than one way to “take over Kiev” and protect the pipelines. Killing the entire adult male population of Ukraine and selling the women into slavery can be held back as a last resort.
Russia now has a gun against Ukraine’s ribs with Crimea if full violence is called for.
nk (dbc370) — 3/7/2014 @ 3:42 pm80% of Ukraine’s own gas consumption comes from those pipelines.
Russia pays Ukraine $3 billion a year as a lease fee. Ukraine needs money.
Western Europe would be very unhappy with Kiev if it cut off its Russian gas. Ukraine needs Western European money.
Western Europe has about a year’s worth of stored gas reserves at any one time and Russia has the North pipelines that don’t need Ukraine. Threat to the pipelines is not a matter of immediate life or death.
I probably forgot another something.
All told, Russia does not need to eat Ukraine right this very minute, but it can whenever it wants to, and all Ukraine can realistically do is give Russia an appetite.
They needed the deal with the EU, because many western banks were pulling out of the Ukraine,
narciso (3fec35) — 3/7/2014 @ 3:55 pmJust a few observations on FC’s ideologically based assertions regarding corporal punishment.
First, this is no doubt one of the studies to which he’s referring, as summarized by CNN.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/02/health/shu-spanking-mental-illness/index.html
Steve57 (927d18) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:01 pmwhen did FC become a self-anointed literary arbiter/counselor?
FC… read much more von Hayek and much less Chomsky.
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:04 pmRight, Putin ordered his troops to stand down to defuse the situation.
http://news.yahoo.com/report-ukraine-crimea-under-siege-204055557.html
We really don’t need people who are more interested in holding a circle-jerk conducting foreign policy.
Steve57 (927d18) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:05 pmHasn’t Big Zer0 purged most of the generals who would counsel against his incompetent quasi-strategies?
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:15 pmBut I don’t think that’s the best response either. We crave attachment, love, and attention. You have to tell kids no sometimes—you don’t have to hit them. Whole societies manage without it. Arguments from effect aside, it’s immoral.
Anyway, let’s say I’m wrong and it’s not really harmful nor immoral, but there’s a trend to believing it is. You’re still going to have to face this very serious problem if you spank your kids now.
How to Have a Great Relationship with Your Children in 20 Years
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:16 pmThe Hitler-Stalin pact partitioned Poland, and a Merkel-Putin Pact will now partition Ukraine. Strong American will could probably prevent it. But we don’t have it.
nk (dbc370) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:19 pmWell, it’s news to me. Many of the people that I know who opposes it, male and female, are libertarians who admire von Hayek, and are individual rights supports. To wit, the right not to be hit against your will.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:20 pmI think the key is to partition it, but stand tall in, for example, Poland.
Hitler was insatiable. I don’t think the evidence is that Putin is. If it turns out he is, then he’ll have to be fought, but we’re living in the nuclear age, the Russians spend a fraction of the amount every year on defense, etc., etc. It would be so stupid it’s unlikely to happen.
Putin isn’t driven by fantasies about Jews and slavs and such. He likes his power, prestige, perks, and is a traditional Russian ethnic nationalist besides.
But OK. Drive Russia out of the Crimea, which is mostly and traditionally Russian, and the people want to be part of Russia. See how that goes.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:23 pmAlso, if the people of the Crimea don’t want to be part of the west, which is part of what led to bloodshed in the Ukraine, what is so wrong with them seceding and rejoining Russia?
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:27 pmPutin is on record as saying they need to protect the people of the Ukraine, and they will do it, if they have to, by making Ukrainian women and children human shields for Soviet, er Russian troops if necessary. No Ukrainian commander would dare fire on them (the Russian troops) in such a situation,
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:27 pmfor the good of the Ukrainian people, of course:
http://www.dickmorris.com/exclusive-breaking-news-putin-threatens-to-use-women-and-children-as-human-shields/#more-13289
Before I accidentally submitted comment #162 I meant to say you, FC, illustrated precisely where your arguments fail.
They are entirely subjective.
I, FC, have concluded corporal punishment is wrong and immoral. Therefore it is child abuse. And anyone who doesn’t agree supports child abuse.
It’s entirely subjective.
And you cherry pick among whatever the theoretically experts you yourself use to make your case and what they have to say on the topic, rejecting what they say that doesn’t fit your subjective version of truth and using what fits your personal agenda.
Steve57 (927d18) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:28 pmWe’re going around in circles. Russia will not sleep well without 1) a buffer zone and 2) the Black Sea as its lake*. The Crimea is going to be Russia’s: whether as an autonomous region under a pro-Russian government in Kiev (as it was up to now); as a captive Russian Republic; or as part of Russia proper.
*In five years, Ukraine’s gas lines will be supplying only itself because there will be gas to Europe under the Black Sea that will bypass Ukraine, BTW.
nk (dbc370) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:30 pmAnd anyway, you’re completely wrong about this. It is recognition of harm and also the perversity that, while various groups were hit in the past, the one group of people it is still legal to hit are two year olds.
It’s kind of nuts. It evokes horror and anger in me. I’m not alone. Millions of people feel the same way. Tens or hundreds of millions probably. That number is growing.
It’s really the march of human rights. Slaves being freed, women being protected from domestic abuse, gays being protected from persecution, and — the lest vestige of people yet to be recognized as humans deserving of rights — children, not to be hit.
It really is as simple as that, as far as what the motives are.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:30 pmIn short, you’re going to lose this fight as conservative forces have lost the previous ones.
I used to argue hitting children was a “species-specific trait” as if that’s an argument. That it helps us prepare for military training and war and such (true, probably) (but carries the significant negative effect of a hell of a lot more adult war and violence!).
Times are changing, pretty fast. You’ll lose this struggle, but the results will be mostly positive anyway. Sorry to break it to you.
So you can mock me all you want. You take pleasure in it. But I know I’m on the side of history here, and on human rights, that has been the side of good, we in later generations come to see.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:38 pmWould they settle for a Berlin configuration, with a rump Western capital in Odessa, that seems unlikely,
narciso (3fec35) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:41 pmYou should open your own blog, FC… call it “Straw Man Central” or maybe “Non-Sequiturs Are Us”
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:42 pmOf course.
The one policy area that the Bolsheviks thought the Czars got right was foreign policy. Regimes come and go, but the geopolitical realities stay the same.
This is why I brought up the pan-Slavic nationalism the Imperial Russians used as a pretense to enter WWI on the side of the southern Slavs in the Balkans.
In reality the Russians wanted a warm water port that wasn’t subject to the kind of restrictions the Turks could place on naval traffic through the Bosporus and Dardanelles per the Montreux Convention.
None of the above changes the fact that the security assurances the US and the UK gave to the Ukraine in the Budapest Memorandum are now exposed as empty lies.
Steve57 (927d18) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:43 pmAnd I confess, FC, I’d like to spank teh stuffing out of you, just on principles. Why, I think I’d even feel a tad noble and heroic.
Colonel Haiku (624695) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:44 pmNo, it’s not subjective, there’s tons of data. This is but the tip of a very large iceberg. Jurisdictions around the world aren’t banning it on a whim. They’re banning it on the growing recognition of both the moral argument, but also the science.
However, even if the effects were positive, they’d have to be pretty damn positive to justify adults hitting children.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:45 pmPainted Jaguar:
It’s been awhile, and I can’t stay long,
but I have two points to raise:
First, I would like to ponder the irrationality of talking about irrationality with someone who is being irrational,
but it probably wouldn’t be rational.
But I will say I hope he changes his mind somewhere along the way, as God is not real impressed by attempted logical arguments by mere humans (see Job 38). Ad hominem attacks in particular do not withstand much scrutiny.
Second, concerning:
Dr. Howard Bennett, a pediatrician in Washington and clinical professor of pediatrics at George Washington University School of Medicine, recommends praising children when they are behaving well and using time-outs or a process called “time off,” in which the child must go to another part of the house for as long as it takes to stop the offending behavior and behave normally again
most cubs that eagerly go to their resting place for a time out for discipline when they are told probably don’t need much discipline. It doesn’t work with a cub who says, “who’s going to make me?”
Besides, using their own arguments, sending a cub to another room is like saying, “I don’t want to be with you because you are a bad, bad, bad little cub. When you decide to yield to my domineering and controlling personality than you may be blessed with my presence again. Sounds like shaming to me.
recommends praising children when they are behaving well
Umm, one has to be a clinical professor to know that…???…
My mummy, ever so patient and kind, even when she had to give me a little cuff when I was out of line, could have been chair
manpersonjaguar of the department.Jaguars don’t get circumcised, for apparent reasons.
Painted Jaguar (a sockpuppet) (f9371b) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:47 pmThat sort of violent desire is common in people spanked as children. I personally used to get hot under the collar a lot more a few years ago before I recognized the source of a big part of this and worked on it.
But it’s telling when one wants to hit an anti-violence against children advocate. One could see disagreeing, perhaps, on some argument from effect basis. But anger at someone whose sentiments lead them to oppose striking kids? That’s interesting.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:50 pmThe Spartans called it man-taming. They used deprivation, of food! and shelter!, as well as beatings, to make the young men into armed slaves controlling serfs for the benefit of the old men and the women. And it was done by “the Village”. The boys were taken away from their parents at age seven. As good a perspective on the Spartan way as any.
No hay amor como el de la madre. Parents, with all their faults, will in the aggregate always be kinder to their children than the state.
nk (dbc370) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:50 pmComment by MD in Philly (f9371b) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:27 pm
Take a look at that if you missed it.
Is the mountain of data against spanking, as opposed to spanking, larger or smaller than the mountain of data for global warming?
Painted Jaguar (a sockpuppet) (f9371b) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:52 pmI mean, does no one think it’s odd that we belong to a species where we hit children? At all?
Considering all of the brutal things we have, in times distant and near, done to people that we thought were right at the time, and now see as wrong, you don’t have the slightest doubt about your position?
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:54 pmI think it’s odd that you would prefer a human cub to learn that stoves are hot by getting burned and streets are dangerous by getting smashed.
Painted Jaguar (a sockpuppet) (f9371b) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:56 pmI need to go feed some domesticated little felines now.
Painted Jaguar (a sockpuppet) (f9371b) — 3/7/2014 @ 4:57 pmSo, you’re making my point about the statist roots of the anti-spanking zealotry by bringing up the Marxist argument about the inevitability of history. Which is far from inevitable.
And far from being “species specific,” it would be odd indeed that we were the one mammalian species that didn’t physically chastise its young.
Do you only speak English, or are you ignorant in more than one language? We already know you’re ignorant of just about any subject you opine about. Just curious to know how many languages you can display that in.
Steve57 (927d18) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:00 pmNo, not unless you think that getting rid of child sacrifice, slavery, tortured confessions, and so on is somehow related to Marxism.
It’s about individual rights.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:03 pm“That sort of violent desire is common in people spanked as children. I personally used to get hot under the collar a lot more a few years ago before I recognized the source of a big part of this and worked on it.”
No, FC, I’ve never been a violent person, but you seem to be the sort of ponce who would enjoy a little swatting. It’d be a form of public service… I promise I won’t leave any welts.
Colonel Haiku (4e36de) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:04 pmLOL
Colonel Haiku (4e36de) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:04 pmFC continues to make my case without realizing.
Steve57 (927d18) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:07 pmCan you not, while perhaps disagreeing about the effects or even morality of it if you believe it’s religiously mandated, acknowledge that there might be a principled human-rights objection to hitting children?
You just can’t see that at all?
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:08 pmI sure hope FC hasn’t visited Connecticut lately…
http://www.my9nj.com/story/24915934/police-investigate-discovery-of-pony-remains
Colonel Haiku (4e36de) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:09 pmPainted Jaguar, it’s quite an assumption to say that the only way to prevent a child from being burned on a stove is to hit him.
I’ve never hit my son, and he knows that if I tell him not to touch something because it’s hot that it would hurt if he touched it.
If I tell him something is “ouchie” he takes my word for it. Because he trusts me to not be the kind of authoritative asshole that tells him what to do for the sake of asserting my dominance and impeding his personal goals.
If I’m telling him to do or not do something, he believes I have a good reason, even if he doesn’t yet understand what it is.
It’s the same trust I had for my parents, who never hit me. And that my sister never had for them, possibly because they hit her. She always felt like their rules and advice were meant to restrict her, not help her. They were the enemy.
Miss Tified (72ac6e) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:09 pmFC, I don’t know why it’s so hard for people to extend empathy far enough to realize the terror a child experiences when hit. It seems like one of those things where once you realize it, you can never go back.
Slavery is wrong. So we had to find some other way to get cotton picked. In the same way, we have to find some moral way to guide children. A lot of people have found alternative ways. (Some haven’t, and only know what not to do, but not what they should do. Those are the neglected, wild children that we think of when we imagine what happens if we fail to spank our children.)
Miss Tified (72ac6e) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:15 pmDozens of nations must be having epidemics of children being burned by stoves. Totally, putting the child’s hand a little near, but not on, the stove and pointing out that it’s hot and reasoning with the child about it not wanting to get burned, couldn’t work.
Nor could parental responsibility and child-proofing the home. Definitely hit the child is the only rational response to cooking.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:15 pmThere are conflicting expert views on spanking and the current state of spanking research. For instance, just 5 minutes of research led me to this, this and this.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:16 pmBy the way, I searched for “spanking+research” so I didn’t try to fix the results. I wanted to see what’s out there.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:17 pmgetting rid of child sacrifice
America is still working on that one
Miss Tified,
Painted Jaguar (a sockpuppet) (f9371b) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:19 pmApparently your parents never told you not to call people rude names, because if they had, being the perfectly obedient and trusting child that you were you would not have needed to resort to using such vocabulary for me.
Somehow my cubs weren’t always so quick to assume I had it right, otherwise the oldest wouldn’t have stuck a knife into an electrical socket.
Thankfully he was not in contact with water or metal and the little shock that he received did not hurt him. And no, I did not give him a swat, it wasn’t needed at that point.
Apparently Jesus was not the only perfect human after all, since you and your son seem to be by your report.
Most people do learn at least a few things the hard way.
What’s worse? A rude name? Or hitting a child?
Now I’ve been guilty of one of those two things, for which I have, at least when I felt it was inappropriate because I was over the top under the circumstances, apologized. But I am so glad I was guilty of the one that involved an adult, non-violence, and not severe and debilitating lifelong trauma to a completely innocent person who I created and was responsible for loving, protecting, and not harming.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:24 pmI am very sure every one of my cubs suffered more by getting vaccinations than they did by the total spankings I had ever given them.
Much more.
I am very sure the terror of that pain as a neonate, long before I would have ever considered spanking them, was also very irreversible.
Yet I happily did it to avoid the increased risk of one of my cubs from dieing of pertussis or measles or H. flu meningitis.
It is very good that many cubs are content to listen to “No, owie”, if only the first cubs did that we would have never needed to know what owies were at all.
Meanwhile, it seems that bad Mr. Putin is threatening worse owies than spanking.
Painted Jaguar (a sockpuppet) (f9371b) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:25 pmApparently yelling is the new spanking.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:31 pmFC,
Painted Jaguar (a sockpuppet) (f9371b) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:32 pmThe point was that Miss Tified was claiming she was raised to be perfectly obedient as a child and has raised her own son to be perfectly obedient as well.
You are either incapable of understanding, or you are refusing to acknowledge, that some people think a little bit of pain in the form of controlled, purposeful, not out of anger or lack of self-control, corporal punishment may be done with the intent of indeed “loving and protecting” one’s cub?
As I said, my cubs suffered more and were less able to understand why, by getting their vaccinations than by all of my spanking;
and I allowed the doctor and nurse to terrorize and torture them beyond their ability to comprehend in order to love and protect them.
FC, I don’t know why it’s so hard for people to extend empathy far enough to realize the terror a child experiences when hit.
I remember being spanked on a rare occasion. I don’t remember terror, and I wasn’t traumatized. I didn’t much care for it because it hurt and it was demeaning, and it caused me to be very careful not to be caught again doing whatever it was that got me spanked.
I also remember getting caught at doing stuff that did NOT get me spanked, but should have.
Anyone who has to extend empathy here, rather than memory, wasn’t spanked and if they want to extend something, extend understanding to people who are probably better parents than theirs.
Kevin M (dbcba4) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:34 pmI don’t see things that don’t exist, FC. I leave that to you.
As I’ve pointed out, there is nothing principled about the way you attempt to argue your case. So why should I attribute to you a principled objection?
There is no more of human-rights objection to spanking a child than any other form of physical compulsion. Which, as much as you insist on ignoring it, is exactly what the anti-spanking zealots offer up (for now) as the alternative to spanking.
As far as letting children learn their lessons by touching hot stoves, that’s a form of negligence that in my opinion crosses over into child endangerment. This is irrational. Burns are serious injuries from which it is sometimes impossible to recover entirely. This is preferred to a spanking that leaves no lasting marks or injury?
In any case, DRJ brings reinforcement.
Steve57 (927d18) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:35 pmNow, as to what IS trauma: Some parents prefer to control children through emotional manipulation instead. Those are the kids you see in shrink’s offices and NA meetings later on in life.
Kevin M (dbcba4) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:35 pmNo, that wasn’t the point.
So why don’t you try again?
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:39 pmYou’re right that this is a problem as well, and that’s a very good point with all due respect, but you see both there.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:40 pmYelling is worse than spanking in my opinion, unless the yelling is to communicate a warning.
When my mummy roars it is terrible.
For a proper spanking, one has to get up, look the cub in the eye, communicate what was done wrong, that the child did it in spite of being previously told to obey otherwise, and mom or dad takes charge to give disciple.
Yelling communicates, “I’m angry at you” Not, “you were disobedient and need discipline.”
Which actually gets back to what was obvious, who advocates spanking as a way to communicate instructions??? If my cubs always listened to me when I told them what to do because they understood that I loved them, there would have never been a reason to spank. Spanking, or any corrective discipline, even a time-out, is not given to teach, or correct a childish mistake (like spilling milk from inadequate paw-eye coordination), and certainly not because the parent is irritated about something, but it is because the child had been instructed, understood, then deliberately disobeyed. When the child runs into the street against instruction and nothing happens because there was not a car there at the time, the child can not be allowed to think it is OK to disobey and run into the street.
But this was about Mr. Putin being evil and using human shields in invading Ukraine.
Painted Jaguar (a sockpuppet) (f9371b) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:43 pmWell, the emotional manipulation doesn’t seem to have worked with mine. Just now, on the phone:
Daughter: Hello, Dad. (Caller ID)
nk (dbc370) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:44 pmMe: Hi! What’s up?
Daughter: Oh, everything’s ok. … Dad, [my friend] just came now. Bye.
Me: Who? What?
Daughter: [My friend] just came now. Bye, please.
Me: Bye.
😉
Well hitting people if they don’t do what you want them to do is morally problematic. This is the sort of lack of reason that makes me not self-identify as a conservative anymore, despite agreeing with you on some economic things or whatnot.
Anyway, the trendlines are my way, so I’m sorry that I can’t help you understand what you went through, the effects it had on you, and how it has impacted your moral reasoning now. But a surgeon has to triage and save the saveable. There’s tons of those, and spanking is falling out of favor.
In fact, I’m pretty much winning out in the real world across the board here.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:44 pmMy optical mouse if all over the place today. I meant to quote the WSJ article, but instead of putting the cursor where I wanted the quote to go it jumped to submit.
To continue.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB125548136491383915
The mere fact the anti-spanking zealots are resorting to statistics concerning correlation between spanking and adult disorders or anti-social behavior means that the anti-spanking zealots can’t make a straightforward, prima facie case that spanking is child abuse.
And then this:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/132/5/e1118.full/reply#pediatrics_el_56621
The purpose of these studies is a) an attempt by the “it takes a village, all your children are belong teh us” crowd to disenfranchise parents, b) an attempt to imply that correlation is causation and c) a failed attempt to make it appear that spanking (assault if committed by adults against unwilling adults) somehow differs from the anti-spanking zealots’ proposed solutions such as “time outs” (kidnapping if committed by adults against unwilling adults) when in fact it does not.
Steve57 (927d18) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:45 pmFC, you and the real world aren’t even going out for a movie let alone having a one night stand.
It’s like your relationship with truth and logic. You don’t even have their phone numbers.
Steve57 (927d18) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:48 pmMarxists always see the gulag as being half full rather than half empty.
Steve57 (927d18) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:50 pmwhat the endgame is;
http://20committee.com/2014/03/07/understanding-the-crimea-crisis/#comments
narciso (3fec35) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:50 pmFC, yes it was the point.
As I pointed out above. I was never spanked instead of being given a warning, I was spanked when I disobeyed.
I never spanked as a form of instruction, spanking, even time outs, were for direct active disobedience.
If I had been a perfect child and had perfect children I would have never been spanked or spanked myself.
Speaking of points, my first point was that it probably wasn’t rational to discuss things of reason with one being irrational,
yet that is what I have been doing.
Good night, from the waters of the deep, dark, turbid Amazon.
Painted Jaguar (a sockpuppet) (f9371b) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:52 pmMaybe you should read the story about me to yourself and your cubs before bed, it is very funny.
http://www.boop.org/jan/justso/armadil.htm
Putin’s daddy was in the NKVD during WWII. Do you know what the NKVD did mostly in WWII? It machined-gunned conscripts, boys and girls as young as fifteen, who did not show sufficient Revolutionary zeal in the fight against Fascism.
Now, my uncles had fought Mussolini (and won) and Hitler (and lost) less than a year earlier. But my grandparents did not aim machine guns at them to get them to charge the Italian and German positions.
You can talk all you want about the best way to raise children. I will say that parents are the ones who do it best, and we should keep the state out of it as much as possible. And philosophically inclined busybodies (that’s you FC) also. You will never convince me that you love my kid more than I do.
nk (dbc370) — 3/7/2014 @ 5:53 pmYou shouldn’t have to be perfect to be brought into this world and not hit! Especially when young with a developing brain.
Anyway, right or wrong, and I find your position immoral; no, evil, actually; most of you here are young enough to see that my position will prevail on both this and genital mutilation of boys in most of the world . Before you kick the bucket, you’ll see the writing on the wall and realize that I have won.
Oh, and you’ll blank that thought out of your mind because you don’t like it. But you’ll still know it.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 6:00 pmThis, again, is the astounding level of ignorance I’ve been referring to. Is it odd that we belong to a species that hits children? Only if you know less than nothing about animal behavior. I can’t think of a species of mammal that doesn’t physically punish its young.
Adults will cuff, swat, or sometimes just hold young animals down until they quit their disruptive behavior. Among herbivores that live in herds disruptive young animals are chased out by the males with teeth, hooves, and horns if they have them, until the youngster learns to behave him or herself.
The entire fact that you thought physical punishment was “species specific” is an indictment of you, FC.
Steve57 (927d18) — 3/7/2014 @ 6:08 pmFC, my cubs were more traumatized by the pain of needles going into their little body without understanding why than by getting a swat on the bottom knowing they got it because they had done “X” after mommy or daddy told them not to do “X”, and usually after mommy or daddy had given them at least one time out first to reinforce what was said.
The original claim was that there was objective research that supposedly proved the harm of “spanking”. In the info quoted above:
Painted Jaguar (a sockpuppet) (f9371b) — 3/7/2014 @ 6:10 pmTwo retrospective studies by Afifi et al.(1,2) claimed to provide evidence against all disciplinary spanking, when the key survey questions used only the terms “push, grab, shove, slap, or hit,”(2) not “spank.
Pushing, grabbing, shoving, slapping, or hitting is not spanking.
So anything that tried to describe itself as a study on “spanking”, wasn’t.
Spanking is not a reflexive action because one is angry. Spanking is a direct, explained, done under self-control not anger, that communicates to a child that the action that the child did in defiance of instruction was not good, and that mommy and daddy meant it.
Anything other than that is not spanking, it is losing temper and hitting the child.
I feel a disconnect from objective reality in more than one way on this thread:
“The remarks were broadcast during the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Winter Games in Sochi, where the Ukrainian athlete carrying her national flag was given a loud cheer.”
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/10684333/Putin-mocks-the-West-and-threatens-to-turn-off-gas-supplies.html
nk (dbc370) — 3/7/2014 @ 6:10 pmAccording to the gospel of FC, human beings are the one species that’s too stooopid to learn from corporal punishment.
Steve57 (927d18) — 3/7/2014 @ 6:11 pmSeriously. Is Russians in the Crimea like Nazis in the Sudetenland, or federal troops at Little Rock Central High School?
nk (dbc370) — 3/7/2014 @ 6:19 pmFriday night lectures
Colonel Haiku (4e36de) — 3/7/2014 @ 6:22 pmfrom Sensitive Ponytail Guy
spanking his monkey
Fox the fox
Colonel Haiku (4e36de) — 3/7/2014 @ 6:32 pmRat on teh rat
He can ape the ape
He knows about that
There is one thing you can be sure of
He can’t take any more
Hey pal, don’t you monkey with the monkey
Monkey, monkey, monkey
Don’t you know he’s gonna spank the monkey
Sonuva gun… just seeing the news about this missing Malaysian to China flight… bad news. I have a friend I worked with for years who has been stationed on and off in Kuala Lumpur and he travels a great deal back and forth between there and China conducting business. Very interesting stories of his experiences in both places.
Colonel Haiku (4e36de) — 3/7/2014 @ 6:44 pmFC and Miss Tified,
I’m observing you continue to refer to “spanking” as hitting children. The connotation is clear: hitting is abusive, ugly, and is usually driven by anger and frustration.
Spanking however is not the same. The few times I was spanked, I was very aware of the transgression I committed. My parents spent time discussing the bad choices I had made. I was not traumatized or scarred for life. I was, however, aware that there were consequences (and not pleasant ones) for decisions I made and it made me more cognizant of choices as I matured.
The few times I spanked my own children, it was controlled and without anger or frustration. There was discussion and an imparting to the child involved that self-restraint and responsibility were the goals. It wasn’t a horrible, awful thing. It was meaningful and a parent assuming their responsibility. If you asked my three kids how spanking impacted them, two would just laugh because they would consider it ridiculous to ask, and one would tell you they should have been spanked more.
When Miss Tified relates how her son understands and accepts “ouchie” when referring to a hot stove and steering clear, she perhaps has not had an iron-willed little guy who pushed the envelope with every instruction and would have received an ouchie warning as a personal challenge and throwing down of the gauntlet.
The point is, all children are different and all children respond differently to various methods of discipline. Unless one has more than one child, one may not know this. I find such judgements foolish and ignorant.
Hitting is one thing. Spanking is something entirely different.
Dana (9a8f57) — 3/7/2014 @ 6:57 pmUPDATE x2: Thanks very much to Instapundit for the link. What a nice surprise.
Patterico (9c670f) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:06 pmmy irony meter just exploded…
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:12 pmmeanwhile, it a totally unexpected development…
the ChiComs support the Soviets.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-07/china-sides-russia-sanctions-ambassador-warns-western-nations-would-be-hurting-thems
it’s like deja vu, all over again. 😎
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:16 pmIf recall correctly Misstified first arrived here on another thread when a discussion about about S&M bondage “protocol” was featured. I’m guessing the word “spanking” may be the key word that brought him/her back, today and not because it has to do with a parent giving a kid a minor swat to make a point.
elissa (271642) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:17 pmi’m left wondering which member of our troll nation misstified is…
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:19 pmBut I know I’m on the side of history here
Christoph and Obama speak the same nonsense. Plus, circumcision. And conservatives heart child abuse. And misstifed’s fetishism of spanking. And circumcision
#smegma
JD (25d342) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:27 pmelissa,
Ugh.
Dana (9a8f57) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:33 pmYeah, I can see how Miss Tified might view spanking as incest.
nk (dbc370) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:34 pmWe should play 6 Degrees Of Circumcision with Cristoph
JD (25d342) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:38 pmI recall listening to an officer of Marines giving a lecture on leadership. How everything he learned about leadership, he learned from training his dogs. FC not withstanding, this is a valid POV. You don’t get the best out of your dogs by beating them.
This does not mean you do NOT physically chastise them. You just use the minimal force required. Some dogs are more bull headed than others. You don’t want to get to the point where it takes a two by four to get their attention. I don’t think I’ve ever used more than two fingers to give them a tap.
I can tell you this. I’ve been around abused rescue dogs. If I raise my hand they’ll cringe, thinking I’m going to hit them. I’ve got to be careful about the motions I make.
My dogs? Including the current rescue dog? I raise my hand and they think I’m reaching for the box of Milk Bones on top of the Fridge. They’re right.
No truer words. But then the point is to disenfranchise parents. Not to do anything to aid the children.
Steve57 (927d18) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:47 pm#MonkeySpanker #ClubIntact #NoNotCircumspection #JustKillMeNow
Colonel Haiku (4e36de) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:48 pm#ChokeTehChickenKiev
Colonel Haiku (4e36de) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:48 pmSteve57,
Children should know that the hands that give them a swat are the same hands that hold them, love them, and provide a refuge from all that is bad in this world, for as long as they can.
What FC and Miss Tified don’t understand is the motivation behind a spanking and hitting are entirely different matters altogether. They assume they’re both anger-based and acts of aggressive domination. And that is simply not true.
Au contraire. The guiding light of all good parents: Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
Dana (9a8f57) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:56 pmI suppose my earlier post might be unclear.
When I adopt an abused rescue dog, and the dog gets to trust me, the dog knows I’m not winding up to hit him/her. Because it never happens. This can take a long time.
Steve57 (927d18) — 3/7/2014 @ 7:59 pmGood on you for your work with rescue dogs, Steve.
elissa (271642) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:01 pmIt was clear, Steve57. It just made me ponder the wondrous gift that a parents’ hands (and arms) should be to their child.
Dana (9a8f57) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:04 pmCongratulations on a well-deserved Instapundit link.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:07 pmI got it, Steve. It’s called desensitization, and Pavlov researched it with dogs. It can also be counterconditioning. If the “threat” (the raised hand) is not followed by pain then, after many repeated experiences, it loses its effectiveness as a threat — desensitization. If it’s followed by a treat or a pat, it gets a different meaning — counterconditioning.
nk (dbc370) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:09 pmThere are 4 Americans aboard the missing flight. One is an infant.
elissa (271642) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:10 pmWell hitting people if they don’t do what you want them to do is morally problematic. This is the sort of lack of reason that makes me not self-identify as a conservative anymore, despite agreeing with you on some economic things or whatnot.
FC, I had a hunch that any person who labels him or herself a “former conservative” — in the context of the 21st century (and not, say, 1930 or 1955) — must be, in reality, fairly damn liberal.
Between your associating over-the-top discipline with conservatism and then your also wringing your hands about corporal punishment in light of modern-day youth being more nihilistic, brazen and anti-conformist than ever before says a lot about the gut biases that influence your way of thinking.
I know research on identical twins several years ago concluded that ideological predisposition may be encoded in or innate to a human’s mind, meaning that a person will lean left or right regardless of the facts, figures and circumstances all around him.
I don’t say the following accusatorily or sardonically, but whether “former” truly applies to you or not, you overall do seem to be innately liberal. As for the following comment, yea, it’s not positive towards people who lean left: I don’t have much confidence in the way they scrutinize or understand human nature, of themselves and others.
Mark (2908bc) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:26 pmI never do enough. I only take on one at a time. My little bro has four I think. And my restaurant’s manager and one of my customers is always temporarily adopting these dogs and trying to get me to take more on.
All I know is, when they get out of the yard they’ll chase me if I run away from them. They think it’s a game of chase. I guess that means they like me.
Steve57 (927d18) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:45 pmtragic, and so sudden, we’ll find eventually what the cause is, meanwhile ‘Billy Madison’ has jumped the Megalodon,
narciso (3fec35) — 3/7/2014 @ 8:46 pmIt is my considered opinion that Christoph is just a dumbsh*t.
Pseudointellectuals at least drag in an abstract or an authority to back up their BS.
He has nothing.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/7/2014 @ 9:20 pmDana and MD know their parenting. That’s for sure.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/7/2014 @ 9:32 pmIt does put some things into perspective;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/condoleezza-rice-will-america-heed-the-wake-up-call-of-ukraine/2014/03/07/cf087f74-a630-11e3-84d4-e59b1709222c_story.html
narciso (3fec35) — 3/7/2014 @ 9:33 pmtrolls seem to gather everywhere;
http://spectator.org/articles/58028/hillary-and-cult-best-and-brightest
narciso (3fec35) — 3/7/2014 @ 9:49 pmthe good news is, our SCOAMF still got to take his vacation in Florida…
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/03/as-russian-rocket-troops-position-near-ukrainian-border-obama-vacays-in-key-largo/
too bad we can get him to spend a night or two in a Holiday Inn… 😎
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 3/7/2014 @ 9:56 pmMark, I don’t know how you can possibly be this delusional, and I actually don’t mean that to be offensive as I recognize you were being polite in this last comment.
In this thread, and in many others, I’d advocated foreign policy in the paleocon mode. I’ve pointed out problems with libertarianism, which is what I’m closest to. I’ve talked about the naturalness of ethnic nationalism. I support lower taxes, individual responsibility, and so on.
I’ve taken dozens of these political tests that come up online or whatnot, and in each and every one, bar none, I’ve always been placed in the center-right libertarian position.
I’ve been punched while campaigning for a Conservative Party of Canada candidate by a leftist building manager. I’ve been a party member. I once walked into a Liberal Party candidate’s office, who I had previously been on pleasant terms with as he had a campaign office once where my then company’s office was located, and expressed my outrage at his party, interrupting his meeting and prompting one of their members to lay hands on me, which I very very quickly dissuaded him from, because of his party’s awful ads alleging that the CPC intended to start a military dictatorship in Canada.
Those ads were so damaging politically to his party that there’s a good chance the meeting I was interrupting was to address that.
During the run-up to the Iraq war, I went to a peace demonstration where there were several thousand of them and one of me shouting at each other.
I routinely debate leftists and feminists, in often very stark terms, including tonight. I chide anarchists and some libertarians for their oft lack of foreign policy realism.
I suggest you read Pat Buchanan, Michelle Malkin, and Peter Brimelow, FFS. I was a huge fan of Rush Limbaugh for years, still listen to him on occasion, as well as a fan of Mark Steyn, Ezra Levant, Pat Condell, Aya’an Hirsi Ali, Wafa Sultan, Geert Wilders, and many others. I occasionally correspond with UK Independence Party members. I post regularly on WattsUpWithThat and other sites questioning the politicization of science, and was recently banned from commenting on one of Richard Dawkins forums for one-to-many times posting hard-hitting critiques of his inane climate-science memes, when he knows very little about it.
However, I don’t believe in hitting kids or turning society into a gulag because of people using plants. Also, I’m not religious, as neither is our host.
This doesn’t make me a liberal, however you try to torture definitions. If I was a liberal, that would be news to them on a great many subjects where I take them on relentlessly.
As I’ve pointed out to you and others repeatedly on this thread, there is a growing libertarian opposition to hitting children based on human rights concerns.
Just defining everything you don’t like as leftist doesn’t make it so. Think.
P.S. My views on corporal punishment will be mainstream in the not too distant future, and will be embraced or at least nominally embraced by rightish parties also. I’m ahead of the curve. This isn’t the first time someone has been called a leftist because they were out in front of a moral issue society hadn’t yet caught up on.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/7/2014 @ 11:53 pmOh, and for the last several election cycles I was called a Democrat for not buying into wild-eyed optimism about the GOP’s election chances. The fact that I put a lot of effort into advocating for the ideas of the GOP, most of them anyway, as well as other conservative movements around the world and in my country, and that my predictions were still overly optimistic, didn’t matter to those geniuses, some of whom are here.
Because I hadn’t bought into to most extreme fantasies of partisans, I had to be the enemy.
Several election cycles of this eventually led me to question the reasoning prowess of conservatives, to be frank. Especially when people like Nate Silver and Kos were far more in touch with actual numerical reality.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/8/2014 @ 12:06 amI still remember when Ace and Allahpundit and halfway reasonable people were constantly attacked by partisan dreamers also. I defended their analyses, which added to me being bad. Yet they were overoptimistic in each case, as was I.
In their defense, they probably were and later claimed to be pumping things up a bit to maintain morale and/or try to retain some readers.
One theme I’m noticing about these GOP folks who weren’t in la la land on the numbers, is that they are not religious. That may prove offensive to you, but I think their realism in that area coupled with their attempts to be realistic on such things as foreign policy and the economy, all came together in a package that helped them be less delusional about election chances.
Someone said something on twitter earlier tonight. It was brilliant. I’ll find it, and cite it. It will offend people, but that’s because it caries more than a grain of truth in it. There. This’s a good one:
It is some combination of irksome and amusing, but over time increasingly amusing, to be roundly criticized by people going on years now who were far more wrong about events than I was, over and over again.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/8/2014 @ 12:17 amChristoph, we have die hard Republicans here who will launch racist tirades if you aren’t supportive enough of the GOP, but when you go into detail about what policies they support, it’s socialism like Romneycare, straight up.
They will freak if you suggest they aren’t conservative, while at the same time saying we shouldn’t be so picky about ideology (hence they seem to know they aren’t quite conservative). No disrespect to Mark, but I have noticed he’s got a bit of that.
Personally, I don’t see why anyone should care what their politics rate on some scale, or what anyone else’s does. That’s a trick meant to polarize and rally support like cattle for the cause of some politician.
There’s no shame in having different politics from someone else. I think there is some shame in being dishonest about it, which is quite a common problem for partisans in particular as they try to corral people into tents. Cooperation is good, but being used is not, and conservatives can look at the GOP’s results and determine if they’ve been used (obviously they have).
Dustin (f5d273) — 3/8/2014 @ 12:21 amReasonable comment, Dustin.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/8/2014 @ 12:23 amif you support abortion, you can’t possibly object to spanking a child.
if you do, you’re a hypocrite.
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 3/8/2014 @ 12:33 amWell, that’s an interesting point you raise, and quite a good one really.
But it isn’t entirely so, and I’ll explain why.
To start with, I used to be radically pro-life. Like it was my defining moral issue for years, and women would have to answer this question correctly if I was to date them, for example. On this site, there will be several threads where I passionately, and very aggressively, defended the pro-life position and attacked its opposite. Using very strong language.
However, at some point I became persuaded by the views of Sam Harris that it isn’t life which is pre-eminently important, but subjective experience. This change in philosophy changed my views in several areas, one of which was abortion and another of which was right to die (I was aghast during the Terry Schiavo case, and was extremely supportive of Jeb Bush’s efforts).
But I went through a painful period of my life. During this time, based partly on experience, I concluded that the quality of one’s experience matters more than the quantity.
I now think that because life is often very hard especially if one is not wanted by one’s parents, an early-term abortion can be a better outcome compared to being raised unwanted. In any case, the nervous system is not fully developed and it is (hopefully—I’m not sure about this for various reasons to do with fundamental physics, actually) not painful or less painful for a child.
I am still strongly opposed to late term abortion. Everything I’ve studied about neonatal development leads me to believe newborns are exquisitely sensitive to pain, one of the reasons I oppose circumcision. Logically, it makes little sense that that sensitivity would start just at the moment of birth, although I’ve heard some try to argue for it.
But studies show severe stress responses in utero, so I think that is wrong. I believe later-term fetuses are very sensitive to pain and it is brutal to terminate them. So I oppose that, and often say so, out loud, under my own name.
This is probably about the only site on the net where I still publish under a pseudonym, and the reasons are a little complex and now mainly historical. The biggest remaining reason is I like this nickname.
I am extremely sympathetic to principled arguments against all abortion and, if one believes that the uniting of male and female DNA is of prime importance instead of development of the nervous system, then the rational time to oppose abortion is at conception.
But here is one thing for you to hopefully consider seriously. I do not rigidly dismiss that position (which I used to hold for most of my life, after all) and launch into ad hominem attacks on people for holding them.
And yet virtually everyone here has dismissed that their can be a principled argument against spanking or male genital mutilation. Not just emotionally and morally, but also intellectually I find that very disappointing.
DRJ is one of those who I don’t think dismissed the possibility in a knee-jerk fashion, so it’s not universal, but it is way too common.
About two years ago I was trying to explain what I believe is the main reason why people come to different conclusions on the abortion issue. I would have hoped that, intellectually at least, that would have prompted some interest, but most people just want to entrench instead of understand. Even if you hope to defeat another’s argument, it would seem to me understanding ought to be something you’d want.
I respect people who hold a principled pro-life position, and far more than I do those who hold an unrestricted abortion position.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/8/2014 @ 12:52 amIn other news, FC serves up a meaningless word salad.
Film at 11:00pm.
Steve57 (927d18) — 3/8/2014 @ 12:57 am255. Prohibition of corporal punishment is already mainstream, abortion is mainstream, its infanticide and geronticide that are on the cusp of acceptance by the death cult.
In Norway Breivik got two weeks incarceration per victim. Honor killing in Britain is essentially decriminalized.
You are a loon.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/8/2014 @ 1:02 amYou are intellectually dishonest, gary, and not the first time I’ve noticed this:
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/8/2014 @ 1:06 am259. And you, cupcake, are intellectually defective.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/8/2014 @ 1:08 amwhen might we expect to see that post?
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 3/8/2014 @ 1:13 amfrom the love taps, i’m guessing #258 is actually about #256?
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 3/8/2014 @ 1:14 am256. I was expanding on your thought, you don’t expect me to actually read semantic diarrhea?
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/8/2014 @ 1:18 amMy position in both cases is based on avoiding inflicting unnecessary pain on an innocent party.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/8/2014 @ 1:19 am#263: it’s Lent for some people, so anything is possible… 😎
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 3/8/2014 @ 1:39 am#264: leaving you, naturally, as the ultimate arbiter of what is “unnecessary” and “innocent”…
unexpectedly, of course.
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 3/8/2014 @ 1:41 amWell, I’d say children are “innocent” and to the degree that they are not, they almost never do anything worse than hitting someone one sixth their size.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/8/2014 @ 1:43 amSome of this, at least, is libertarian vs. conservative.
I am, to say the least, not a fan of Alex Jones … although it looks like he was a lot closer to the truth on the overreach of state power and the surveillance state than I.
Nonetheless, his guest here — who I disagree with outspokingly on a few issues (including defense: I’m generally with Patterico there) — makes a great speech that you will probably get quite a kick out of from 2:30 to 8:30 and possibly beyond. I’ve just started watching.
Patterico, I think, would get a kick out of these six minutes based on a lot of the things I’ve heard him say here of late.
Now, if you (not speaking to Patterico, just in general) listen beyond the six minutes and don’t agree with everything, fine. Just don’t go to the simplistic extreme of, “I don’t agree with everything that person says, ergo, he’s a commie.” You deserve better quality thinking than that!
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/8/2014 @ 2:41 amActually, listen to at least 15:15! As it happens, he addresses the topic of the headline of this post almost word for word.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/8/2014 @ 2:51 amAnd if you stay until 24 minutes, you’ll learn a hell of a lot.
In fact, watch the whole thing. I’m sure it’s more than thought-stimulating.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/8/2014 @ 3:01 amChina, whom Toy Pony would emulate, under performs:
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/8/2014 @ 3:07 amComing to Amerikkka, especially its urban paradisos:
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2014/03/photo-another-success-story-for.html
The rainy season in Cali is about done, resume a decade-long drought. Add to that the lose of a dozen or more degree days in Canada and scorched Earth in the Ukraine and your grocery bills will abound.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/8/2014 @ 3:15 amR.I.P. Sheila MacRae
mg (31009b) — 3/8/2014 @ 3:24 amShe played Alice Kramden in the Honeymooners.
I miss that show.
Sheila MacRae, not that I knew her name, was great in that role. I always found her very attractive too, both in looks and in her simultaneously standing up to and loving her husband.
R.I.P. indeed.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/8/2014 @ 3:31 amPremium is up over $4 again in Central MN, where men with good jobs commute to Bismark.
I don’t need to remind people where we are in the business cycle when that happens, now do I?
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/8/2014 @ 3:31 amThat discussion continues really great and segues into the sudden libertarian trend of Hollywood productions. I recommend everyone watching, but especially Patterico, who, as I said, we’ll probably get a kick out of it—at least those parts he agrees with, which will be legion.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/8/2014 @ 3:57 am*will
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/8/2014 @ 3:57 amWell he did promise to repeal the business cycle, and like magic, gary.
narciso (3fec35) — 3/8/2014 @ 4:46 am278. Sorry, I missed that, pretty sure I would have wrung an alarm or something comparably futile.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/8/2014 @ 7:35 am“racist tirade” in 1..2..3..
Colonel Haiku (4e36de) — 3/8/2014 @ 7:55 amHey, Haiku. You’re tagged as the racist this week. Why have you left me doing your job for you? You could, at least, do the sexism. The homophobia? Ageism? How about ableism?
nk (dbc370) — 3/8/2014 @ 8:08 amSo help me, I thought I was making “ableism” up. No, it already exists. I’m afraid to look up PCism.
nk (dbc370) — 3/8/2014 @ 8:10 amhttp://www.tysknews.com/Depts/pcism/pcism.htm
I think I’m going to go back to my mountainside, evict that family of badgers from its cave, and live there, on honey and locusts (or acorn bread and olives), without ever speaking another word.
nk (dbc370) — 3/8/2014 @ 8:14 amYep, I noticed Dustin going ageist with feets re: “that POS Meghan’s cowardly daddy”. I figure he’ll continue spinning up until he comes undone. Here’s something that may lead somewhere… http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2575837/IRS-caves-Lois-Lerner-documents-provide-Congress-ALL-emails-tea-party-targeting-scheme-began.html
Colonel Haiku (4e36de) — 3/8/2014 @ 8:16 amTeh Twelfth Mahdi can’t come soon enough!!!!!!!!!
Colonel Haiku (4e36de) — 3/8/2014 @ 8:19 amThere were two passengers on the “lost” flight who boarded with stolen European passports that had been reported by their owners some time ago. They are very much alive and were shocked to see their names on the published manifest. How in hell do stolen passport names and numbers not show up on checklists for international flights in these dangerous times? This is starting to look very terroristy. Is that a word?
elissa (e7d53c) — 3/8/2014 @ 8:22 am“Prawn of Arab loins”… I kinda liked it… has a nice ring to it.
Prawnism!! Prawnist!!!! Loinism?
Colonel Haiku (4e36de) — 3/8/2014 @ 8:22 amIsm ism… all we are sayin’… is give prawns a chance!
Colonel Haiku (4e36de) — 3/8/2014 @ 8:27 amComment by elissa (e7d53c) — 3/8/2014 @ 8:22 am
That is definitely suspicious, but i would have thought maybe some group would have claimed responsibility. Or maybe they have but it hasn’t been reported.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 3/8/2014 @ 8:40 amIs it clear that they had reported their passports as stolen?
Yes, MD. Austrian and Italian authorities confirm. Drudge, Cnn both have stories up.
elissa (e7d53c) — 3/8/2014 @ 8:43 amI’ve taken dozens of these political tests that come up online or whatnot, and in each and every one, bar none, I’ve always been placed in the center-right libertarian position.
FC, I’d be curious to see the questions on those tests and how I’d score. But my sense is that if it rates any respondent in a way that the word “center” is triggered — in light of the center having drifted to the left over the past 50-plus years — means he or she probably has no shortage of squish, meaning no shortage of left-leaning emotions in the 21st century.
BTW, even the word “squish” depends upon circumstances. If a person is a squish in the setting of, say, America in 1955, he leans just a bit left on occasion. If a person is a squish in the context of San Francisco or Detroit in 2014, he leans just a bit right on occasion. If a person is a squish in the setting of the USA in 2014, he, as far as I’m concerned, is fairly liberal.
If your reaction to the matter of spanking is based on personal experience (eg, if your own parent was abusive—which has nothing to do with proper discipline), that’s one thing. But to equate normative discipline of a child by the parent as somehow a domain of the rightwing — and therefore so heartless!, so unkind!, so non-compassionate! — is a major reason why I concluded you have no shortage of I’m-okay-you’re-okay, kum-ba-yah reactions. That’s even truer in the context of 2014 compared with the context of 1950 or 1920, or 1885.
Generally speaking, for a person to feel alienated by conservatism (and conservatives) in today’s era means to me that he or she automatically is attached to quite a lot of liberal bias.
Mark (2908bc) — 3/8/2014 @ 8:45 amSo… so far, only thing they’ve found is an oil slick?
Colonel Haiku (4e36de) — 3/8/2014 @ 8:45 amI wake up feeling blessed. I slept right thru my alarm this morning and my wife – the prawn of such sturdy stock that she is – got up and ventured out to milk teh chickens.
What a marvelous woman!
Colonel Haiku (4e36de) — 3/8/2014 @ 8:49 amWell, I like Dustin, too. And Persians. I even have Muslim relatives these days. So let’s put that behind us if we can, or at least aside.
nk (dbc370) — 3/8/2014 @ 8:49 amAnd I love prawns! Loins, too,,,,
Colonel Haiku (4e36de) — 3/8/2014 @ 8:50 amand Rand Paul rocked teh CPAC!!!
Colonel Haiku (4e36de) — 3/8/2014 @ 8:52 amhttp://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/03/oops-pro-russian-donetsk-separatist-leader-discovered-to-be-nazi/
narciso (3fec35) — 3/8/2014 @ 8:55 amThey will freak if you suggest they aren’t conservative, while at the same time saying we shouldn’t be so picky about ideology (hence they seem to know they aren’t quite conservative). No disrespect to Mark, but I have noticed he’s got a bit of that.
Dustin, you’re either putting words into my mouth or misinterpreting what I’ve said previously about the issue of ideology—but political biases and preferences in the context of the world of elections and ballots. I’ve said that a person who focuses on political philosophy without also taking into consideration good tactics — which goes beyond the purely ideological — is the height of naivete or wishful thinking.
I’m further right than most people are in an increasingly purple or blue America (eg, right-leaning people like Patterico don’t mind same-sex marriage, while I think SSM is the canary in the coal mine, a harbinger of the excessive corrosion of our culture), but my scrutiny of attitudes and trends out there forces me to realize just how crucial good tactics are in this socially, economically exhausted moment in history.
Mark (2908bc) — 3/8/2014 @ 9:00 amRampant misinterpretations and mischaracterizations.
Colonel Haiku (4e36de) — 3/8/2014 @ 9:02 amThis airliner disappearance… either they had a total loss of ability to communicate… or what? if it was a bomb or other explosion, there’d be scattered debris, right? Really weird.
Colonel Haiku (4e36de) — 3/8/2014 @ 9:06 amand it’s day 303 of teh IRS Abuse Scandal…
Colonel Haiku (4e36de) — 3/8/2014 @ 9:08 amMark, if you really want to examine weird psychology (and I mean really, really weird) look at narciso’s link above and think about people whom Hitler called subhumans, enslaved, and murdered to the number of 25 million, being Nazis in this day and age.
nk (dbc370) — 3/8/2014 @ 9:09 amthe politics of the Ukraine, have always been complex going back to the era of Petlura and the Oun, the Right Sector has some disturbing affinities there, however Volodya’s antifascist credentials have been found wanting,
narciso (3fec35) — 3/8/2014 @ 9:13 amI dunno, with changing demographics, if our efforts are for naught, maybe all we can do is do best for our families and let the numb-above-the-shoulders mooks learn the hard way.
Colonel Haiku (4e36de) — 3/8/2014 @ 9:34 am283. Have a care where you set up your midden.
I’m around back under a rock with dust on my head scratching my sores.
The badgers kicked my azz.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/8/2014 @ 9:36 amnk, thanks for pointing that out. Unless a link has a really catchy title or hints at something I’d find very interesting, I admit to being lazy about clicking on it.
The nature of Russia and Ukraine in 2014 is ideologically, economically wildly divergent, with odd bedfellows existing all over the place. For instance, Vladimir Putin in some ways is more of a traditional Western-World conservative than is Barack “goddamn America” Obama. Then again, Russia’s president and his loyalists also have far too much in common with the totalitarian Communists of the past, of the USSR.
The controversy of Russia/Ukraine is philosophically, politically murky compared with, for example, the industrialized world versus the societies of Sharia-ized Islam. So for Obama and the EU to be getting in a tizzy over Russia in 2014 to me is reminiscent of the ambiguous (or huh?!) dynamics of what triggered Word War I.
As for all the people of the left in the US and EU who happily opposed the US in Iraq, if they, by comparison and ironically, are far too complacent about drum beats of military action directed at Russia (or Syria, or Bosnia and Serbia, etc) that’s another instance when the corrupting influence of liberal sentiment will be on full display.
Mark (2908bc) — 3/8/2014 @ 9:36 amSomebody once explained the Eastern European vampire legends (yes, vampire like in Dracula), as a metaphor for the treacheries and internecine predations that characterize that part of the world.
nk (dbc370) — 3/8/2014 @ 9:37 amVlad teh Impaler!
Colonel Haiku (4e36de) — 3/8/2014 @ 9:40 amVlad teh Exsanguinater???
Colonel Haiku (4e36de) — 3/8/2014 @ 9:43 amWell that’s entirely possible, the Russian variants were called Voordalak (sic), Tepes, was not unique among the war lords of the region,
narciso (3fec35) — 3/8/2014 @ 10:03 amWall of text alert!
@ FC,
I’m gong to take the time to unpack this because it’s troubling that you clearly did not read all the comments here, yet assumed they were all (with one exception) “knee-jerk” reactions. I took the time to think about your positions and thoughtfully respond with (IMO) salient points, which I don’t see any response to. Also, as elissa delightfully announced night before last, I will not be ignored, especially as I’m being lumped in with others who have reacted differently. We were discussing circumcision and spanking, and now you’ve added abortion to the mix (which I won’t argue through but simply point out a few inconsistencies).
But I went through a painful period of my life. During this time, based partly on experience, I concluded that the quality of one’s experience matters more than the quantity.
This is certainly a subjective view of life and I don’t know that I agree – some of the hardest parts of my life, the parts that were unbearable and drove me to despair, in retrospect became the deepest and most life-changing and meaningful. Would I have said they were quality living while going through them? Absolutely not! Instead, I cried out that this was no way to live. For a long time. But it was life, and it was a long stretch of life. So quality can be difficult to define and sometimes it takes a quantity of life to pass by before one begins to learn and understand the definition of quality. It’s not always what you think it is.
I now think that because life is often very hard especially if one is not wanted by one’s parents, an early-term abortion can be a better outcome compared to being raised unwanted.
So because life is hard, a baby should not be allowed to exist and live and be able to have the opportunity to struggle through and find their own place in this world? You don’t know that they wouldn’t be put up for adoption and know the most wonderful life out there. What right do you have to take away that opportunity? What right do you have to play God in their lives?
In any case, the nervous system is not fully developed and it is (hopefully—I’m not sure about this for various reasons to do with fundamental physics, actually) not painful or less painful for a child.
Do you see the inconsistency and hypocrisy in hoping they don’t suffer too much pain when putting them down yet referring to them as a “child”? You are acknowledging they are a living-breathing- child and in the same breath, hoping their murdering doesn’t hurt too much. Not a blob of blood and tissue, but a “child”.
I am still strongly opposed to late term abortion. Everything I’ve studied about neonatal development leads me to believe newborns are exquisitely sensitive to pain, one of the reasons I oppose circumcision. Logically, it makes little sense that that sensitivity would start just at the moment of birth, although I’ve heard some try to argue for it.
I am glad to see you are still against the barbaric practice of late-term aborts., however, it is good to be bear in mind that circumcision is *not* taking the life of a newborn. It is not putting one to death. With that, in retrospect, after having heard my husband’s first-hand take of being with my baby sons during their circumcisions, I don’t know that we would choose to have that done again. It is brutal.
And yet virtually everyone here has dismissed that their can be a principled argument against spanking or male genital mutilation. Not just emotionally and morally, but also intellectually I find that very disappointing.
DRJ is one of those who I don’t think dismissed the possibility in a knee-jerk fashion, so it’s not universal, but it is way too common.
Please see my comments at 125, 222, 235. I don’t see how these are “knee-jerk” reactions, and frankly, believe that painting with a broad brush weakens your positions and is also what you may use to justify your views.
Dana (9a8f57) — 3/8/2014 @ 10:06 amRepublican Precepts of Tactical Enemy Engagement
Precept One: Stifle involuntary screams on the chance one has glimpsed one’s shadow that one’s presence not be revealed.
Hide in spider holes as a last resort, rabbit warrens with a remote exit are preferred.
On nightfall, withdraw.
There are no more precepts.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/8/2014 @ 10:09 amIf FC will not hear the truth, who can tell it to him?
felipe (6100bc) — 3/8/2014 @ 10:19 amWe called them vrykolakes (from vrkolak) where I’m from. We have a lot of Slavic place and people names for various reasons.
nk (dbc370) — 3/8/2014 @ 10:19 amI am off to view the latest 300 movie. Not in 3D, I’m old -been there, done that.
felipe (6100bc) — 3/8/2014 @ 10:24 amAnd yet virtually everyone here has dismissed that their can be a principled argument against spanking or male genital mutilation. Not just emotionally and morally, but also intellectually I find that very disappointing.
Maybe I did not force myself to read slowly enough. I didn’t realize I was in a principled argument, I thought I was being called an irrational deistic barbarian who would be left behind in the dust of history as I did not bow to the obvious and overwhelming truth concluded from faultily designed studies.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 3/8/2014 @ 10:25 amWhile I slept the world changed.
I forgot! I’m an anarchist. Duh.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/8/2014 @ 10:27 amI am glad to have stuck around just a bit longer. You are a treasure, Doc! A balm.
felipe (6100bc) — 3/8/2014 @ 10:28 amPutin, the racist homophobe, spanked Obama and then handed Obama his ass. Luckily Obama will have a caddy to help carry his ass around the golf course… Michelle put his nuts in lockdown out in South Africa or Putin would have taken those too.
In the big scheme of global affairs, who cares if: Argentina takes the Falklands
steveg (794291) — 3/8/2014 @ 10:34 amVenezuela takes Guyana
Guatemala takes Belize
China takes Taiwan
China takes all the disputed islands (Japan, Vietnam)
India grabs another big piece of Pakistan
The Serbs take territory from Bosnia
The US takes Cuba and Baja California
Mexico takes Southern California
Israel takes the Sinai and evicts the Palestinians
Israel annxes Lebanon
Italy takes all the islands in the Mediterranean
Who cares!
It’s all good
Everyone out there is nation state land carry on as you feel… if you feel it should be yours, by all means take it
Believe me, the fact Christoph calls himself one has no bearing whatever on my opinion of Libertarians.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/03/07/Rand-Paul-Does-American-Crossroads-Robocall-To-Thwart-Libertarian-Candidate
OTOH, there are points of contact in my views of the respectives.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/8/2014 @ 10:38 amStories like the following definitely do affect my politics and certainly make me even more contemptuous of the dishonesty and idiocy of left-leaning sentiments in the 21st century. That’s why for someone like FC to be wringing his hands over a parent spanking his/her child (and not whipping — or what would come perilously close to sadism — but appropriate spanking) in the context of 2014 is sort of like a person decades ago complaining about the need for civil rights, around the time when, for example, Harry Truman (a truly racist, bigoted person behind closed doors) was occupying the White House. A time when even an exemplary member of society (eg, a high-school valedictorian, graduate of an Ivy League, charitable with his time and money, always helping old ladies cross the street, etc) would nonetheless be ostracized for racial/ethnic/religious non-conformity.
Mark (2908bc) — 3/8/2014 @ 10:39 amComment by elissa (e7d53c) — 3/8/2014 @ 8:43 am
Thanks for the F/U.
Yes, of all of the things to check for on international flights, I would think stolen passports would be very high on the list.
Of course, maybe they were but there were accomplices.
I imagine if some group claims responsibility to the Chinese government or elsewhere and they don’t make it public, I imagine it will show up in a You Tube video or something.
Of course, if the video is in the Uyghur language or such, it may take a while for it to get noticed.
thanks felipe, it’s a team effort, and I do appreciate encouragement.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 3/8/2014 @ 10:42 amWhat if the Uyghurs take over the Bahamas?
God forbid the Uyghurs downed a planeload of Chinese…
steveg (794291) — 3/8/2014 @ 10:46 amHere is another “who cares”
Who cares if the Chinese eradicate the Uyghurs?
Woo Hoo! Like winning the lottery.
http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2014/03/06/A-Second-Palestinian-Civil-War
I like the team that wear’s ninja outfits and dives thru flaming hoops.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/8/2014 @ 11:00 amAnyway, the problem isn’t so much the takeover of others territories like Crimea as it is the inevitable ethnic cleansing or reduction to second class status of the minority Ukrainians.
steveg (794291) — 3/8/2014 @ 11:04 amOn a side note, it was great to see how the US Mens soccer team graciously lost 2-0 to the Ukraine by failing to play anything that resembled defense
Sort of unrelated, but maybe not.
My uncles were Italian. In fact, my father was Italian.
And they fought against the same bastards your uncles did. With gusto. I still bow my head when I pass by Basilone Road when I drive by Camp Pendleton.
Me and Manila John, my Paisan.
The thought occurs to me. Sometimes scholars will say we won WWII because our Germans were better then their Germans. They’ll cite men like Nimitz in the Pacific or Eisenhower in Europe.
But it strikes me our Italians were better, too. Like me and Manila John. Our Japanese, too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/442nd_Infantry_Regiment_%28United_States%29
Being an American should be a privilege that is worth fighting for.
What the hell happened?
Steve57 (927d18) — 3/8/2014 @ 12:04 pmit’s only soccer, so no one cares.
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 3/8/2014 @ 12:11 pmAlright, you’re just marking yourself as someone who is taking pride in being hidebound, even though you’re not really. But you think you ought to be.
You had me pegged totally wrong, your analysis was way out of line including with the available evidence you had to work with, and your failure of reason is not a major problem I need to correct.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/8/2014 @ 12:23 pmRead for comprehension, please, Dana.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/8/2014 @ 12:25 pmLook to thyself, FC… much, much work to be done.
Colonel Haiku (2603b5) — 3/8/2014 @ 12:26 pmYou learned that from me. And now you’re using it wrong.
Steve57 (927d18) — 3/8/2014 @ 12:27 pmMaybe someday this will prove to be true, but not in retrospect:
http://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2014/03/08/russias-already-lost-the-war/
narciso (3fec35) — 3/8/2014 @ 12:27 pmBTW… teh Spanking Cruise offer is still on teh table.
Colonel Haiku (2603b5) — 3/8/2014 @ 12:27 pmBy the way, I appreciate you taking the time, and I’ll give your comment some thought as you made salient points, but I also said, “it’s not universal…” I’m just pointing out that you started it with a false premise.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/8/2014 @ 12:28 pmDana, the substantive part of your comment starts off with something important and interesting I’d like to reply to, and I’m sure there’s more there. I’ve got to get some things done and you deserve more than a cursory reply, so I’ll get back to you a little later today.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/8/2014 @ 12:37 pmStill that beating heart, Dana!
Colonel Haiku (2603b5) — 3/8/2014 @ 12:39 pm#317… “A Washington Post-ABC News poll released on Thursday found that “three in 10 of all Republicans say they would not vote for” Christie in 2016. Among voters who described themselves as “conservative,” 35% said they would not vote for Christie.”
I think he seriously damaged his brand with his performance at the Repub convention in 2012 and subsequent Sandy smooch-hugfest with Obama around the election, gg. I, too, would respond in the negative if I were polled AT THIS MOMENT, as this is a time to take the wind out of his sails.
Colonel Haiku (2603b5) — 3/8/2014 @ 12:45 pmhe’s a legend in his own mind…
perforce a small legend, but a legend none the less. just ask him. 😎
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 3/8/2014 @ 12:45 pm#337: i’ll vote for the Jersey Whale on the 12th of Never, and not a day sooner.
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 3/8/2014 @ 12:46 pmHe does seem to think his revered reputation precedes him, red.
Colonel Haiku (2603b5) — 3/8/2014 @ 12:47 pmOne Quarter Ton Freeze Out… One Quarter Ton Freeze Out…
Colonel Haiku (2603b5) — 3/8/2014 @ 12:49 pmComment by Steve57 (927d18) — 3/8/2014 @ 12:04 pm
I once somehow stumbled onto a website of MOH winners and read about some of those guys…
makes me feel so small thinking about it
There must have been angels protecting some of those people to do what they did,
even if they then went to their rewards early.
While we’re at it, I heard something encouraging. Angelina Jolie personally knows Louie Zamperini (“Unbroken”) and has been very committed to tell the story well and true to form.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 3/8/2014 @ 1:05 pm@ FC,
Your full comment was,
When I read “virtually everyone here”, I interpret that to mean in essence or effect, that everyone… When you mention one reader who didn’t react knee-jerk as ‘one of those’, I think it’s reasonable to further assume that you in essence, mean just one reader; universal referring to the right at large, not simply here on the thread.
So, no, I don’t believe I started it with a false premise. I believe it a reasonable one.
Dana (9a8f57) — 3/8/2014 @ 1:09 pmRead for comprehension, please, Dana.
Since we’re playing a little game of Quibbling here: When someone makes a passive-aggressive statement like the one above, I am less inclined to take seriously anything they might have to say because, IMO, it’s telling if one has to resort to gimmicks, games, flippancy, or manipulation.
Dana (9a8f57) — 3/8/2014 @ 1:13 pmI am off to view the latest 300 movie. Not in 3D, I’m old -been there, done that.
Comment by felipe (6100bc) — 3/8/2014 @ 10:24 am
What… you don’t enjoy seeing a spear hurtling toward your melon!?!? You are getting old, Felipe!
Colonel Haiku (2603b5) — 3/8/2014 @ 1:28 pm344. Sorry, False Flag stole my line. Decent people poke with their own property.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/8/2014 @ 1:31 pm339. FWIW Drudge has a poll up with Paul and Cruz separated by hundredths and no one else close.
Santorum is barely off the schneid.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/8/2014 @ 1:35 pmThis is probably about the only site on the net where I still publish under a pseudonym, and the reasons are a little complex and now mainly historical. The biggest remaining reason is I like this nickname.
The biggest remaining reason is that you were banned for being an aggressive d-bag by Patterico.
JD (25d342) — 3/8/2014 @ 1:49 pmAccusing people of supporting child abuse and male genital mutilation is Cristoph’s SOP. And let’s be clear. FC is Cristoph.
JD (25d342) — 3/8/2014 @ 1:53 pmThe word for the thread “traduced” courtesy of the erudite Daniel Hannan.
It is their language after all.
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/8/2014 @ 1:57 pmand a mendoucheous twatwaffle as well…
on his good days, anyway. 😉
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 3/8/2014 @ 1:58 pmHe’s a tireless advocate against spanking, too.
Colonel Haiku (2603b5) — 3/8/2014 @ 2:01 pmi’m sure he makes an exception for monkeys though, especially when he’s reading threads he participates in.
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 3/8/2014 @ 2:16 pmSome turbulence;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10682341/Ukraine-Russia-crisis-live.html
narciso (3fec35) — 3/8/2014 @ 2:22 pmYou had me pegged totally wrong,
FC, I’d agree to that if you said tests on where you fall on the ideological spectrum indicated you were conservative, period. Plus, I’d have to see specific questions on such tests to know how they themselves judge what’s liberal, centrist or conservative. For instance, in today’s era it’s gotten to a point — or is getting to a point — where a test might say that if a person supports the government recognizing a legal partnership but not a same-sex marriage, then he or she is an ultra-conservative.
I still say that anyone who labels himself a “former” conservative in the context of 2014 must be more liberal than he’s willing to admit to. Moreover, to start leaning left as one grows older (assuming you didn’t start of as a wild-eyed ultra-ultra-rightist in your youth) is generally the opposite track that a sensible, discerning person will take during his or her lifetime.
Mark (2908bc) — 3/8/2014 @ 3:44 pmGreat job Barry, ignore or humiliate 1/6th of humanity because they’re infidels and when you’d really like them to be silent they’re not.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-08/india-backs-russias-legitimate-interests-ukraine
gary gulrud (e2cef3) — 3/8/2014 @ 7:10 pmDana, I have to deal with something and won’t be able to reply tonight after all, in all likelihood. I will reply tomorrow.
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/8/2014 @ 8:35 pmdon’t bother: we can search out your old posts and re-read them.
SSED, after all
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 3/9/2014 @ 12:50 am“America on independence: Chechnya? No. East Timor? Yes. Abkhazia? No. South Sudan? Yes. Crimea: No. Scotland? Yes. Texas: Definitely no.”
Former Conservative (6e026c) — 3/9/2014 @ 10:41 am—Michael Shermer
Yes, it’s going great, like that Broncos match some months back,
http://www.interpretermag.com/ukraine-liveblog-day-20-a-military-standoff/
narciso (3fec35) — 3/9/2014 @ 10:48 amUncontested Idiocy.
Yep, this crap works every time, just not in the way pacifist think. Disarming a population pledging to back them when things get nasty is probably the worst kind of betrayal, especially if it comes with a body count.
Amalgamated Cliff Divers, Local 157 (f7d5ba) — 3/9/2014 @ 10:53 amKeeristoff again
Colonel Haiku (70ed68) — 3/9/2014 @ 10:57 amsame bullsh*t different day
GroundHog Day once more
this is the Consensus;
http://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2014/03/09/it-seems-the-whole-logic-here-is-almost-entirely-the-product-of-one-particular-mind/
Admiral Painter would seriously disagree.
narciso (3fec35) — 3/9/2014 @ 11:01 amInterrupting the narrative is tough work;
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/mar/07/crimea-putin-vs-reality/
narciso (3fec35) — 3/9/2014 @ 7:55 pm300. Comment by Colonel Haiku (4e36de) — 3/8/2014 @ 9:06 am
This airliner disappearance… either they had a total loss of ability to communicate… or what? if it was a bomb or other explosion, there’d be scattered debris, right? Really weird.
What they didn’t find is big pieces of debris. If it was an exlosion at high altitude, there;d be scattered (and hard to find) debris.
The most similar cases are Air India 182 in 1985, Pan Am 103 in 1988 and some others.
There’s also TWA Flight 800. which was not caused by a central fuel tank explosion or a missile either.
Witn a missile anyway it wouldn’t all break apart at once and there’d be a distress signal.
The false passports have nothing to do with it.
Unasked question: on an average flight, how many people are using false passports?
Answer: Probably several, they don’t check passports against the Interpol list in Malaysia. (Why? Money might be a reason)
The false passports have to do with drug smuggling. They need western passports to get tickets.
Furthermore, there are only a limited number of scnearios where somebody connected with the destruction of the plane would be aboard the flight.
Malaysia claimed the plane turned around. his could be made up in order to hypothesize a hijacking scenario.
Sammy Finkelman (44bd3a) — 3/10/2014 @ 3:03 pmYeah, every once in a while I’m tempted to dredge up what I was trying to explain two years ago.
Until I realize it embodies everything I always hated about my in-laws.
Takes me about 6 milliseconds.
Steve57 (927d18) — 3/11/2014 @ 1:24 amThe nice thing about a Chesapeake Bay Retriever is nobody, BUT NOBODY, is getting in your boat or your truck as long as it’s got a breath in its body. Not one duck or shotgun shell is going missing on its watch.
The bad thing? Same thing. I can count on one hand how many friends nearly got their heads took off when we were camping and I casually mentioned something like “Oh, yeah, the stove’s in my truck.”
After I nearly lost two friends, I stopped mentioning it. Especially when the second one threatened to kill my dog. Which I didn’t blame him for.
Point being, I’ve had dogs that all it took was a sideways look or a harsh word. On the other hand, I’ve had dogs that required a bit more than that. But I have never beaten a dog.
If your dog likes you, you don’t ever need to. Two fingers across the nose; just a gentle tap to say, “look at me.” That and putting the dog on a table. Dogs are less confident when they’re not on the ground.
If all you accomplish is to make your dog fear you, that dog will become vicious and take it out on somebody it doesn’t fear.
That Marine was wise.
Steve57 (927d18) — 3/11/2014 @ 2:35 am