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2/4/2004
EAR PLUGS
Here's the illustrated version of the Johnny Knox benefit report:
http://www.degeneratepress.com/vault/knox_benefit_2004/
BLASPHEMY
Hope you brought your galoshes. Let the mudslinging begin with a rant from
degenerate CP, which showed up an hour AFTER he desubscribed. C’mon, CP, you
can’t have your cake and ignore it too!
What an uninformed self-interested load of force-fed crap from MM. Quantity is
definitely not quality. To show all the wrong facts would take too long. Just a
few corrections should cast appropriate doubt upon the rest:
“unemployment is at an all-time high”
That’s odd. The Dept. of Labor shows that the unemployment rate is 5.7 percent.
Go to their site and check it against historical unemployment rates. Like the
6.7 percent during the 90s. And we have more workers than ever right now. Oh,
and to trump one of your campaign lunacies, keeping unemployment down is
precisely the reason why benefits should not be extended. Seems that too many
people need financial motivation to work. And businesses need to hire more
people without more burden of over-coddling unemployment insurance.
Capitalistic, I know, but deal with the evil.
Bush SUPPORTS....
[Other candidates] OPPOSE...
You’ve fallen prey to two flaws in any decent logical argument.
First, opposing views are not inherently wrong, even if they are a minority
opinion.
Second, 4-7 guys running for office does not constitute a majority against an
incumbent. There is no democratic method to determining what is right and what
is wrong, thank goodness. And that’s why this country is not based upon that
fatal flaw. We elect people to act in our interest, and they’ll never please
everyone all the time (apologies to Lincoln for the lazy paraphrasing.)
“the highjacking of the election in Florida”
Give me a break. How many recounts would you like? Independent recounts,
newspaper recounts, liberal media recounts... All showed Bush winning Florida.
Sorry. And to promote that Bush squashed voting by minorities in Florida is
idiocy. Dig for some real facts on that instead of emotional and hyperbolic junk
science. Oh, but someone wrote a book about it and therefore the argument has
merit. Someone also wrote The Turner Diaries.
“RIGHTS”
-Don’t confuse things that people want with rights. You do not have a right to
benefits that your boyfriend/girlfriend receives through work or the government.
No heterosexual relationship enjoys this privilege. And I’d hate to see the
rules on that one: when do you qualify? After one month? After six months? How
much fraud would run rampant by people claiming relationship status in order to
receive health benefits?
-You do not have the right to serve in the military. The military can set rules
as it sees fit, based upon the overall efficiency and camaraderie of the
organization. This is serious business and is not a playground for
oversensitivity.
-Not one instance of civil rights violation has been reported in association
with the Patriot Act. Over 2,000 claims were made. 17 of those were deemed
worthy enough of consideration. None were judged violations. Sorry.
The Economy
Why can’t people do math? Let’s see...raise taxes, but increase investments and
spending by individuals. Ever heard of mutually exclusive? What’s wrong with tax
relief? Even for people with more money. They aren’t evil. They’re not even
necessarily rich. $100K in a household is not crazy rich. Especially when almost
40% goes to the government right off the top. If people need more pie, the
answer is not stealing from someone else’s plate. It’s to bake a bigger pie.
Growing the economy comes from investing, from building businesses, from
creating things that people buy. None of this is encouraged by taxation. None.
Growth in the GDP is the answer. It benefits all. And, whoa, look at the chart
for that one.... And, whoa, look at America’s standard of living now versus our
history.... And, whoa, look at our standard of living vs. the rest of the
world....
Saddest of all
The worst thing is listening to people attack at the highest point of what is
right and wrong in this world—the place where they’re least likely to contribute
anything new, well thought, or useful— while ignoring simple issues that would
make the world a better place and which they CAN contribute. I’m tired of seeing
people with PEACE bumper stickers blowing through residential streets at 15 mph
over the speed limit. I’m tired of people cussing in public with children
around. Of hurried folks parking in handicapped spaces, fire lanes and
sidewalks. Of litter (I thought it was gone, like smallpox, but it’s making a
HUGE comeback). And on and on.
Longer than I intended,
Degenerate CP
Now how much would you pay? Well don’t answer yet! You also get this from
degenerate LS:
I enjoyed reading MM's rant and Frank "Bubba" Blithe's commentary. It seems
strange that President Bush had the lowest approval rating after 100 days in
office since they started taking approval ratings after 100 days (the whole
country knew he was an idiot) and all the sudden Sept.11 comes along and
suddenly he is our hero. He did not overnight get a common sense transplant,
he's still an idiot. Only now he is even more arrogant and makes even less of an
effort to pretend he has the best interest of the country in mind. A barf bag
should have been included in the TV guide for those planning to watch the state
of the union address. The only thing that got me through it were the cut away
shots of Ted Kennedy rolling his eyes and shaking his head.
But wait, there’s more! For absolutely nothing, you also get this rant from
degenerate RVI:
Degenerate MM said, "And I hope people will stop being so complacent and get out
and vote this
year. Please register, whether it be via "Rockthevote.com" or when
renewing your driver's license or by signing up with the political
activist group of your choice. I don't care if you vote for Bush, the
Democratic opponent or Mickey Mouse, just exercise your rights. If you
fail to stir yourself off your couch to go out and vote, your right to
bitch and moan and complain about the political process won't be affected,
but deep down you really are a hypocrite. If you don't like it, make an
effort to CHANGE it."
To be flat, not voting is a form of exercising my rights, and in certain
circumstances not voting could be a better use of my rights than doing so. I
haven’t gone to the polls in well over ten years and I fail to see that, had I
gone, it would have made much of a difference either way. This isn’t a matter of
my complacency; rather, it is because the political system is so corrupt that I
fail to see a compelling reason to vote. There is very little to vote FOR - all
we wind up doing every so many years is to go out and vote AGAINST things.
People who think they are going to change the world by going to the poling place
have an overly sanguine view of the function of the political realm. Politics is
an ** effect ** of ideas, not the origin of any, and in this country the pursuit
has been a vast intellectual desert for as long as I have been alive, a
situation that gets worse every day. In part, I think this is because so many
people think they have done the world a great service by voting for candidate X,
party Y, or proposition Z, rather than spending time working to learn about or
create and propagate ideas that will create better candidate Xs, party Ys, and
proposition Zs. If the ideas that motivate a system are no good, all we wind up
with at the polls is a choice between the worse and the horrible, which it has
seemed to me, for more than a decade, to be the unavoidable situation. Should I
decide to go and vote this year, it will be to place an opposition vote, not
because I think any of the candidates stand for anything worth wasting any time
on. And if I should decide sitting on my couch is about as acceptable an
expenditure of time as going over and placing a vote, the subsequent exercise of
my right to "moan and complain" will hardly be hypocrisy - the only way the
system will ever be changed will be by means of moaning and complaining and
creating better ideas to replace the haggard ones that support the present
appalling disorder. Voting , under present circumstances, at its very best, will
simply slow down a process that can do little more than create injustices and
stupidities NO MATTER WHO IS AT THE HELM. The values and beliefs of the people
are in disarray, we are motivated by principles that are materialistic and
warped. Until people choose to value another way of seeing things, however, our
political choices will always remain between the right or left side of the SAME
WARPED VIEWPOINT. The trick would be to come up with another point of view, and
only bitchers and moaners, historically, have been any good at that, whether
they voted or not.
Degenerate RVI
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