Politics

Differences between conservatives and liberals

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

If a conservative doesn’t like guns, he doesn’t buy one.
If a liberal doesn’t like guns, he feels that no one should have one.

If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn’t eat meat.
If a liberal is a vegetarian, he wants to ban all meat products for everyone.

If a conservative sees a foreign threat, he thinks about how to defeat his enemy.
A liberal wonders how to surrender gracefully and still look good.

If a conservative is homosexual, he quietly leads his life.
If a liberal is homosexual, he loudly demands legislated respect.

If a black man or Hispanic are conservative, they see themselves as independently successful.
Their liberal counterparts see themselves as victims in need of government protection.

If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.
A liberal wonders who is going to take care of him.

If a conservative doesn’t like a talk show host, he switches channels.
Liberals demand that those they don’t like be shut down.

If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn’t go to church.
A liberal non-believer wants any mention of God or religion silenced.

If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it.
A liberal demands that the rest of us pay for his.

I am not the author of the above; I found it online and am reposting it here. I grant it makes blanket statements and they are exceptions, but on the whole whether you like it or not, whether you agree with it or not, it’s rather the way things are today.

Updated: I really like this: someone added their own Libertarian slant to the above. Hear hear!

BTW, while I generally don’t delete comments, I did delete a comment and my reply to it (thought about keeping my reply, but lacking his posting my reply lost all context). I saw something in my blog stats that raised my eyebrow so I poked around t3h int34w3z a bit and this guy seems to be specifically looking for any and every (re)posting of the above and copy/pasting his reply to every forum and blog he can. Yes it’s copy/paste, I saw the same posting in numerous places. If he was willing to engage in discourse with me that’d be one thing, but it appears he’s just trolling. I can sympathize with his cause and perhaps even understand the chip on his shoulder, but won’t be party to his Google bombing. 🙂

2A incorporation

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

SCOTUS will hear if 2A applies to the states. Lots of stories online about it like here, and then background reading here.

Don’t see why it wouldn’t apply, given how just about everything else has been incorporated. It’s difficult to see how it couldn’t, but it will all come down to the details of the cases and how they are presented to the court.

But I don’t want to speculate on the outcome nor put the cart before the horse and figure what the outcome will mean. The devil will be in the details and we just have to wait.

Damn good point

/ hsoi

Tam, she makes it:

The whole “two party” thing causes problems if both parties pass the laws they think are necessary when they are in power, yet nobody ever repeals the laws that they know in what passes for their hearts are wrong.

This is how we’ll wind up in a country with both the PATRIOT Act and National Health Care. The way things are going, there’ll be a six month waiting list to get wiretapped, and you’ll only be able to be waterboarded by a government-provided doctor. Folks will be sneaking off to Mexico for gray-market torture.

Why he’s so popular

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

President Obama’s popularity in the US is declining, but it’s still pretty strong internationally.

Consider these approval ratings, as reported by the UK’s Telegraph:

The latest Pew Global Attitudes Survey of international confidence in Obama’s leadership on foreign affairs shows strikingly high approval levels for the president in many parts of the world – 94 percent in Kenya, 93 percent in Germany, 88 percent in Canada and Nigeria, 77 percent in India, 76 percent in Brazil, 71 percent in Indonesia, and 62 percent in China for example. The Pew survey of 21 countries reveals an average level of 71 percent support for President Obama, compared to just 17 percent for George W. Bush in 2008.

So if he’s so popular overseas, why isn’t he as adored in his own country?
Continue reading →

Everyone has a breaking point

/ hsoi

It’s so popular to tax the rich…. oh they’ve got all that money, they can afford it. Maybe they can afford it, but it doesn’t mean they’re any different from you or I and don’t like it.

And so, it seems the practice of milking and abusing those that have for the sake of those that haven’t earned it is coming back to bite ’em in the ass. The rich are leaving New York.

“You heard the mantra, ‘Tax the rich, tax the rich,”’ Paterson said Wednesday at a gathering of newspaper editors at an Associated Press event in Syracuse. “We’ve done that. We’ve probably lost jobs and driven people out of the state.”

[…]

[New York Lt. Gov. Richard] Ravitch said last year’s surcharge on income taxes for the next three years won’t likely meet budget expectations. He said Albany must look to politically difficult spending cuts, rather than more taxes, to meet a deepening shortfall that Paterson estimated Wednesday could reach $3 billion.

“I don’t think they have any choice,”  Ravitch said. “In my personal opinion, we’re at the outer limits of the elasticity of our tax system.”

Wow. Politically difficult spending cuts… as opposed to the really easy and popular tax increases, especially if I’m not the one being taxed, right? Always good when people aim low.

Just amazing. The implied mindset is we can keep forcefully taking what isn’t ours from some people (as long as it’s not me) so we can pay for whatever we want. And that we can just keep doing it with no consequence…. the party will never end, and if we want more, we’ll just forcefully take more.

And now, it falls apart.

And now, they may not be able to afford everything and may have to make cuts, like any responsible household would have to consider. I’ll bet most of the stuff they want to afford the government shouldn’t be dealing with anyway.

Some taxation may be necessary to pay for those Constitutionally outlined tasks, but we’ve all got a breaking point. Abuse things and eventually you lose things.

SR-22 side-effect

/ hsoi / 7 Comments

As I noted a couple days ago, Ruger just introduced a new rifle, the SR-22.

The SR-22 is simple. It’s essentially a Ruger 10/22 with the wood stock removed and black plastic stuff attached to it.

Pictures would help.

Continue reading →

How apropos

/ hsoi / 7 Comments

Linoge shares with us a couple passages from his current read.

“The woman with the earrings”. Indeed.

Oh, while at the bookstore last night, it was pretty cool to see a big display for Atlas Shrugged. A big “WHO IS JOHN GALT?” staring you down when you entered the store.