Did anyone catch that tidbit from the Dem debate last night where Joe Biden said that Giuliani was “the most unqualified candidate since George W. Bush”? To me, that’s just laughable. This is the same guy that buys into the idea of dividing Iraq up into 3 states based on religion and ethnic background.
Sure, Biden is on his sixth term as a Senator from Delaware, but does that really make him any more qualified than Giuliani?
Delaware is a state with a population of less than 800,000. Now keep in mind that Biden isn’t the Governor of Delaware, he’s just a Senator, so from what I can tell, he has no governing experience and even if he did, he’d be managing a state that has less people than the city of Jacksonville, Florida.
Now, let’s compare him to Giuliani, former mayor of New York City. Giuliani served two terms as mayor of New York City, one of the largest cities in the world with a population of 8 million. And on top of that, he had a fairly good record in doing so.
So who do you think is more qualified: a man who has represented a state of less than 800,000 or a man who has managed a city of over 8 million?
Also: gaffe #185143490: he just revealed the location of a secret bunker.
Braden's Take on the Matter 
Since when does how many people tell you “manage” tell you anything about a person’s capabilities or values. How many people did Saddam Hussein “manage”?
What qualifies a person for president or any other public service resonsibility has to be based on deeper qualities than a body count.
I am avoiding tossing the term “idiot” around.
Oh I don’t know. I guess I just like to believe in something called “managerial experience.” We’ve seen what crappy managers can do, like Gray Davis of California.
The point is that not only does Giuliani have managerial experience, he did a fairly good job considering the enormous responsibilities of running one of the biggest cities in the world.
Joe Biden has never run anything except his own career in the Senate. He represents one of the smallest states in America (based on population and geography). For him to call Giuliani “unqualified” is idiotic and stupid.
You could make the case that he’s the “foreign policy guru” of the Democratic party, but we’re talking about a guy who wants to divide Iraq into 3 separate states based on religion and ethnicity. And you think guys like this should be running OUR country?
I mean, come on Ron. I’m a man of principle and values. Does that qualify me to run this country? I hardly think so.
OH MY GOD. You are just like our moron president. You just keep going on and on and on and on and on about nothing.
I do not know whether being called an idiot BY a redneck idiot should be taken as an insult (becauss you are an idiot even relative to an idiot, because it takes one to know one) or a compliment (because they have no idea what they are talking about or just have a warped concept of what intelligence is).
Braden: “This is the same guy that buys into the idea of dividing Iraq up into 3 states based on religion and ethnic background.”
What? Nation-states based on religion or ethnic background? That is preposterous! Joe Biden truly is a fool… Good thing such a lunatic notion is never applied in the world! I am thankful that nation-states based on religion (Israel, Vatican City) or ethnicity (virtually every country in Europe, Central Asia, and the Far East) do not exist. I am thankful glorious mega-nations like Eurasia exist forcing all citizens into a multiracialist, multiethnic, utopia where various ethnicities are forced to speak a single language and accept a common nationality without their prior consent!
…HA! TOOL!
…Seriously, either you live in an alternate universe where George Orwell’s dystopia from 1984 came to pass (and massive unitary nation-states like Eurasia have replaced self-determination for nationalities) or you are a massive imbecile. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and grant that you are completely ignorant of history. Iraq is not a real country, and Iraq never was a real country. The nation state of “Iraq” is like Belgium (another nonreal country) an artifact of Anglo-French imperial diplomacy. There is no such thing as an “Iraqi” because while there are citizens of Iraq, there is no such nationality. Iraqis are neither a race nor an ethnicity. There is no such language as Iraqi. The nation-state called Iraq was an arbitrary division created by British imperialists out of the former Ottoman Empire after the first World War. “Iraq” has no history as a nation prior to the establishment of the British Mandate. (The nation contained within present-day borders overlaps largely with ancient Mesopotamia, but I am referring to the modern geopolitical construct there, not the region.)
When an ethnic Pole or a Mexican immigrates to America, they become a Polish-American or a Mexican-American, but “Iraqi-American” is an oxymoron. When someone immigrates from Iraq to America, they are an Arab-American (or a Kurdish American). The “Iraqi” nationality was imposed on the inhabitants of the land: Kurds, Arabs, and other ethnicities; against their will. Seeing as Iraq lacks both ethnic cohesiveness (like a majority of nation-states) and a historical foundation by the people of the country (like the US), there is no reason to preserve the imagined unity of such an artificial nation, especially if doing so creates civil war and sectarian violence. The only reason why we do not dissolve the Belgian nation and incorporate Wallonia into France and Flanders into the Netherlands, uniting French-speaking Walloons and Dutch-speaking Flemings with their respective countrymen, is because there is no need! Were a pan-Dutch movement to call for the reunification of Holland and Flanders and the nations of Belgium and the Netherlands to agree, then there would be no reason not to allow such an arrangement. Similarly if the French wished to annex Wallonia as long as the Walloons wanted to join France, why not? Such an arrangement would be more logical (think about it, no reason why Belgium needs to exist) but it is not necessary. Belgium is a sovereign nation, and though the Belgian nationality is an artificial one imposed on the inhabitants of Flemish Country (then the Hapsburg Netherlands) and the “French Netherlands” in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, Dutch Flemings and French Walloons get along peaceably and have no wish to secede, thus it would be counterproductive to divide the country.
Iraq is a different story entirely. Arabs and Kurds are unwilling to share a land without exterminating eachother and Sunni and Shiites likewise refuse to share a land without killing or converting the other side. If dividing Iraq into a Kurdish state, a Sunni Arab state, and a Shi’a Arab state is the only way to stop a civil war, then so be it! Why should the Kurds be without an ethnic homeland? Why are there so many Arab states but no Kurdistan? Should the Kurds be denied their own country so that the dreams of that mad imperialist tyrant Winston Churchill (instrumental in partitioning the British Mandate) can live on and so the mantle of the oppressive British Empire be passed on to the new kid on the block, the American Empire? Why should American boys die because Sunnites and Shiites stuck in a Medieval worldview (which you and your ilk so proudly champion) want to kill eachother?
The reason why the neoconservative imperialists do not support an independent Kurdistan, and why they believe fighting for the national unity of Iraq is in anyone’s interest (despite the fact that the condition forcing feuding peoples together would call for an iron-fisted despot like Saddam Hussein) is because three independent, semi-independent, or autonomous nation-states or micro nations would be harder to rule over. Such division would weaken US hegemony in the region. A highly centralized Iraq would serve as a valuable client state of the glorious American Empire. You can bet that if the neocons have their way, Saddam’s replacement will be another brutal dictator, only this one would be a quisling D.C. loyalist. Of course you might deny being a neocon, because you are not one of the elite but rather, part of the fodder.
As for qualification, a Senator is infinitely more qualified than a Mayor. Mayor Giuliani has no experience in national politics whatsoever! Yet apparently you consider him more qualified than a six-term senator! The presidency is an executive role in the federal government. Someone serving in Congress has a role in the federal government, just not an executive one. The role of Governor is an executive one albeit in a state government, not the federal one. Under the Constitution, anyone can be president, even the village idiot (better prepare yourself Braden!) so no experience is needed. But who is more qualified, a governor or a member of congress? This is a matter of opinion. Personally I think that ALL FACTORS BEING EQUAL, a senator or representative would be better qualified than a governor for the office of president, because even though legislators do not have any executive roles, they have some experience in national politics. As a rule, governors typically have no DIRECT experience in national politics. However, they do have experience with executive functions in government, and being the governor of a state prepares them for the presidency. Holding an executive position over a state is similar to holding same position over the country, but on a smaller scale. In short, I think that someone who has served in the federal legislature has the inside experience that most state governors do not. If you said that governors are more qualified because they gained executive experience presiding over a state and are therefore prepared to preside over the country, I could respect that despite my disagreement. I think that serving as a governor is not bad at all as preparation for the presidency, I just prefer someone who was elected to the federal government. Of course, with 50 governors, 100 senators, and 435 representatives, a governor is a more likely president than a senator, who is more likely than a representative to be president. Each state has only one governor, but two senators, and usually even more representatives.
On the other hand, when you argue that someone is a fit candidate for president because they served as a freaking mayor, then you lose all credibility! A mayor has no experience in national politics, and really, no experience in state politics. A state senator or state representative would be better qualified, even though there is a huge leap from state legislator to president! At least a governor has executive experience within a smaller unit of the nation, and therefore handled many tasks on a smaller, more focused scale that they might handle as president, you can even say that under our FEDERAL system, a governor’s experience in state politics is a proxy to experience in national politics. (As a counter-argument, members of Congress have experience with tasks not left to the states, such as national defense.) I could expect you to argue that a governor is more qualified than a member of Congress, and could respect that, but to argue that a mayor is somehow more qualified than a senator is lunacy. Especially if that mayor’s only claim is to have handled (exploited) the disaster that befell his city on September 11th.
But the idiocy does not end there. You cite the population of Delaware and compare it to the population of New York as if that has any relevance to anything. This is called the red herring fallacy. The only reason why you even bothered to research those figures was to distract from the fact that your argument is utterly worthless. People will not fall for the bogus argument that mayor trumps senator, so you realize the convenient fact that New York City is an unusually large city and Delaware an unusually small state. Maybe since NYC is more populous than Delaware, mayorial experience in NYC is somehow worth more than any political experience in Delaware…
Finally, I admit that there is merit in the belief that executive experience one level down may equal or trump legislative experience one level up (i.e. that a governor might be equal or better prepared for the presidency than a representative or senator), but you ignore the entire hierarchy of federal-state-local and argue about the abstract differences between an “executive” and a “representative” position. You even insist that a senator has “no governing experience” whatever that is supposed to mean. Apparently only executives have governing experience, not legislatures or justices. I was under the mistaken impression that the federal government runs on a system of checks-and-balances and so do most states. I did not realize that that presidents or governors were autocrats. Then again you are talking about Mayor Giuliani, and I would not be surprised to find he was an autocratic mayor. You emphasize this point using the false dichotomy of having “represented” a state versus having “managed” a city. Might I remind you, all elected officials, even the President, are representatives. The role of an elected person is to represent the people (“for the people, by the people”), not to manage them like cattle. Your demand for a strong leader who will “manage” everything as dictator-in-chief rather than someone who would “represent” the people as Head of State reveals your own fascistic beliefs.
Why would you feel the need to defend a hack like Rudy Giuliani from a criticism from a “lower tier” Democrat who stands even less of a chance than Dennis Kucinich at becoming president? You do not even like Giuliani. (He is not a social conservative. He does not fear the threat of “homo-bortion,” nor does he even pretend to advocate theocracy.) Because either you are either a neocon hack who would defend other neocon hacks in your party against anyone from an opposing party, or you are just one of the neocons’ useful idiots they like having around to get them elected to public office.
Ah, there’s something to be said for running one of the biggest and most diverse cities in the entire world, compared to representing a state that has the population lower than Atlanta. And on top of that, he ran it during the attacks of 9/11.
“Redneck idiot”
Your ignorance is revealed yet again. You must have a really bleak outlook on the world.
First of all: Giuliani foolishly located New York’s emergency command center in the World Trade Center complex, where it was destroyed along with the Twin Towers on September 11 despite a prior attack on the Twin Towers and is ranking as a top terrorist target. Wwithout that command center, the city’s response was disjointed, and people died as a result.
Second: Giuliani allowed the New York fire department to use a radio system that didn’t work well in high-rise emergencies and could not communicate with police radios, and people died as a result.
Third: Giuliani was woefully unprepared for a terrorist attack–and people died as a result.
Fourth: Despite warnings from several officials, Gulianai blocked efforts to equip Ground Zero workers with respirators or haz-mat suits because he “didn’t want this image of a city falling apart.”
And finally we have Rudy Giuliani in Drag Smooching Donald Trump: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D4IrE6FMpai8&ei=19uuSKe5D4uUuwW518DwDw&usg=AFQjCNHMMKfpER-u1uJuGEHEe72Gh0Ndnw&sig2=vx7uwQYYCOFOkvXYL7-w1w
If Joe Biden had s**t for brains, it would be an improvement. Actually they’re a perfect pair; a mixed-race incompetent socialist and an idiot! Just who you want running your country. Democrates and anyone STUPID enough to vote for Comrade Obama and his fool, please be very sure you want these two, because if by horrible chance they win, it could be the end of Democracy in this country!!!
In light of your obsession with “executive experience” in the abstract, I am curious what you have to say about Joe Biden now that he is the VP selection, as opposed to Sarah Palin. You know, Sarah Palin, governor of a state with a population under 680,000. Governor for only TWO F-ING YEARS! Prior to which, she was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. a tiny hick town with a population under 10,000. Sorry, a US Senator with decades of experience, even for tiny Delaware, is infinitely more qualified than a two-year governor of even tinier Alaska.
Also, you seem to have this mental block about what US legislators do. As you probably know, the United States legislature is a bicameral legislature consisting of the Senate and House of Representatives. Members of congress do “represent” states, actually US Representatives represent Congressional Districts while Senators stand for the state as a whole… but in reality, the duties of a Senator or Congressman are not limited to “representing” their state, they enact federal legislation impacting the entire nation. So from one perspective, Joe Biden might “represent” tiny Delaware with a population under one million, but he serves on a legislature for an entire NATION of 300 million. Governors, state senators, and state representatives represent states.
And I am curious what you have to say about McRetard’s equally dumb wife citing the fact that Alaska is the closest state to Russia as evidence of Governor Palin’s foreign policy experience. [Nevermind that Russia is a HUGE country, that the part of Russia close to Alaska is Yakutska, which is ONLY part of Russia in the political sense. Sparsely populated Yakutska being inhabited mostly by Yakut, Eskimo, and Chukchi tribes is not REALLY part of Russia (the way Moscow is) except in the political sense.] Apparently living near a place is foreign policy experience?
And I am puzzled why your strongest “real” argument against Biden is that he supports the perfectly sensible solution of dividing Iraq into Kurds, Arabs of Sunni faith, and Arabs of Shiite faith? Why is separating medieval savages hellbent on killing each other off “idiotic” or “ludicrous” or “crazy”? Is that perhaps guilt stemming from your Confederate heritage. You know, YOUR people seceded from the Union (dividing up a nation), and later instituted Jim Crow segregation (dividing people on the basis of race/ethnicity). Just sounds hypocritical that someone who comes from a CULTURE (not saying that you personally advocate slavery, secession, or segregation) advocating something worse than the Biden plan. (You can’t compare Confederate treachery in the name of Southern Independence to dividing up a nation created by Winston Churchill, and other bloodthirsty British imperialists, against the will of the inhabitants. Likewise you cannot compare giving feuding people, who would tear each other to shreds and like young children must be split up to stop a fight, self-determination to forced segregation.)
[Btw, as to Blue Stater, the notion that Belgium is an artifact of Anglo-French diplomacy is not the entire truth. While British imperial policy, and later, post-Napoleonic French policy, played a role in creating and sustaining the Belgian state, the history is a bit different. After the Napoleonic Wars, the victorious Great Powers (Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia) redrew the map of Europe. They took the French Netherlands (Hapsburg Netherlands/Walloon country) from France and placed it under the united Netherlands. The Dutch Catholics of Flanders wanted to secede from the (Protestant dominated) Netherlands. The British, as superpower status, played an indirect role in all this, but the French later made Belgium a satellite state, a nominally neutral French client state. The French Walloons were a minority yet French became the official language of Belgium (much to the chagrin of Dutch-speaking Flemings and the small German minority). So the short story, Belgium IS an artificial creation of Franco-British imperialism, but the actual history is a bit complex. Unlike the people of Iraq, the Dutch Belgians had a role in creating the country though they were usurped by a revanchist France. I mention this because this history is very relevant. Just as the creation of Belgium was catalyzed by a 19th century conflict between Christian denominations, Roman Catholic and Dutch Reformed, the Iraq issue is about conflicting Islamic denominations. Belgium was as much a sectarian creation as the partition of Iraqi Arabs would be, so I do not see Braden’s point.]
I guess my final point is whether Braden would be easily duped by the McCain camp and vote for him because of his VP (as unqualified as she is) or use their brains. Are you going to be a useful idiot and pull the lever for a guy on account of his VP pick? If not, I would suggest you check out Chuck Baldwin, running on the Constitution Party ticket. You may also like Bob Barr. Of course you might think Chuck Baldwin is “batsh-t crazy” but then he at least might share your values. I would advise you to look up Baldwin and Barr on OnTheIssues or their personal campaign sites. McCain is batsh-t crazy and does not share your values! Should he die in office or resign due to medical condition (a very real possibility), we will be stuck with Ms. Alaska with a whopping two years of relevant executive experience and her proxy to foreign policy experience being governor of a state near Russia’s Yakut territory.
Ultimately your decision will have little merit in the outcome, because, assuming you have the intelligence and integrity not to vote for McCain, your state will, in all likelihood remain red. Of course your state’s presidential votes would probably be closest this election cycle than it ever was in the last couple decades, what with the significant African-American minority motivated to register and vote Democratic, the white majority in AL is just not liberal enough for a Democrat to win. That said, expect solid Democratic victory. Though Obama will never win Mississippi, Alabama, or Tennessee, or the Carolinas, at least some Southern states might be in play.
Georgia could be in play. An energized African-American voting bloc, will make the race in GA more competitive. Obama should also find support in the Atlanta metro area and the coast, areas more liberal than the state average. Finally. Bob Barr has home state advantage and could therefore siphon off a large bloc of conservative voters.
If Obama has any chance of winning a deep red state it is Louisiana. And NONE of the perennial blue states are in danger. I can almost guarantee that Obama-Biden will comfortably win every state Al Gore won in 2000. (Pennsylvania might be close, but unlikely for McCain to win.) Obama will almost certainly win Colorado as well, and possibly Neada or New Hampshire. Virginia and Missouri are too close to call. Ohio is close but will probably go to McCain, along with neighboring Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia [I base this assessment like most of my others, on primary and caucus results, not polls, which are fabricated by the media]. Some say that North Dakota and Montana might come in play.
All Obama needs to do is win all of Al Gore’s states, the 2000 blue states, PLUS Colorado, PLUS any 1 of the following: NH, NV, MT, ND, MO, LA, VA, GA, IN, or GA. McCain will probably win most of the latter eight states, but Obama only needs to win ONE of the eight battleground states (or “lean Republican” as opposed to their former strong Republican status). Obama stands very likely to break the magic number (270), especially once the American public realizes what an unqualified doofus Palin is.
Actually, it’s very much confirmed. Joe Biden is STILL an IDIOT! He doesn’t know his history because he thinks that FDR got on the “television” in 1929 and told America what happened about the stock market crash. There are nearly too many things wrong with that foolish statement to even begin to analyze.
I’m dumbfounded by your agreement with Biden on dividing Iraq based on race and religion. You say I come out of a culture where segregation is advocated? Well, evidently, not to the extent that Joe “George Wallace” Biden does. How is it purely sensible to divide them this way? You call them “medieval savages” like you were on the Mayflower discovering the new World, full of those “godless” native Americans.
Alabama’s “white majority” isn’t nearly as dominant as you would think. It’s much thinner than that (not that it even matters). The idea that Bob Barr will hold some type of “home state advantage” in Georgia is silly. He hasn’t been relevant to Georgia politics in recent years. He probably carries even less weight than Zell Miller.
Rumors are flying that Biden will be dumped and Hillary Clinton will be brought on to the ticket, which isn’t that great of an idea. However, Joe Biden may not think it’s a bad idea since he thinks Hillary would’ve been a better choice anyway.
Joe Biden is an imbecile. I look back at this post (written nearly a year ago) and smile, because I knew even then what a moron Biden was. Everything he has done since then has proven my point.
By the way, I haven’t said anything about Palin yet, but it’s obvious to me that she is ten times as competent a human being as Biden is. She has governing experience in the largest oil-producing state in the Union (larger than Texas, which is saying something). Generally, the American public loves her, and frankly, I do too. Granted, is NOT the most experienced individual in this race. But based on intelligence, appeal, and even gravitas, she makes Joe Biden look like a chimp.
“Actually, it’s very much confirmed. Joe Biden is STILL an IDIOT!”
Well, okay… You say he is an idiot. You did not provide any reason, argument, or explanation, but you must be correct because you spelled IDIOT by using ALL CAPITAL LETTERS! You know, I CAN TYPE IN ALL CAPS AND LOOK SMART AND TOUGH.
“He doesn’t know his history because he thinks that FDR got on the “television” in 1929 and told America what happened about the stock market crash.”
Really, when did Biden say that? Can I have a quotation? Any sources? Provide the context please?
“There are nearly too many things wrong with that foolish statement to even begin to analyze.”
Like what? There is only ONE THING wrong with that “foolish statement,” but I guess one thing is “too many things” for someone of your aptitude to analyze. About the television? Well, given that television was not widely available in 1929. A crude early precursor to the television was invented in the late 19th century, but a “modern” television was not developed until the mid 1920’s. Of course, TV was not commercially available to the general public in the USA or elsewhere until nearly a decade after 1929. HOWEVER, I do not have a quote in context. Perhaps Joe Biden was referring to the newsreels in cinemas available since the turn of the 20th century.
“I’m dumbfounded by your agreement with Biden on dividing Iraq based on race and religion.”
I think your usage of the word DUMBfounded is ironically appropriate. Why is it so f-cking hard for you to get? “Iraqis” have no particular desire for unity. Iraq has no real history as a nation. It is a synthetic Western European construct. I do not get why you find the idea of nations based on ethnicity so ludicrous, sinister, or crazy, when virtually EVERY nation on Earth (excluding the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and nearly all of sub-Saharan Africa, being as Africa was carved up by European empires) have such a basis. I wonder what planet you are from? I hate to generalize, but clearly you must be uncultured white trash, and not just because you hail from Alabama, but because it never occurred to you that nations have TRADITIONALLY been founded on an ethnic basis. Of course, to be fair, I do not know you well enough to state with certainty that you are in fact poorly educated white trash with no sense of history. You COULD be an alien visitor, or a trans-dimensional human from an alternate Earth in an alternate universe, whose alternate history was so drastically different from this world that the concept of ethnic nation-states never took root.
But in all seriousness, the Kurds WANT independence and their own country, or at least autonomy. So many ethnic groups have a country of their own. Germans and Chinese have TWO countries. Jews get a country and they are not even a race, ethnic group, or a people at all in the secular sense. Why can’t Kurds get a country of their own? Or do the Kurds not exist? They are after all, “Saddam’s own people,” right? You remind me of the clueless neoconservative adviser who asked, “what’s a Kurd?” The Arab people feel likewise. As long as they fight, partition is the only sensible solution. You call the idea crazy, insane, ludicrous, or ridiculous, or some synonym, yet provide absolutely NO REASON or EXPLANATION why. Apparently, it is so self-evident to you, and you expect everyone else to find it to be equally self evident. Worse still, you did not argue why a united “Iraq” is in anyone’s interest. Do you believe everything your god, George W. Bush, tells you. If he says lead is good for your diet, I am absolutely certain you would gulp down every bucket of paint in your house! Or better yet, you would put in in a batch of Neocon Koolaid (TM).
Actually, most Iraqis do not really care one way or another whether they stay together or split. The Kurds demand independence. The Sunni and Shiites have their own plans for power, but very few actually wish to remain whole. The only truly vocal advocates of a unified Iraq at all costs are Ba’athists. You know, Saddam Hussein’s people, and I do not mean “his people” as in Arabs of Sunni faith, I mean HIS PEOPLE. Associates, allies, followers, supporters, Ba’ath Party members. I have personally come across neo-Baathists on Facebook angrily denouncing Iraqi dissolution, even if done with the blessings of the constituent ethnic groups who wish for it. These same neo-Baathists, want a unified Iraq to stand strong against the “Zionist machinations” of an emboldened Israel and the “Shiite menace” of Iran. I am glad to see whose side you are on. You all were all for removing that Saddam Hussein (who was supposed to be an evil tyrant), yet you support his fellow acolytes who are just as crazy.
“You say I come out of a culture where segregation is advocated?”
Yes. I did not say you purposely identify with it, and as I made abundantly clear, you do not consciously endorse its more obsolete values. Yet you still manifest the worst of the Confederate-Jim Crow past, if not directly, your knee jerk reaction to the more embarrassing aspects of your history are obvious. I am sure you heard the expression “White Guilt” (and perhaps the expression “German guilt” and other such expressions). You exhibit “Southern guilt.”
“Well, evidently, not to the extent that Joe “George Wallace” Biden does.”
Is this some new variant of Godwin’s Law? I fail to see how Biden advocates segregation any more than your culture (not necessarily you personally) did. Apparently slavery, “separate-but-equal” schools, anti-miscegenation laws (race based eugenics), lynchings, etc. never happened? I was not aware that the Biden plan condones enslaving anyone, or urban apartheid, or the like. [He DOES propose geographically separating people into nation states as existed for the entirety of human history, but there is a subtle difference between having people in separate LANDS and segregating people in the same land under a legally defined and enforced caste system with Whites on top and “Coloreds” on the bottom.] Implementing such a plan would actually reduce lynchings or comparable acts of terrorism which occurred throughout the South until the mid-20th century. Equating the Biden proposal to the antebellum or Jim Crow South is historical revisionism on an unbelievable scale!
“How is it purely sensible to divide them this way?”
How is it not? You have never once explained it. [Btw, I am willing to bet a fortune that you are a huge supporter of apartheid Israel. You know, the nation that colonized the Palestinian territory and herded the Arabs onto reservations and ghettos.]
“You call them “medieval savages”…”
Which they ARE, for the MOST PART anyways. Granted, not ALL of them are medieval savages, but most of the people in the Middle East are socially and culturally backwards relative to the West and the Far East. Iran and most of the Arab nations live under a reactionary Medieval worldview. Concepts such as freedom of conscience, privacy, women’s liberation, capitalism, liberalism, universal education, democracy, and any semblence of a rational scientific outlook are foreign to most of the population.
However, you clearly sympathize with them, for that very reason. You and your ilk would love to revert to a medieval culture ruled by superstition, where progress in education and women’s rights is rolled back to the “good ol’ days.” If that is not the case, why did you take it so personally? I would compare reactionary Muslims to the Amish except that such a comparison is not only poor, but extremely unfair to the Amish, who are not really reactionary. After all, the Amish are as conservative as it gets without being in any way reactionary because unlike most of the Middle East (and the Bible Belt) they are not at war with modernity. The Amish voluntarily live autonomously of the other society. Muslim fundies (and to a lesser extent Christian fundies) are on a jihad/crusade to impose their views on society.
“…like you were on the Mayflower discovering the new World, full of those “godless” native Americans.”
Actually, that is a terrible analogy. After all, the Mid East is not godless like the Native Americans. If anything they are too, godly. Living in a pre-modern world (with the exception of the educated bourgeois), the fundy Muslims do not conceive of God as a spiritual entity with benevolent advise to people. They conceive of God as a vengeful deity with a very exact agenda contained within the Koran (which is infallible, inerrant, and the literal word of Allah, notwithstanding what modern science has to say). [Actually, swap “Koran” with “Bible” and “Allah” with “Jehovah” and that exact sentence applies perfectly well to you Christian fundies.] Under such a worldview, science, progress, democracy, women’s equality, and modernity in general is impossible.
Not to mention I have nothing but contempt for the pilgrims of the Mayflower, who btw did not discover the New World (Norse Vikings beat them to it). It is unfortunate that the more cultured and sophisticated Amerindians were wiped out by warlike barbarians who were more civilized only in the sense that they had more advanced technology. Then again you have the Puritans to thank for helping found the reactionary distortion of Christianity which gave rise to the Evangelicals. You can appreciate their fanatical Calvinism, but I would hope you at least remember the genocide of the indigenous people of New England at the hands of those British holy warriors as you munch down your turkey this Thanksgiving.
“Alabama’s “white majority” isn’t nearly as dominant as you would think (not that it even matters).”
What are you insinuating? Whites are 72% of the population of Alabama. Whites outnumber blacks by almost 3:1. By dominant I meant in terms of population, which you clearly are. Is that your subconscious revealing fears that them uppity negro folk gone get control of the state, as an uppity negro gets elected president? All I was saying was that whites outnumber African-Americans by a wide margin in AL, which they do, and that the two groups have different cultures. The whites are proud of their Southern Heritage, even if they do not wish to repeat their mistakes, belong to Evangelical churches, largely Southern Baptists (though not entirely, as you are not Southern Baptist), and vote reliably. The blacks, though Christians in the Protestant tradition, do not identify with the Evangelical movement or conservative white Protestants. They have bitter memories of the state’s past, and thus do not look at things the same.
“The idea that Bob Barr will hold some type of “home state advantage” in Georgia is silly. He hasn’t been relevant to Georgia politics in recent years.”
Perhaps, perhaps not… Bob Barr is/was a respected Republican Congressman. His claim to fame, is that he lead the drive to impeach Bill Clinton. If they can overlook his astonishing hypocrisy (he is a staunch opponent of abortion who pressured his wife to have an abortion, or that he commit adultery but, with fellow adulterer and hypocrite Newt Gingrich condemned Bill Clinton), Barr might have a shot! The Libertarian Party might be a third party that typically falls short of one percent nationwide, but then they usually select obscure nobodies. This time they picked an elected former Republican who has name recognition. (The only reason the LP chose Barr was as a cynical advertising strategy.) If the race gets close, Barr COULD siphon off McCain’s lead, lending the state to Barack.
“Rumors are flying that Biden will be dumped and Hillary Clinton will be brought on to the ticket,”
Really? Except that rumors do not mean anything. Well, maybe to you… obviously!
“which isn’t that great of an idea”
Really, might reclaim the Vaginal Vote. Not to mention, Hillary Clinton, like her husband Bill, polls very well in the Appalachian border states: West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana (I included the last even though it does not belong geographically or historically, though it is adjacently located and close culturally and politically), while Obama polls very poorly there. An Obama-Clinton ticket would probably carry at least two of the aforementioned states, while Obama stands to lose them all. [The Democrats must carry all of Al Gore’s states plus Colorado, which is guaranteed for Obama, plus any one other state.] But alas, ain’t gonna happen. Rumor says McCain will dump his VP for someone with actual qualifications. A neocon overlord such as Dick Cheney, Jeb Bush, Charlie Crist, Tom Ridge, or Darth Lieberman. However, unlike you, I rely on facts and logic so I can never trust rumors.
“Joe Biden may not think it’s a bad idea since he thinks Hillary would’ve been a better choice anyway.”
Well kudos to Mr. Biden for being humble. The same can not be said about McCain, the smirking a-hole who only recently played the humble part as a clever strategy against a bold and charismatic opponent. Otherwise, he has no problem grinning smuggly from the apricot in his right cheek to the grapefruit in his left cheek, while running an easy race with backing from the entire neocon establishment against the Mormon Moneybags, Backwoods Preacher, and obscure Republibertarian from Texas.
“Joe Biden is an imbecile.”
Wow? You know a synonym for idiot? Congratulations! You are so persuasive…
“I look back at this post (written nearly a year ago) and smile, because I knew even then what a moron Biden was.”
Now he is a moron? So far you have three synonyms for “stupid” but zero reasons. But perhaps you did not change your mind because you are incapable of doing so. After all, you appear to lack learning ability.
“Everything he has done since then has proven my point.”
Like what?
“I haven’t said anything about Palin yet, but it’s obvious to me that she is ten times as competent a human being as Biden is.”
I can’t argue that either way, because that would depend how you define “competent.” It is all a matter of opinion, but if you define competence in terms of education, innate intelligence, sanity, or relevant political experience, then Biden outscores Palin. On the other hand, if you like superstition, authoritarian values, vanity, and dishonesty, then Palin outshines Biden.
“She has governing experience in the largest oil-producing state in the Union (larger than Texas, which is saying something).”
It is saying something? What the hell does that have to do with anything? I was not aware overseeing a state that extracts a lot of hydrocarbon molecules in a liquid suspension is indicative of statesmanship. Not to mention your bizarre fetishism of “executive experience” in the abstract. Never mind that she was only governor for two years. I am sure you neocon drones would consider managing a f–king gas station relevant executive experience. FOX News has successfully brainwashed you. I suspect a double standard in which a Republican can be elected alderman, and be more qualified for president than a Democrat with years of Senate experience. You are a master of the straw man fallacy. Whether spewing red herrings about how populous a city is and what misfortune befell it under your watch, or worse still, how much petroleum a state mines; or ad hominems, “Joe Biden is teh stupid!1!1!” (WHY?) “Cause he is R3ta\@rded!” Then again, Palin’s proficiency at blasting animals with high-powered rifles and eviscerating them on site might come in handy. Especially considering we would have a VP who does not shoot his hunting buddy by mistake.
“Generally, the American public loves her, and frankly, I do too.”
Well, that would be because the American public is STUPID… if they want some loony hack taking the reigns. Let us face it, we are a nation of DOPES if we chose the head of state because his running mate is HOT (plus she shoots the sh!t out of stuff). But I take it you are a useful idiot who will vote GOP one more time, even voting for a man you hate, so that you get a fundy nutjob president when (NOT IF) McCain dies after innauguration. [Nobody explained how a mother of five kids, one with Down Syndrome who will need careful attention, while fulfilling her presidential duties. And what kind of hack names her kids Track, Bristol, Piper, Willow, and Trig anyways? Apparently she gave birth to a foot path, a toothbrush, a tree…] I hope you realize that you and your ilk are being played for suckers.
“Granted, is NOT the most experienced individual in this race.”
A major understatement. Palin has EVEN LESS experience than Obama. Barack Obama served a continuous 12 years on a legislature. First the Illinois legislature, followed by U.S. Senate. (And in the end of the day, there is not much difference between legislative and executive experience, both have leadership roles, and both are REPRESENTATIVES… at least in a constitutional democracy, where even the executive is elected to represent. You obviously love authoritarian dictatorships wherein the leader MANAGES people.) I am not the best at math, but Obama’s brief four year term is better than two years in state politics and zero in national politics. 4>0. Before then he may have been a “community organizer,” nothing glamorous, but a nice humble beginning… but prior to that Obama was in charge of the Harvard Law Review.
On the other hand, Sarah Palin lives across from Siberia. I have no idea what has to do with foreign policy experience, but she is an expert at blowing away animals with a high powered rifle and eviscerating them.
“But based on intelligence, appeal, and even gravitas”
First, Sarah Palin and gravitas do not belong in the same paragraph. Second, I could not tell how you perceive intelligence. The woman is a complete retard! Then again, out of the Bizarro World from whence you came, Palin must seem very bright. You all must have a completely inverted definition and measurement of intelligence. Biden is an idiot even though he graduated with a dual major in history and political science at the University of Delaware, and a J.D. at Syracuse University. Obama has a J.D. at Harvard. I guess it makes them retarded according to the deep red states. Unlike the genius of John McCain, who graduated at the bottom of his class in the Naval Academy, or the genius Palin, who spent most of college at third-rate Idaho schools.
Sarah Palin may not be very bright, educated, or experienced, but she is HOT! Palin has the best qualifications of any person currently elected, or ever elected, to a major office in the USA… if by qualifications you mean T&A. Too bad she is as dumb as she is good looking. I suppose that is the real reason why you are so enthusiastic. Being as you are a Godly Abstinent Youth, you may not have consciously realized that. But I am not one to pry into the private thoughts of God-fearing American Youth such as yourself.
I wonder who qualifies as intelligent? I am willing to bet you consider Larry the Cable Guy an intellectual comic. After all, there is no comparing the deep, sophisticated, subtle comedy of Larry the Cable Guy to the stupid, infantile comedy of George Carlin or Dennis Miller! In all seriousness, the fact that you are even capable of literacy surprises and confounds me! You are completely devoid of logical or rhetorical ability. There is nothing even approaching a rational thought on your blog, and you manage to hide sheer stupidity by writing extensively. On that grounds, I should hope you call me an idiot. After all, your concept of what intelligence means is in reverse. You calling me “smart” would imply that my mind works like that which resulted from generations of incestuous breeding.
So take my advice and follow the example of the smartest man from Alabama, Mr. Forest Gump. He is the most intelligent person ever in your state’s history, even by our Yankee IQ scale, which usually runs opposite yours. Forest Gump has been estimated to have an IQ in the 90’s!
“…she makes Joe Biden look like a chimp.”
I am not sure what that statement means coming from anybody who rejects evolution. But I think if a chimpanzee can learn how to type, he or she would make a better blogger than you. If Joe Biden is a chimp, Sarah Palin is a baboon, a less intelligent, wilder, more primitive primate with a tail and greater proclivities to fling their feces.
How about a context. If my assessment is correct, Palin will be crushed beneath Biden’s might rhetoric. He will use her ignorance against her, making her eat her words. Joe Biden will give Sarah Palin enough rope to hang herself (metaphorically speaking).
If you are correct, the debate will degrade to a fecal fight… literally.
http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2008Sep23/0,4670,BidenMistakenHistory,00.html
There’s your source. I’ll even copy the quote:
“When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened,'” Barack Obama’s running mate recently told the “CBS Evening News.”
Since you couldn’t figure out all the problems in that statement, allow me to break them down for you:
Television wasn’t introduced to the public until 1939 at the World’s Fair, which means that if anyone “got on the television,” it wouldn’t do any good because most Americans had never heard of such a thing.
FDR wasn’t in office during the stock market crash in 1929, Herbert Hoover was.
As a result of these two, it’s obvious to conclude that FDR didn’t “get on the television” and talk about what happened after stock market crash, unless of course, he got on the television and talked about something else after the stock market crash… 10 years later… How ironic, that some “uneducated/uncultured white trash” person would have to point these historical facts out to such a refined individual as yourself.
Obviously, you have no respect for Arab culture, Southeastern American culture, or conservatives for that matter.
Most of your rhetoric is based on bias, bigotry and sheer ignorance. So, its only logical for you to find rapport with a man like Joe Biden. And like Biden, please keep talking so everyone can know what kind of person you are. After all, the more Biden talks, the dumber he sounds.
I love how you venerate the way the British empire was so successful in dividing Africa. Maybe that’s what we need. Maybe the highest and noblest of all humanity should decide how the rest of the world should divide itself and live. What a grand idea! Maybe you could make a case for Hitler too! One world government, here we come!
By the way, when I said “godless Native Americans,” I was being facetious, making fun of how lowly you regard people that don’t share the same views and culture as you, much like the early settlers regarded Native Americans.
Let’s see, what else can I correct? Even Bob Beckel (Democratic Strategist) thinks it would be an awful idea to drop Biden and pick up Hillary at this point in the campaign (after all, it didn’t work for George McGovern), so like I said, it would be a bad idea. I hate Larry the Cable Guy. I’m assuming you understand that Forrest Gump wasn’t a real person. It’s ignorant of you to make fun of how Palin names her kids. I’m not a neocon. I have no form of “Southern guilt,” because I personally didn’t do anything wrong to merit that.
If you could actually carry on a conversation without a profound degree of bias and ignorance towards me, my culture, and background, we might actually get somewhere. But it’s as if all you can do is make sweeping generalizations and personal attacks about me with no basis in fact whatsoever. Maybe down here in the South, our logic and rhetoric isn’t accompanied by hate and disdain. Is that how arguments are won where you are from? If so, how tragic…
Notice how you leave out the fact that the ultimate point of Bidens statement was true. Sure, he got the details wrong, but the message was correct. And give him a break. Unlike some VP candidates he’s willing to take questions from the press without his running mate sitting on his lap to kick his shin when he says something stupid.
I’m not a big supporter of the trifold division of Iraq, but it certainly isn’t the plan of an ‘idiot’. It’s a complex and thoroughly researched idea that may or may not be a good one. Compare this to the Bush strategy involving Iraq (“Yee-Hah”, I believe it was) and lets get talking about who the real idiot is. His attempt to fix someone elses problem might not be perfect. So let’s compare it to the plan McCain was supporting at the same time:
Standing in a crowd of soldiers, wearing body armor and saying “Looks safe to me”. Yeah, mental giant there.
But let’s get back to the original topic here. Is Giuliani qualified to be the president? Well, I lived in New York during his tenure and he did a mediocre job some of the time, unless of course you judge a mayor by how few civil rights he ignores. He rounded up the homeless, decreased crime rates and didn’t screw the budget up much more than it was already screwed up. Of course, he also presided over the worst disaster in American History and admitted later that he was caught completely off gaurd by it. Completely off guard? Really? The fact that they tried to blow the thing up once didn’t clue you in that it was a target?
The truth is that Biden is not an idiot. Neither is John McCain and neither is Barak Obama. They are all exceptional people who are very intellegent in the fields they have chosen. Out of curiosity, I googled Palin Idiot and Biden Idiot. Four times as many hits for Sarah. Poor thing. At least she’s too dumb to know we’re picking on her.
I would like to defend Braden on one count, though. Southerners aren’t all idiots. I lived in the South most of my life. Most of them are idiots, but that’s true of every region in this country. Braden may or may not be an idiot, I don’t know. Nothing on this blog suggests otherwise, but I won’t rush to judgement.
Anyway, God Bless the internet. There was a time when I just yelled all this crap at my poor wife. Now I actually have a means to direct it.
Never has so little been said with so many words.
The word “idiot” has been thrown out a number of times. I don’t qualify him as an idiot. The poor guy just has diahrea of the mouth. He thinks he is so smart, that his words will enlighten us, when in fact, they show that he ain’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Pure and simple, he and Obama want more govenment involvment in my life, and I want less. Difference of opinion. I can’t help it if I’m right. It just works out that way.
Move to Haiti.
you are idiots too as i just spent an hour with my sl composing ow typing my typically brilliant views on the super -moron joe b,the great thief and liar hillary and her husband bill,the great cunning linguist and masterdebater,and the pacifist chatter,one-world government anti -christ and pretender to the american presidency,barry o)bama-but your idiotic system deleted all that truthfuk brillance before i could post it!suffer in your profound ignorance,ignorati !
Hi. I happened upon your web site while I was looking for something else. While I don’t agree with some of what you say we do have similar viewpoints by and large. I have bookmarked your site and will visit again in the near future to see what you are writing about in 2010!
Oh and by the way, “redneck” is not a very nice term to use. Shame, shame, shame, shame on you. You bigot!!