It’s the Culture Stupid
Jack Cashill makes an interesting case at the American Thinker today that the mortgage crisis and much of the faltering economy can be traced back to the breakdown of the family. Minority families broke down (or really, never formed) at rates much greater than white families. Since more minorities came from broken homes and thus had lower incomes, fewer minorities than whites could qualify for home loans. This seems rather obvious, except the Clinton administration charged that the real reason for the disparity was, you guessed it, racism. Hence, pressure was put on banks to make loans that no responsible lender should make. Now we are all paying for false charges of racism when a lack of personal responsibility was really the culprit. It’s always easier for politicians to shout that their constituents are victims rather than irresponsible.
March 15th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
Dr. Turek,
Though the ‘it’s the minorities buying houses they couldn’t afford’ line of argument persists, it has been either debunked or at least strongly weakened (depending on one’s outlook) by various pieces of evidence.
Let me give a few numbers, but anyone can find much more with just a bit of research.
According to ComplienceTech, in 2004, 70.82 percent of the 1,917,809 subprime loans went to non-Hispanic Whites, while upper income borrowers received nearly 40 percent of the loans. (I see no reason that 2004 should be different from the other years, and this view is backed up by other evidence.)
According to numbers by Stephen Bainbridge, a law professor at UCLA, whites received 72.5% of subprime mortgages. African Americans received 16.2% of subprime mortgages (reasonable for a segment which makes up over 12% of the general population, and was behind on home ownership). Hispanics received 6.2% of subprime mortgages, which is far below what we’d expect, given that Hispanics make up about 15% of the general population.
If one does follow this line of argument, it’s also disingenuous to cite Bill Clinton, but leave out Bush who made a major push for home ownership as well, and many conservatives who do favor this argument will at least mention him. To not do so just seems overtly political. (The article you link even mentions the younger President Bush, though somewhat begrudgingly, in my opinion.)
Early in his presidency, Gorge W. Bush started an initiative called America’s Homeownership Challenge. Here is a quote from a 2002 speech at George Washington University:
Two-thirds of all Americans own their homes, yet we have a problem here in America because few than half of the Hispanics and half the African Americans own the home. That’s a homeownership gap. It’s a — it’s a gap that we’ve got to work together to close for the good of our country, for the sake of a more hopeful future.
We’ve got to work to knock down the barriers that have created a homeownership gap.
One of the larger obstacles to minority home ownership is financing.
This is just one example of his effort, and there are many more.
Question: were more sub-prime loans made under Clinton, or under George W. Bush?
(HINT: According to Inside Mortgage Finance, the market share for subprime loans more than doubled between 2000 and 2006.)
(If you wish to blame Clinton for the financial meltdown which occurred almost a decade later, I would look much more closely at his signature on the Gramm Leach Bliley Act than anything else.)
One problem I see with this line of argument is it usually comes from those who push hard for a pure free enterprise system, but at the same time believe that banks, who we expect to act rationally and react to market forces can be so easily manipulated into acting against their own self-interest.
If business entities (powerful business entities worth billions and billions of dollars) are so irrational and so unable to act according to market forces and in their own self interest, then how can we expect a free enterprise system to ever work? (Remember much of the charge here is not regulation or a faulty legal framework, rather ‘pressure,’ which is what you mention in your article.)
How is it that an industry which has no problem giving out billions of dollars in bonuses in the face of tremendous pressure from the president, congressmen from both sides of the aisle, the government in general, the media and a huge majority of Americans, is so easily pressured into making loans which they know are a terrible business decision?
How is it that this weak, weak industry, which will jump at anything the government asks of them, no matter how stupid it may be, was able to stop — for years — such common sense things as including a simple line on every credit card bill: If you pay the minimum payment on this account, it will take xx months to repay the balance.
(And how could an industry which fight so hard against something like that ever be accused of predatory lending?)
How is it that 80% of the American people favor a bill (82% according to a Reuters report from today, citing a recent Harris poll) yet almost every story about such a bill talks about how it is getting weaker and weaker? Why is it the banks find it so easy to resist and push back on that pressure?
(HINT: In one of these scenarios the banks made billions.)
If anyone is interested in an intuitive and entertaining take on the financial crisis, I highly recommend listening to This American Life’s Giant Pool or Money episode (just google This American Life Giant Pool of Money).
Dr. Turek, I hope you’ll have a chance to check it out. You can put it on your MP3 player and listen while jogging or working out or something.
I’d like to hear what you think. I think you’ll find it a narrative that makes strongly intuitive sense (what I mean is, there aren’t elements that instantly strike you as irrational; it’s a process entirely driven by simple market forces).
Thanks,
Luke
ps I was unable to find the USA Today editorial, the Wall Street Journal article, or the text of the original FEDreport (it was more difficult since it was not very specifically cited). I did find a report from the Cleveland FED, which discussed a Boston FED report which I believe is report the author is referring to. It states: [The Boston Fed] analysis showed that much of the difference in denial rates across races is due to the fact that black and Hispanic loan applicants have, on average, less wealth, higher loan-to-value ratios (smaller down payments), and more credit blemishes than their white counterparts. Nonetheless, even after controlling for these factors, the Boston researchers concluded that minority applicants were over 50 percent more likely to be denied a loan than whites. (Longhofer: Discrimination in Mortgage Lending: What Have We Learned; 1996.)
March 15th, 2010 at 5:22 pm
“Nonetheless, even after controlling for these factors, the Boston researchers concluded that minority applicants were over 50 percent more likely to be denied a loan than whites.”
Studies have also shown that having an ‘ethnic name’ on a job application will make your CV much more likely to be rejected than a CV with identical qualifications. This surely will have a knock-on effect to people’s ability to get a home loan. I’m sure Frank will want to factor this into his thinking too.
March 15th, 2010 at 5:50 pm
I think Dr. Turek’s goal was to bring up the fact that “broken families” often perform worse economically. I think this is true in many cases.
(On a side note, it is difficult enough in the US to be a nuclear middle class family in the US these days. My family made the decision to be a single-income family, because we felt this was best for our daughter, which has made it that much more difficult. My wife has been working on her own business in her non-Mom time which has helped tremendously, but it is still not easy.)
If this was the intended point of discussion (not “false charges of racism”) I’d like to ask a question. (Simply because I think it is an interesting one, and worthy of discussion.)
Do you think that there is something which is inherent to “broken families” and the products of such families which makes them less able to perform economically, or do you think that our current economic system is setup in such a way that it favors nuclear families? (For example, many families find that they simply need two incomes to get by.)
(As a related example, if dual-parent, but single-income families were more likely to default on loans, should that be taken as a sign that such families are undesirable?)
Thanks,
Luke
March 15th, 2010 at 6:12 pm
It is a demonstrable fact that the cost of living nowadays makes it much harder for a family to survive on one partner’s income. Thirty years ago house prices were much lower relative to income. Fuel costs too, plus many other essential items. The man could work while the wife brought up the kids. Not so easy nowadays. I couldn’t live the way my parents were able to.
March 16th, 2010 at 6:39 pm
Luke
If business entities (powerful business entities worth billions and billions of dollars) are so irrational and so unable to act according to market forces and in their own self interest, then how can we expect a free enterprise system to ever work?
How is it that an industry which has no problem giving out billions of dollars in bonuses in the face of tremendous pressure from the president, congressmen from both sides of the aisle, the government in general, the media and a huge majority of Americans, is so easily pressured into making loans which they know are a terrible business decision?
False premises; they aren’t allowed to act according to market forces; they are micromanaged by bureaucrats and politicians. We no longer have a free enterprise system. Bonuses and salaries should be set by the companies through their boards of directors, not by fascist governments. In a free market system, those who earn salaries and bonuses will have earned them and be retained; those who don’t, won’t. Shareholders expect and demand that those managing the banks make a reasonable return on investment, and they alone should decide whether their managers have met their expectations. THAT is free enterprise.
When the government forces banks to discard all rules regarding qualifying applicants and make loans to virtually anyone who applies on the one hand and then punishes the banks for making bad loans, the banks must find some way to recoup their losses. Increasing the costs associated with credit cards and other “captive customers” is about all they have left if they want to avoid bankruptcy. The same phenomenon is occurring in the health insurance industry as the government mandates more and more “coverage” by insurance companies and extensions for customers who no longer pay premiums or are allowed to pay reduced premiums. It still costs the insurance companies to pay for benefits, so they have to raise premiums on the people who actually pay premiums or go broke. It is all unfair, but the interference by government is the underlying cause, not the “greed” of the banks and the insurance companies. When the government forces banks or insurance companies to operate in a reckless manner, blame the government for the chaos that results, not the banks and insurance companies. In a free enterprise system, such behavior would be punished by the market. Competition among businesses would drive the poorly performing ones out of business and grow the honest and efficient ones. Free enterprise, with REASONABLE oversight by a government looking out for the good of the country, works every time it’s tried.
Dr. Turek’s assessment and Jack Cashill’s analysis are correct; it IS the Culture and the breakdown of the culture that have created the current crisis. Can anyone reasonably argue that single parent and broken families are better on any level than intact, loving, moral, financially and physically and spiritually healthy ones?
March 16th, 2010 at 10:17 pm
False premises; they aren’t allowed to act according to market forces; they are micromanaged by bureaucrats and politicians. We no longer have a free enterprise system. Bonuses and salaries should be set by the companies through their boards of directors, not by fascist governments. In a free market system, those who earn salaries and bonuses will have earned them and be retained; those who don’t, won’t. Shareholders expect and demand that those managing the banks make a reasonable return on investment, and they alone should decide whether their managers have met their expectations. THAT is free enterprise.
So would you say that you’d be in favor of a *completely* deregulated economic system?
When the government forces banks to discard all rules regarding qualifying applicants and make loans to virtually anyone who applies on the one hand and then punishes the banks for making bad loans
If that money comes from government funding, then it’s only logical that the government be allowed to have at least some influence over how it’s spent. Otherwise it would be a completely free government handout….and that *would* be a redistribution of wealth.
It is all unfair, but the interference by government is the underlying cause
I think it’s a bit misleading (and shallow) to imply that government interference is the *only* thing that’s lead to the current economic state. People who don’t pay their premiums regularly would be financially hard on the companies with or without government regulation, so speaking personally, that’s where I’d look before making accusations about government mismanagement.
not the “greed” of the banks and the insurance companies.
The banks and insurance companies are not *completely* innocent either….there are plenty of exposees floating around on the internet written by former insurance agents who were specifically trained to deny claims based on technical issues or loopholes in the system. I’m not saying that all companies operate that way, but a fair amount of them do….and even if just a few of them did, that kind of practice is inevitably going to lead to people being unable or unwilling to continue paying for premiums, or even withdrawing their service from that company entirely.
Competition among businesses would drive the poorly performing ones out of business and grow the honest and efficient ones.
You seem to have a lot of faith in an unregulated economic system….me, I don’t have so much faith, especially not in times like these.
On a related note….would you say that you believe monopolies should be legal?
Free enterprise, with REASONABLE oversight by a government looking out for the good of the country, works every time it’s tried.
I don’t think you’ll find anyone who will argue with such a vague, general premise. Rather, the debate is about what is considered “reasonable.” Many people, for example, feel that it’s fairly reasonable for the government to keep a careful watch over the practices of businesses that are essential to economic functionality in American society — such as banks, for example. Industries like those are shaky enough, being the backbones of a so-called “free market economy” based on risky entrepeneurship, but if you throw in questionable business practices on top of that, it can send tremors through the entire national economy. There are good businesses that operate smartly, and there are bad businesses that operate stupidly; this is true in any industry, not just banking. Given that, it seems just as likely — if not moreso — that the banks are to blame for their own faulty business practices, than it is that all banks are operating with 100% efficiency and the government is solely responsible for bringing them into crisis. I just don’t believe that any industry can operate with that kind of efficiency.
I mean, the banks are showing signs of recovery, slowly. This isn’t the end of the American bank; it is a bad time to be in the business (unless you’re fond of handing out thousands of dollars in private bonuses, paid straight out of taxpayer pockets….ZING). If what you’re implying were true — if the government was somehow “forcing” the banking industry into financial hardship — then I think we would be seeing a unanimous decline in that direction.
Can anyone reasonably argue that single parent and broken families are better on any level than intact, loving, moral, financially and physically and spiritually healthy ones?
1) The fact that “loving, moral, financially and physically healthy” families are more preferable than single-parent broken ones is a separate point; I dare say you are committing a fallacy by equating it with Turek’s (more complicated) point.
2) Turek’s and Cashill’s (lol “Cash Hill”) assessments are hasty and blatantly agenda-driven, if anything. There is a significant portion of the picture that his/their case has not addressed.
Chances are, anytime someone tries to blame the *entirety* of such a complex situation as our current economic crisis on something simple and singular, that person is incorrect. Are broken homes a contributing factor? I don’t think you’ll find many who’d argue that they weren’t. But to equate that small issue — which is itself just a fragment of the whole picture — with the entire situation is a very hasty, very unintuitive conclusion.
March 16th, 2010 at 11:58 pm
So would you say that you’d be in favor of a *completely* deregulated economic system?
No, I addressed that in my post: “Free enterprise, with REASONABLE oversight by a government looking out for the good of the country, works every time it’s tried.”
If that money comes from government funding…
The government TOOK that money from the PEOPLE to bail out banks they had driven into financial crisis through government interference. The GOVERNMENT created the crisis and then “rode to the rescue” to “bail out the banks”…Read “Rules for Radicals”, and remember Rahm Emanuels quote, “Never let a crisis go to waste”. If the GOVERNMENT had instead reduced taxes and let the people KEEP their own money, there would have been no need for a bailout, and the money would have stayed in the PRIVATE sector, where it could create jobs and grow the economy. The market would have corrected itself and purged itself of the “toxic assets”. Did the government solution bring about the solution it promised or prevent the folding of banks? NO, they folded anyway and were absorbed by Obama and Company’s cronies, and the Recession was EXTENDED. What the government did IS redistribution of wealth.
We live in a “fallen world”, and unchecked man will do evil. I did not mean to imply that the banks and insurance companies have no culpability. I simply pointed out that the conditions created by the socialist policies of the government forced the worst behavior of the banks and insurance companies, mostly out of a need to survive. Even unethical people will generally act ethically for the most part when they don’t need to act unethically, so had the government not fouled up the proper regulation in the first place, none of this would have happened. GOVERNMENT created the bubble that burst. On the other side of the coin, ethical people will act unethically when they are driven to desperation, and that is what happened in some instances. It’s human nature. Government was created by God to hold man accountable and create a climate where man can live morally. Our government has failed in that mission for decades with the encroachment of Socialism, and the current government has taken that failure to a new low. We are now on the brink of tyranny.
On a related note….would you say that you believe monopolies should be legal?
Do you mean like the utility companies and the Post Office and the Department of Education and the EPA and….???
Reasonable is in the eye of the beholder, and it changes with the degree of trustworthiness of the companies or industries being regulated. What we have now in almost every sector of our lives is UNREASONABLE intrusion by government. I resent the government telling me what kind of light bulb and toilet I MUST buy and whether or not I can FISH on my OWN property. The Private Sector is much better at self-regulation because it has two powerful forces regulating it: Competition and the Profit Motive. Both will force companies to eliminate waste and improve service and the reliability of their products. Government has no such incentive; it can fail and simply go back to the taxpayer for more money.
The entire economy would recover in very short order if the fascist policies being implemented by this Administration and Congress were rescinded, taxes were reduced and levied FAIRLY, natural resources were opened up to exploration and harvesting so we could become energy independent and have the resources to actually develop new energy sources and technologies, and…..too many to list. One sure fix would be for the government to stop borrowing and printing and spending us and the next ten generations into ruin while choking off all sectors of the Private Sector.
I don’t think either Dr. Turek or Jack Cashill tried to address every aspect of the problem or the solution. Point out where you think what they stated was wrong.
March 17th, 2010 at 7:32 am
The government TOOK that money from the PEOPLE to bail out banks they had driven into financial crisis through government interference.
So, are you saying that the banks normally operate at 100% efficiency and would have been guaranteed success if not for “government interference” in the form of regulations?
remember Rahm Emanuels quote, “Never let a crisis go to waste”.
Every time someone pitches that quote to me, it reminds me of George Bush Jr.’s response to the bombing of the World Trade Center….I believe an approximation of that quote (in less satirical form) actually popped up somewhere on Project For A New American Century.
If the GOVERNMENT had instead reduced taxes and let the people KEEP their own money, there would have been no need for a bailout
I’m sure that you know *so much more* about finances and government than the financial experts and….the government….but thus far your explanations are too simple….for one, you seem to be equating “the people” with “massive corporations who practice shady business techniques.” Shady business techniques have been around much longer than government regulation, and never result in more financially sound businesses overall; this seems to be much more likely of a cause than government regulation, which is geared specifically towards stopping shady business practices that cause problems.
If the banks were to ever completely go under as an industry, then the rest of the economy wouldn’t be too far behind. I think it’s a reasonable case that the government should be at least partially responsible for making sure banks don’t get greedy with their practices; when the success or failure of the backbone of the nation’s economy is riding on your business practices, it’s really not acceptable to justify bad business practice by saying, ‘it’s our money, we can do what we want with it.’ Maybe it’s “your money” in the strictest sense, but what you do with it can make or break the economy. So you have a debt to society as well.
The market would have corrected itself and purged itself of the “toxic assets”.
That would be the most desirable result. Unfortunately, there is/was no guarantee of that, hence the action taken. If there had been such a guarantee, there would have been no problem in the first place.
Did the government solution bring about the solution it promised or prevent the folding of banks? NO, they folded anyway and were absorbed by Obama and Company’s cronies, and the Recession was EXTENDED.
I don’t see what the hullaballoo is about. The banks aren’t collapsing, they’re improving, and the economy is better off now than it was in 2008 in many ways.
What the government did IS redistribution of wealth.
As a funny man once approximately said, “That word, I don’t think it means what you think it means….”
I simply pointed out that the conditions created by the socialist policies of the government forced the worst behavior of the banks and insurance companies, mostly out of a need to survive.
What you did was blame the government for the entirety of the current situation; which leaves no room to blame banks for their behavior. Why do you think the government had to interfere in the first place? There are two main possibilities:
1) That the government was responding to concern expressed by the electorate regarding shady business practices by banks, as well as unnecessarily risky behaviors observed in the banks themselves; and that this caused them to place the banks under a stern eye for a short time;
2) There is some kind of Massive Worldwide Conspiracy To Promote Socialism(TM) For No Other Reason Than For The Evulz.
Also, taxes are socialist, medicare and medicaid are socialist, public infrastructure is socialist. Just because something is “socialist” doesn’t mean it’s automatically bad….anyways, it’s impossible to have a “pure” or “true” economic capitalist system.
Even unethical people will generally act ethically for the most part when they don’t need to act unethically, so had the government not fouled up the proper regulation in the first place, none of this would have happened.
So then are you saying that it was 100% the fault of the government’s interference?
If not, what part of the situation do you think can be blamed on the behavior of private banks?
Do you mean like the utility companies and the Post Office and the Department of Education and the EPA and….???
Well? Do you?
What we have now in almost every sector of our lives is UNREASONABLE intrusion by government.
I don’t feel that way….personally, I think it could be a *lot* worse. We don’t have Telescreens in our homes, for one, and we don’t have thought police who can read our minds
I resent the government telling me what kind of light bulb and toilet I MUST buy and whether or not I can FISH on my OWN property.
I’d rather not get into whatever personal resentments may be clouding your judgment at this time.
The Private Sector is much better at self-regulation because it has two powerful forces regulating it: Competition and the Profit Motive.
Unfortunately, product motive tends to run inherently counter to quality service. Which is to say that, if money can be made at the expense of quality, then companies tend to choose money. This is acceptable (from a legal standpoint) in most private businesses because they are not essential to our economy; if they fail, it is only they who lose. If banks fail, or if other important infrastructural businesses fail, then we all fail as well, and so it makes quite a lot more sense for there to be government surveillance of those sectors.
Government has no such incentive; it can fail and simply go back to the taxpayer for more money.
Government can’t just take whatever money it wants. Expenditures are voted on by representatives before any action is taken.
The entire economy would recover in very short order if the fascist policies being implemented by this Administration and Congress were rescinded,
I don’t think it’s possible to recover from the economic crises left by Bush Jr. in so little time….it took 8+ years to make the mess, it won’t be cleaned up in just 1 or 2.
One sure fix would be for the government to stop borrowing and printing and spending us and the next ten generations into ruin while choking off all sectors of the Private Sector.
All sectors? That’s simply false. Only the most important infrastructural sectors are even being regulated at this time (with perhaps the sole exception of the automotive industry….though that can be debated).
Point out where you think what they stated was wrong.
I already have. Their mistake is in equating one factor with the entire situation itself. They refuse to address how other factors could have a hand in bringing about economic crisis; their case assumes that it is only families which have brought about this situation….which induces a strange sort of double-think when people like yourself agree with that statement, and then go on to describe exactly how you believe the government caused the economic crises….so which is it? Is it corrupt family institutions, or is it all the government’s fault? Or is it simply a bigger picture than either of those explanations alone can account for?
March 17th, 2010 at 8:06 am
“Also, taxes are socialist, medicare and medicaid are socialist, public infrastructure is socialist”
Well they should STOP being socialist! We should start running them on the same grounds as the US Army. Bruce tells us that its the world’s best army, which couldn’t happen under a socialist system. Ask yourself how decent the US army would be if it was run on socialist principles - ie paid for by taxes - and if it had untrustworthy elected officials as some kind of ‘commander in chief’?
March 17th, 2010 at 8:11 am
By the way, how is the US Army paid for? Is it run by insurance companies? Apparently that’s a very efficient way of running an organisation.
March 17th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Bruce said:False premises; they aren’t allowed to act according to market forces
I actually think some regulation was at work, but that’s not what Dr. Turek’s claims in his post.
Notice what Dr. Turek says:Hence, pressure was put on banks
The idea of pressure is brought up in many discussions of the crisis from the right wing — it is often talked about as pressure because there is not a single law (of which I’m aware) that explicitly tells banks what loans to make, or that it must make this loan or that. This is different from regulation and this “pressure,” not laws and regulations, is what I was referring to.
(The best you can do, as far as I know, in the area of regulation is the targets HUD set in 2000 for Fannie and Freddy to buy more mortgages given to lower income borrowers. F&F had to make a good faith effort to buy these mortgages, or would be fined. The thing is, if mortgage banks didn’t make and approve these loans — which they were not forced by law or regulation to do — F&F would be off the hook because the loans were not there to buy. So you can say this put pressure on the banks to make these loans, but they were no regulated into doing so. It was still their choice to make the business decision. If we ask people to take personal responsibility, then I think the banks should too.)
If there is a law to which you can point, please let me know and I will certainly include it in my discussions from now on.
Perhaps ironically, of course, many on the left believe that believe it was the removal of government regulation which caused the financial meltdown.
As you know, much of the financial crisis had to do with security swaps (which essentially allowed banks to bundle good loans with bad loans in order to make the risky loans more difficult to detect).
Here is a relevant text from a law singed by President Clinton in ‘99:
1. The definition of “security” in section 2(a)(1) does not include any security-based swap agreement (as defined in section 206B of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act [15 USCS § 78c note]).
2. The Commission is prohibited from registering, or requiring, recommending, or suggesting, the registration under this title of any security-based swap agreement
3. The Commission is prohibited from … promulgating, interpreting, or enforcing rules; or … issuing orders of general applicability; … as prophylactic measures against fraud, manipulation, or insider trading with respect to any security-based swap agreement.
(emphasis mine)
Now, perhaps such regulation would have been “unreasonable” in your view. But you must at least admit that there is a powerful correlation (I am not an expert enough in this area to claim causation, though, certainly, many economists have) in the fact that the very financial instruments which were deregulated were the very instruments involved in the financial meltdown.
But again, Dr. Turek is claiming pressure for the financial mess, not regulation. If the premise is false in your view please address your complaint to him.
Later he says: Now we are all paying for false charges of racism Is he referring to the America is Racist Act of 1996? No, he is again referring to rhetorical pressure from the administration and the media (this is what the linked article cites).
Bruce said:Dr. Turek’s assessment and Jack Cashill’s analysis are correct
On what basis? I actually agree that there is some truth to it. The breakdown of the family is often (not always) detrimental, and it makes financial life more difficult I was trying to start a discussion along those lines, but perhaps fruitless repetition of left-right talking points is more fun.
Still, I don’t see how you can say the assessment is correct (as opposed to there being some truth contained in it).
Dr. Turek says: Since more minorities came from broken homes and thus had lower incomes, fewer minorities than whites could qualify for home loans. This seems rather obvious, except the Clinton administration charged that the real reason for the disparity was, you guessed it, racism. Hence, pressure was put on banks to make loans that no responsible lender should make. Now we are all paying for false charges of racism when a lack of personal responsibility was really the culprit.
Yet we see by the numbers that non-hispanic whites, who make up some 65% of the population (when white Hispanics are excluded) took out some 75% of subprime loans.
Sorry but this greatly damages the point Dr. Turek makes.
As I said, you can read many other articles which chronicle numbers and reasons that it’s simply incorrect to try to pin the blame for the financial crisis on minorities and the failure of personal responsibility in minority communities.
While some numbers do show that a subprime borrower was more likely to be non-white (as you know with research there are different ways to count, so it’s not smart to rely on just one study or set of numbers), they still do not show anything anywhere near the kind of wide disparity which would allow up to pin this on minorities (even if banks were forced to give loans to any unworthy people who applied, it is still up to the borrower to make a responsible decision, so certainly the borrowers deserve a good part of the blame in this view).
Bruce, did you listen to the radio program I recommended?
Thanks,
Luke
March 17th, 2010 at 3:24 pm
It’s the economic system which inevitably leads to a materialistic culture, stupid!
(Sorry for the choppy format of this entry. I am short on time, mostly intended it as a brainstorming exercise, and was afraid that cleaning it up would just add unnecessary words — my weakness as a writer — taking up more of your valuable time. I am truly thankful to anyone who will actually read this and comment thoughtfully.)
I will make an attempt to redirect some of this discussion to something that will hopefully be more productive.
I think Bruce and I may just have to disagree on what caused the financial meltdown. I think there were many factors, largely involving the need and incentive for financial markets to create investment instruments for the large money reserves which were no longer being invested in the traditional ways due to very low central bank rates around the world. This conflated with a time of high personal spending — buoyed by two fiscal ‘bubbles’ — which was, in many cases, financially irresponsible.
Bruce blames government regulation for stifling the market and not allowing it to function properly. I do agree that the government regulated some things improperly, but I think the fact that certain things were not regulated at all was just as problematic.
So, like I said, I can agree to disagree, I base my view on facts which I have read, and I am sure Bruce does the same.
The truth probably lies somewhere in between (obviously I think it lies closer to my view, but that’s not the point).
What I think is interesting here is another aspect of our culture, which I think could be at the root of the family breakdown.
I am not intending this as a fully thought out or written treatise on the subject, but rather I would like to throw out some ideas for discussion.
I would love to hear what Bruce and Dr. Turek think.
Let me start with two quotes:
The average American house size has more than doubled since the 1950s; it now stands at 2,349 square feet.
(Behind the Ever-Expanding American Dream House: NPR.com)
and
“I ask your continued participation and confidence in the American economy”
Do your business around the country. Fly and enjoy
America’s great destination spots. Get down to Disney World in
Florida.
– George W. Bush (these are actually excerpts from two different speeches. These and other similar remarks are widely, though just a bit incorrectly, referred to as Bush’s “Go shopping!” speeches)
So why has the average American house more than doubled in size?
Why is buying things (participating in the economy) so important to the survival of our nation?
Does anyone actually need to park their BMW or a Lexus in the garage of their 5,000 sq ft house? If not, why do such things even exist?
It seems to me that we can trace many these products to the free enterprise system.
(Before anyone overreacts, I am not proposing to have a better idea, I am just trying to fairly analyze problems with the system we have.)
Let me ask:
Does anyone here not believe that our culture sees value and fulfillment in things like bigger houses and nice cars?
If you agree with the above sentiment, then do you believe that the fact that sellers and producers in a free enterprise system have the incentive to push such a belief — since purchasing bigger houses, with more expensive countertops, and more TVs, with bigger cars in the garage is of economic benefit to these free acting, rational, economic agents?
If so, is that a good thing?
Does it make sense to have a system in which rational actors will push for production and purchase of things which may be unnecessary?
Let me share another story. I am sure anyone (who lives in the US at least) remembers Crocs. (The funny, rubber-like shoes which were all the rage several years ago.)
The company was touted as a huge success story, a highly publicized IPO raised hundreds of millions and the stock traded at around $70. Now the company finds itself in severe trouble, just a few short years later. The stock went all the way down to around $3. The company has changed much of its offering and has made a bit of a recovery, but is still down some 1,000% since the good lo’ days.
So what happened?
I’ll quote from a story about the company (Madden: “Admit it — you used to wear Crocs”)
Crocs, it seemed, were virtually indestructible. Which meant no one ever had to buy replacement pairs. Perhaps no one at Crocs HQ had heard the term “planned obsolescence”…
At some point, the company saturated its market and suddenly … everyone who ever had any intention of owning a pair of Crocs, did. And sales came crashing down.
So here was a product that, I think all would concede, is a good one. It lasts almost forever. This seems like a superior feature to sneakers that often cost more and last a year at best.
Yet, in the free enterprise system, such a long lasting product is a loser. There is no incentive for consumers to buy more — because the product is already so good.
It is no secret that many companies purposefully make products not to last — so they may sell more of them. If they don’t, the companies suffer – as the company which makes Crocs has.
So while it may be rational for a company to build its products not to last (and clearly, it often is), is it rational for a society to function this way?
Along a similar line of thought:
I’d like to post yet another quote, this one much older.
‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and the alien. (Leviticus 23)
Yet the system of free enterprise rewards those who ignore such regulations. Which farmer will be more successful? The farmer who sells all the yield from his field, uses that money to invest in even more fields, and so on, or the farmer who listens to these words and intentionally leaves profitable crop for others?
To tie this back to the original article a bit, if the latter farmer is hit with a foreclosure and loses his home, say due to something out of his control like a drought, who will society see as acting properly? Probably the former, but who really acted more responsibly when we look at society at large? Why do we see more value in the farmer who lived only for himself?
Why not value someone who does not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen and leaves them for the poor and the alien? (Lev 19:10) I see more value in this person than one who makes sure all the profit is, but I don’t know if we do as a society.
Allow me to return to a point I raised earlier in this thread:
If dual-parent, but single-income families were more likely to default on loans, should that be taken as a sign that such families are undesirable?
I don’t have data on this (I welcome anyone who does to share it), but I would be willing to guess that dual-parent single-income families have a smaller average income than dual-parent dual-income families. Along with this, I bet they have bigger houses, more TVs, newer clothes.
Though this is anecdotal, I see this in my life (as I said, my family has largely followed the dual-parent single-income model). We don’t have as nice of a house as our dual-income friends — it’s smaller, older (though not old enough to make it cool), and not in as nice of a neighborhood. We don’t even own a TV (basic cable in our area is now something like $80.) A lot of the clothes I have, I’ve had for 10 years or so. (Though I admit to recently spending some $50 on Sale items at the Gap, when I got to thinking about how old some of my clothes were.)
Is that bad? Are we a failed family if we don’t have a 2,349 sq. ft house (which was the average house?
To be clear, I am not complaining and I am very thankful and happy for what we have. We probably could even find a way to have cable, and a bigger house, but is that really necessary? Would it make us any better?
Another anecdote. I was recently having a small-talk conversation with a stranger, and she asked me if I had seen some commercial or something.
Me: No, we actually don’t have a TV.
Person: Oh, I’m sorry. That sucks.
What if it doesn’t? What if Samsung, and GE (owner of NBC) and Cabletime and Direct TV have simply convinced us that it sucks. What if they’ve simply convinced us that someone who doesn’t have a TV deserves our condolences/
What if we don’t really need bigger houses (have people doubled in size since the 50s?). What if there is economic incentive (if not necessity) for economic agents to sell us newer and bigger houses, and fancier bathrooms and quartzite countertops?
If the economy is not growing at some 2% then people start losing jobs, and we start to see the spread of suffering.
But what if everyone had everything they needed by 2018, so they quit buying? In 2019, the economy would collapse.
Does it make sense to have a system which would collapse simply because everyone was happy with what they had?
Here is another fact about the subprime mortgage problem. “‘A typical subprime borrower is not someone buying a house, but someone refinancing,’ says Mary Moore, a spokeswoman from the Center for Responsible Lending, a nonprofit that advocates curbs on predatory lending. ‘A typical subprime borrower is someone who has a lot of credit-card debt, and is refinancing to pay some of it off.‘” (Lee: “Subprime Mortgages: A Primer.”)
A majority of the supreme problem then was not people trying to get into their first home (as the article suggests) and a large part of the problem was that people had overspent - borrowed money — to buy all this stuff we are constantly told we need, and when they got in trouble, they turned to the increasing equity they had in their homes. (Many of you have probably heard the phrase that many Americans were seeing their homes as cash machines.)
Again to return closer to the ideas in the article: Is it fair to judge the fitness of a family structure based on their economic performance? It seems to me that Dr. Turek is flirting with idea, if not outright endorsing it.
So is that fair? And, again, if it is, do we apply that to dual-parent, single-income families? If not, then it becomes special pleading and is not of much use.
I think I have taken up enough space here with this brainstorm of questions and ideas, but I would like to tie this up by returning (quickly) to what I set out to do. (I said I wanted to discuss: “another aspect of our culture, which I think could be at the root of the family breakdown.”
Here is a quote from a website called divorcesource (you can find the quote by googling it).
For almost all the couples I provide divorce mediation services to, ongoing quarrels and differences over money are frequently cited as one of the primary reasons for their marriage problems.
I think many of us see this all around us and know intuitively that money is at the heart of many arguments and very commonly leads to marital problems.
So what if this buying, - shopping – selling culture – this culture which has though us that the value of people is somehow tied to their economic success, their house and their car – is exacerbating all these marital problems?
What if we didn’t have a culture that said you need stuff. Stuff makes you worthwhile. What if a husband didn’t want a 60” tv Best Buy is promoting for the big game, and what if the wife didn’t get mad at her husband because he didn’t get her the 2 carat diamond ring which the girl in the advertisement got? (Diamonds – another thing which marketing has convinced us is a “must” in relationships.)
What if they didn’t start arguing over those things?
How many marriages might be saved if there was not a constant push all around – from rationally acting (so how can we blame them?) economic actors – saying “you need this, and this and this!!!”
So what if we can take this back a step?
Maybe it’s not: It’s the economy, stupid!
And maybe not even, It’s the culture, stupid!
What if it is this:
It’s the economic system which inevitably leads to a materialistic culture, stupid!
Thoughts?
March 17th, 2010 at 8:28 pm
Luke,
Thanks for your posts, but again I don’t have time to sort through them all. I will say that I know that one huge bank here in Charlotte (you figure it out) were told, in so many words, that if they did not increase their loans to minorities, then their desired mergers would not be approved. Government regulation is used as leverage for political ends.
Moreover, to Nathan’s observation, one reason you need more than one breadwinner in the family is to pay a higher tax burden. Why do we have a higher tax burden? One big reason, entitlement programs and social costs. Why do we have increased social costs? The breakdown of the family. Virtually every social problem we have can be traced back to a breakdown in the family.
Blessings,
Frank
March 17th, 2010 at 9:07 pm
I will say that I know that one huge bank here in Charlotte (you figure it out)
Of course. Can’t be caught quoting it directly….got to leave some wiggle room for later, just in case~
Virtually every social problem we have can be traced back to a breakdown in the family.
A more accurate way to phrase that would probably be, many social problems we have are in some way influenced by the state of the family….
March 17th, 2010 at 9:11 pm
No Tim. I will not quote my source directly because it was personal communication. I live in Charlotte.
March 17th, 2010 at 9:34 pm
Mr. T, are you anti-entitlements and social programs?
March 17th, 2010 at 11:05 pm
Perhaps that previous question is will just lead off into tangents. Consider this:
In an economy based on population growth where the goal is MORE, MORE, MORE! The value of work will diminish as the market is glutted with workers. Add to that the workers would fair better if they had higher education, but they can’t get a better education because business drives the prices of everything up while driving the wages down to increase their bottom lines. On top of that factor in the pay gap between men and women.
The problem can more be attributed to corporate malfeasance and the unrealistic goal of higher and higher profits.
You said: “Virtually every social problem we have can be traced back to a breakdown in the family.”
Really? Is that why we needed social security? Or medicare?
I really don’t see how on one hand you can be committed to jesus, the one who, ” went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.” yet blame the masses and the government (which comes from the masses) for all the problems of the country. When, in your eyes, do the business pushing for deregulation and ever increasing profits get some culpability?
March 18th, 2010 at 8:18 am
“Virtually every social problem we have can be traced back to a breakdown in the family.”
A bit reductive. One could equally say ‘it’s all down to over-population, people having too many kids’. When the population was a third of what it is today - only four or five decades ago - property was cheaper and people weren’t packed into densely populated areas.
An interesting side-note, has anyone read the research showing the disproportionate impact on families that imprisoning males has? In short, removing 10% of the males from a population leads to something like a 40% reduction in marriage, not the 10% that you might intuitively have guessed.
If 10% of young black males in an area are in prison, the men that are left can simply choose not to go out with women who insist on marriage. For complicated ‘game theory’ reasons I don’t have time to explain now, this affects the marriage prospects of ALL the black women in the area, not just 90% of them.
The same thing can be seen in areas where there are fewer men for other reasons, eg Manhattan, where women flock in the hope of bagging a rich career man, with the result that women outnumber the men, and marriage numbers plummet.
So the marriage breakdown isn’t the start of the problem, it’s a symptom of the high crime rates. Though of course, the latter is caused by the former too - a vicious circle.
March 21st, 2010 at 4:22 pm
This is an interesting addition to the discussion, kind of backing up what I said, at least in relation to the UK, from today’s Observer:
“Couples are delaying getting married and starting families because they cannot afford to buy their own homes, according to a YouGov survey commissioned by a housing campaign group.
Four out of 10 young adults have said they will not settle down until they can buy their own house.
A further 7% of people aged between 18 and 30 said they had put off marriage because they could not afford to buy a property or were saving up for one.
“We are in danger of locking a whole generation of young people out of the housing market because prices are simply too high,” said David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, which commissioned the survey of 1,096 young adults who did not own their own home.
“A chronic shortage of new affordable homes has sent prices rocketing over the last decade, well out of reach of the vast majority of first-time buyers.”
Almost two-thirds of those questioned said high prices were to blame for them being unable to buy a house. Just over 40% said banks had refused to offer a mortgage. One in five said uncertainty over the economy was another key factor in their decision.”
March 26th, 2010 at 11:55 am
Frank Turek said:Thanks for your posts.
Sure; you’re welcome.
Frank Turek said:again I don’t have time to sort through them all.
No problem. I’ll hope you’ll admit though that it takes more room to develop arguments and cite research. I could be much more concise if I just posted talking points. I think we’ll agree that wouldn’t help anyone understand anything or help either of us come to any sort of understanding on the issues.
I will sum up my 3 main arguments, which are developed below in one sentence, just in case it helps.
I. Minorities took a proportion of subprime loans which is perfectly in line with their share of the population, therefore putting more blame on minority communities simply does not add up.
II. The income tax burden for families with the highest divorce rates is lower than for families with lower divorce rates; income levels where divorce is highest often pay no income tax, and even receive tax credits.
III. The biggest (by far) social programs are Social Security and Medicare, which are difficult to connect to family breakdown.
Frank Turek said: I will say that I know that one huge bank here in Charlotte (you figure it out) were told, in so many words, that if they did not increase their loans to minorities, then their desired mergers would not be approved.
1. When was this?
2. I think you’ll understand that I can’t respond to hearsay evidence (which you admit above this is).
3. Whatever anecdotal evidence you provide (and I have no doubts you can provide some), it does not override the statistics I have provided. If 75% or so of subprime loans (which everyone admits were a huge part of the crisis) went to whites, then how can you blame irresponsible minorities for said crisis? It simply doesn’t add up.
Frank Turek said:one reason you need more than one breadwinner in the family is to pay a higher tax burden
You say “one reason;” how large of a factor is this, and what research are you relying on for this claim?
(I cited many other reasons and I wonder how much more or less of an influence those have been in your view.)
Several of things come to mind immediately though, which make me question your thesis.
1. In 1950 the rate for the bottom tax bracket was 17.4% and over 84% for the top bracket. By 1952, the lower bracket had climbed to 22% and remained at 20% or above (90% or above for the high bracket) until the mid 60s.
The low bracket is now at 10% the lowest rate since 1941. The highest bracket is now 35% (lowest since 1931).
There are also many more tax credits and deductions for poor families. I will write more on this below, but an often repeated complaint on the right is that many, many people do not even pay income taxes in this country. While it is true that the average overall tax paid by a family has risen from below $11,000 per family in 1965 to over $20,000 a few years ago, you must look at who is paying the taxes these days. It’s often the rich that are paying. According to the CBO in 2004, about 85% of income taxes is paid by 40% of the population (and 64.4% by the top 20) (Weisman: “Tax Burden Shifts to the Middle”.). The top 40% is not the population segment that has the largest problems with divorce rates.
2. Since WWII the share of taxes in relation to GDP has stayed roughly around 19.5%. (Ranson: “You Can’t Soak the Rich”)
3. As I said, I often hear pundits on the right complain that many, many people in this country don’t pay income taxes. (I often hear most, but according to the tax policy center that number is closer to 40%.) Of course, it’s the people near the bottom of the income scale who don’t pay income tax. However, every set of statistics I’ve seen shows that higher income couples are less likely to divorce. (According to divorceform the chances of divorce for those earning $50k is 30% lower than those making $25K.) Yet, richer couples also have a higher tax burden. So it would seem that those who pay more in taxes have a higher chance for marital success. (Clearly this is correlation, not causation, but it’s a correlation which hurts the case you’re trying to make.)
4. President Obama recently passed what everyone agrees is among the largest tax cuts in our history, if not the biggest. His tax cut, unlike many recent cuts, strongly impact those income classes where divorce is a problem. Do you think this will drive divorce rates down? (Have you given him credit for this, as a pro-family policy, anywhere?)
5. As I said earlier, the average size of a house has more than doubled since the 50s. If the tax burden is so crushing that families have to work more just to pay taxes, then how is it that people have still been able to afford twice as much house? It seems much more intuitive to me to say that people had a choice — keep a similar standard of living and similar level of work, or have more stuff (twice the house, etc) and work more. Most people chose the latter. If people need to work two jobs just to pay the taxes, where are they getting all this other stuff?
6. Even looking at just mandatory expenses, other factors, with health care and education leading the way, have risen much faster than the tax burden and have put a much bigger squeeze on families. Do you disagree with this?
That said, I think you and I agree that the tax burden is too high on low income families. (This is one reason I approve of the things Obama has done. He has actually given a huge tax cut to the people that we both agree need it!)
Taxes should be lower for these families (the income levels where divorce is highest), but I just don’t see evidence that rising taxes has led to people working more, especially in comparison to other factors..
Frank Turek saidWhy do we have increased social costs? The breakdown of the family.
Dr. Turek, you’ll have to cite some numbers and statistics, or it’s really difficult to know what you’re talking about specifically.
Without being able to respond in anything specific, I’ll just ask: aren’t Medicare and Social Security by far the largest problems as far as entitlements? Is this more related to an influx of baby boomers into these systems, or to divorce and single parents? Is it maybe the fact that people live longer?
For 2009, Social Security and Medicare made up almost 40% of federal spending (over $670 billion each). I don’t really see how divorce rates increase social security spending or old people getting sick.
Honestly, how does divorce rate or anything of the sort connect to the $678,000,000,000 (FY2009) for social security in the budget?
In comparison, SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — a.k.a. Food Stamps) cost some $38 billion.
That’s 1700% less than Social Security!
Social Security and Medicare make up some 40% of the budget. “Food stamps” make up 1%
Again, I’ll agree with you that that 1% can be traced, in part, to family breakdown. I’ll even add Medicaid to this, which is clearly a problem as far as budgets (state budgets especially). I’ll agree with you further that we should lower the tax burden for these families (even if they dont pay FIT, everyone who works pays payroll tax). But I can’t connect most of the trillions we will be spending in the next decade on social programs to the breakdown of the family — most of this is for social security and Medicare can be connected to people getting old and to people having lots of babies, mostly in intact families in the post war period.
Thanks and I hope you will engage some of the other problems I have brought up which have led to family breakdown. D
March 26th, 2010 at 6:26 pm
Luke,
Have you scooted over to townhall.com and read Frank’s stuff? He talked about halting comments on this site. I wonder if that’s because it seems that most of the commenters here are skeptics/atheists/whatever. If that is the case for his wanting to shut comments off here, then you have to wonder if he agrees with the comments on townhall.com. Many of which are people commenting that the president is a muslim, that he wasn’t born here, and that he should be impeached.
March 26th, 2010 at 6:38 pm
I wonder if that’s because it seems that most of the commenters here are skeptics/atheists/whatever.
Well, based solely on what’s been stated I would hope that’s not the case, because it was my understanding that this site was an attempt to, in a sense, “reach out” to people who do not already agree with the premises being stated.
Although there are times when I wonder if Christians/theists have as much “fun” arguing with skeptics/atheist/whatevers as “we” (well, I) do arguing with them….0.0
March 26th, 2010 at 6:42 pm
P.S.
No Tim. I will not quote my source directly because it was personal communication. I live in Charlotte.
I just thought it was odd that you should mention it as though it provides some degree of evidence, but then admit that it’s not verifiable, and therefore no person can be reasonably expected to accept it as fact. I mean, it’s not necessarily false for the same reason, but it’s hardly concrete evidence and it doesn’t substitute for it very well….think of how you would react in a similar argument if the tables were turned and I told you what “a friend of mine” said happened to him.
It reminds me of that post about “sleeping with your girlfriend,” really.
March 26th, 2010 at 7:41 pm
Tim,
I was wondering what the comments sections of this site would look like if you, luke, nathan, and I stopped showing up to rant. I think most post comments would look like this: “Yeah, I agree. You hit the nail on the head.” and there would only be two or three of them. Not a hundred or more. If Frank were a sound business man he’d put advertising on here that would net him some big jack to help the poor . . . which a true conservative would never do because that would be welfare . . . so I guess he’d buy golden toilet seats or collectible bibles. Wow, imagine owning Falwell’s bible!
March 26th, 2010 at 11:22 pm
Frank, I could certainly understand why you would want to shut off comments here. I’m not certain and you can correct me, but I believe this may fall under Matthew 7:6. I know that we should be trying to reach everyone for Christ but there are some who seem to detest what is good and what is holy. Please know that there are many of us out here who enjoy the information that you post and I look foward to your radio program each week. I recently posted a comment to “Country a mess, Blame the church”. I do believe that the passiveness of the church in areas such as politics is destroying us. Once again, thank you for your boldness in saying what needs to be said. Be blessed. Tommy
March 27th, 2010 at 12:47 am
OH NO! Tommy just agreed w/ Dr. Turek!!! And with that he just confirmed that this place too is infected with the McCarthy-like disease of “agreementarianism”!!! JUST LIKE OVER THERE AT TOWNHALL!!!
HORRORS! Quick, somebody start a rumor about how all of the conservative posters here drop “N-bombs” like 20 times a day and, LOOK!, one of them just spat on Toby!!!! Oh no! It’s too late! There’s a run on golden toilet seats over at Needless Mark-up! -
ONCE AGAIN THE POOR WILL SUFFER AT THE HANDS OF THESE MONSTERS!!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGG!!!
March 27th, 2010 at 4:55 am
“There are some who seem to detest what is good”
Can you give an example? All I see here is people with an interest in what is TRUE. If the truth conflicts with what you believe, or what you would LIKE to believe, that doesn’t make the truth bad.
March 27th, 2010 at 10:10 am
“there are some who seem to detest what is good and what is holy”
Why put those two things together? Look at people letting the Pope cover up abusive Bishops. By definition the Pope is holy, but I’d like to see anyone arguing that he is good.
“Many of which are people commenting that the president is a muslim, that he wasn’t born here, and that he should be impeached.”
I wonder about which Townhall commentators are a little embarrassed by their readers. Probably not enough, but some must be like John McCain when he was confronted by his voting base, telling him against his protestations that Obama was an evil Kenyan Muslim.
These are the people who, in Frank’s words, will ‘argue at any cost’. Any criticism of Obama is good and valid, regardless of how divorced from reality, simply because it is criticism of Obama.
One thing’s for certain - there’s not much point in engaging them with debate.
“If that is the case for his wanting to shut comments off here…”
I’d be interested to hear from Frank direct quotes from the comments here that he found unacceptable.
March 28th, 2010 at 11:18 pm
OH NO! Tommy just agreed w/ Dr. Turek!!! And with that he just confirmed that this place too is infected with the McCarthy-like disease of “agreementarianism”!!! JUST LIKE OVER THERE AT TOWNHALL!!!
HORRORS! Quick, somebody start a rumor about how all of the conservative posters here drop “N-bombs” like 20 times a day and, LOOK!, one of them just spat on Toby!!!! Oh no! It’s too late! There’s a run on golden toilet seats over at Needless Mark-up! -
ONCE AGAIN THE POOR WILL SUFFER AT THE HANDS OF THESE MONSTERS!!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGG!!!
…what just happened?
March 29th, 2010 at 8:25 am
possibly the fall of the whole world!
March 29th, 2010 at 8:30 am
I find it increasingly difficult to believe that anyone of the christian ilk can’t see that their religion isn’t anything like it used to be. Some label themselves “conservatives”, but all this label means is, “I don’t want anything to change.” Their religion has evolved from the very beginning. It changes with the times. And if they were to go back a 1000 years, heck, even a 100 years, they’d likely confront some intolerance for their views of religion. Religious conservativism will not “save” your church or your life or your world.
Random thoughts finished for the moment.
March 29th, 2010 at 10:35 am
Stitfel, I don’t believe Tim enjoys or even understands good sarcasm the way I do. As sad as it is, I still had to laugh. To you I say thank you. I will still keep a check here to see if I get an answer from Frank about my question of Matthew 7:6. To the rest of you I say, you have to look at the bright side. At least I have given you something to ” RANT ” about for a day or two, and to you I say….your welcome.
March 29th, 2010 at 2:26 pm
I just think it’s funny that about the only people here that comment are nonbelievers. It’d kind of be smackdown for Frank if he turns off his comments because it’d be a kind of defeat.
March 29th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
I think the biggest problems with the comments lately is that Dr. Turek rarely participates.
March 29th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
@ Tommy
As Stitfel’s legal representation, and unrelated “brother in the cause”, I am passing this on for him per his request, “Thanks, Brother. It’s so lonely going through life not being understood by egg-headed leftists, and your kind words caused me to show the four teeth I have left in my right-wing, inbred, extra chromosome assembled noggin -stumpy as they might be. Now, as far as Matthew 7:6 goes, how else could one possibly read it? That was the “problem” with God while He was here in the flesh: We humans already questioned/rebelled against half of what He said when it was coming directly from above but, when He walked among us, the “intelligentsia” were so busy being offended that they either missed what He was saying or instinctively reacted with efforts to kill Him as they knew it was them He was ripping to shreds.
Personally, I thought you summed up the spirit of what Dr. Turek was speaking of (re: dropping the comments) with your reference to Mat. 7:6. Think about it though, as the commenter above noted, all he gets for his efforts is a bunch of unbending, close-minded, leftist dogma (by about 90% of the posters here) and now they are preparing to claim that their side won in that oh so classy leftist method of operation: First) effectively destroy something that’s been given them for free. 2nd) declare “victory” by virtue of their overwhelming onslaught of close minded non-responses and made up facts. Can’t blame them, really, they’re merely following “dear leader” who got rewarded with the presidency of the U.S. by lying about who he was and what he would do and now when someone calls him on it he says, “Hey, stupid, the election’s over. I won. Time to acknowledge the fact that that makes me right about everything now.” If I was Frank, it would be tempting to verbally cuff one of these nimrods upside the head. But he’s a gentleman, so don’t hold yer breath.
The pharisees “won”, did that make them right? Tommy, I’ll see your Mat. 7:6 and raise you, “The Road to Serfdom”. The Bible verse instructs us what not to do, but that doesn’t mean that they will not bare false witness to the bitter end. Look at the Pravda style, statist “news” media whom the leftists here, and pretty much everywhere else, parrot as a means of displaying how bright and caring they are. It’s as if conventional wisdom propagated the notion that drowning was a myth put forth by “evil, capitalistic life vest salesmen” and all we need do is jump in the lake and take a big old gulp of life saving water and all of mankind would soon be free. Hm, that is a good illustration for leftism in action: brief initial discomfort leading to mild struggle leading to slow, euphoric death. Okay so only Obamabots, like the usual’s around here, will be in euphoria. But, being self proclaimed centers of the (”known”) universe, that is as it should be, yes?
As things stand (tea partyers, etc.), Americans may not be so willing to go “gentle into that good night” so, I am looking forward to many very uneuphoric election nights -for our leftist pals here and abroad- to come in the months and years ahead.
Can I get an “AMEN!”?
sincerely, Stitfel”
March 29th, 2010 at 8:20 pm
Stitfel, I don’t believe Tim enjoys or even understands good sarcasm the way I do. As sad as it is, I still had to laugh. To you I say thank you. I will still keep a check here to see if I get an answer from Frank about my question of Matthew 7:6. To the rest of you I say, you have to look at the bright side. At least I have given you something to ” RANT ” about for a day or two, and to you I say….your welcome.
Um….have you read *anything* I’ve ever posted? It’s been said that my body is comprised of 98% sarcasm
In any case, I haven’t seen anyone rant since that comment was posted….although, I’m still curious about what just happened 0.0
March 30th, 2010 at 9:50 am
Yes, those “tea partyers, etc.” won’t go gentle into that good night (a good night that only resides in their paranoid and delusional minds). They throw rocks through windows, spit on people, call them names, and cut their propane gas lines . . . if that’s the kind of people you’re talking about then I say to the devil with them. They are terrorists fighting for some paranoid idea that they’re losing their rights. Sure, a government that’s said to be to incompetent to manage healthcare or regulate banks and other things . . . is somehow able to manage huge cover ups and conspiracies and are so well organized that they can take control over everything, know everything, and monitor every single thing you do. Sure. That’s the problem with tea partyers and the like. They have two ideas of government in their heads that are mutually exclusive. An intelligent, well organized maniacal government bent on power . . . and one that’s so inept that it can do nothing correctly.
And the census is a big conspiracy and infringement!
March 30th, 2010 at 4:46 pm
Thank you for the illustration, Toby. As a faithful follower of the aforementioned Pravda media, no one can blame you for not knowing that every “fact” you just spewed is a complete and utter lie.
“They throw rocks through windows” Of an office thirty stories up? Lie #1 that is now folkloric “reality” to those too weak minded to think for themselves - check
“spit on people” I sure hope you’re not going into law w/ such a willingness to believe fantasy. Proof please, sir. Never mind, producing “proof” of things that have never happened is something you have yet to learn about. Maybe you can attend a seminar on Alinsky tactics this weekend. They sure do wonders for B. Hussein and co. Lie #2 - check
“call them names” Again, dozens of cameras present and not even one shred of evidence for this lie? Really, you should be quite proud of your willingness to suspend disbelief. It will no doubt take you far in “the party”. Lie #3 - check
“and cut their propane gas lines” WOW! Very impressive, is this one, indeed. The total lack of curiosity by people who despise America never ceases to amaze. The brother of some rep. had his Barbecue hose come loose and you guys reconstruct “The night of the long knives” in your heads.
What was that you were saying about paranoia? #4 - check
Here’s a challenge for you: If a Tea Party comes anywhere near you, go wade in and find out how insanely rabid and dangerous they really are. Nah, never mind. Even a big brave guy like you might not survive such an ordeal, what with all of the killings and pillaging going on at those things.
How about a compromise? Go to a “peace march” and exercise your free speech by praising G. Bush and Cheney. I’m sure you wouldn’t get assaulted there. Unless you call spitting, name calling and but rape assault. But you are obviously an open minded kind of guy so, I’m sure you will do your best to understand their rage.
March 30th, 2010 at 5:39 pm
Thrown Rocks - Rep. Gabrielle Giffords office in tuscon, goon, not the ohio rep. I’d expound, but I’m sure you’re google savy.
Spit on people - amazing how people can post video on the internet. i’d try seraching for “Rep. Emanuel Cleaver spat on video”
Called names - I don’t know if there is any video of this out there, but why would someone feel the need to lie about that when it was clear that they were going to be able to pass the bill anyway? When you’ve got a guy shouting “baby killer” or even “it’s a baby killer” (which if you watch the video there seems to be too many syllables for that) and that guy is a congressman showing no respect for anything or anyone, it’s not hard to imagine a nobody in a crowd being cowardly enough to shout horrible things at someone.
Gas line - perhaps this was unrelated, but all accounts clearly say “cut”, not loose barbecue hose. I guess we’ll just have to wait for the FBI findings . . . or are they just puppets?
March 30th, 2010 at 5:51 pm
I guess we’ll just have to wait for the FBI findings . . . or are they just puppets?
Depends on whether or not the outcome is favorable to Fox News’ Tea Party movement.
March 30th, 2010 at 7:04 pm
I thought this was toby-timNATHAN-LUKE.org (???) Come on you other two, where’s your incessant, parrot-like input? I know you’re out there….because that is why no one else is here.
March 30th, 2010 at 8:46 pm
note: Andrew Breitbart is offering $100,000 to anyone who can produce proof of the alleged “n-word” tossing. Could that be why the last post was, uh, aborted? Regardless, it was embarrassing spin for sure….Are there any adults around?
@ Tim
The FBI is now making public, only things that make Fox News look good? Now that’s a revelation considering how BHO’s justice dept. (as well as BHO himself, his cabinet and congress) is shredding/adding to the Bill of Rights.
March 31st, 2010 at 1:17 am
To Stitfel,
Sorry I’m so late getting back to you. Had to work late. Your causing me to go back on my word. I said I was not going to post anything else, but I enjoyed your comments ( teaching ) today I just had to respond. Its great having someone spiritually intelligent to discuss these things with. Your comparison of the leftist strive for socialism and death by drowning was excellent.
I do not have the patience to try to debate anything with, well, lets just say them. I grew up on a farm and around farmers and its kind of like having a pasture full of beautiful quarter horses. But in trying to take their feed, their nourishment to them, you find two fat cows standing in the road chewing their cud. ( cud being food they had eaten the day before, harked back up so they can chew on it some more ) You can blow your horn, yell or calmly ask them to move and they will simply stand there chewing their cud with a dazed look on their face. You have to get out and slap them on the behind so that progress can be made.
Its sad that Mr. Friedrich V. Hayek ( The Road to Serfdom ) could see the evil of socialism so well in the 1930’s and 40’s but we seem to be so blind today. You would think “with our experience” truth would be pouring out of us. But Stitfel, as you have pointed out , man had rather believe a lie than the truth. The left will spend all of their energy trying to discredit the message by trying to discredit the messenger. Generally with “facts” they make up as they go.
Paul said if a man does not work he should not eat. Paul was not trying to be unbenevolent, he simply understood that a man who does not work becomes lazy and becomes dependent on others.( That being government today ). The end result is a man who cannot understand or appreciate what God has so richly blessed us with. In all of this I ask where is the church! Politicians will never solve these problems, only Jesus Christ .
Got to go Stitfel. For now I’ll go on being that right wing, spit slinging, rock throwing, propane line cutting extremist. ( At least in their eyes )
Be blessed brother.
Tommy
March 31st, 2010 at 3:22 am
“If a Tea Party comes anywhere near you, go wade in and find out how insanely rabid and dangerous they really are. ”
I read an article recently where someone did just that. Turns out most of the Tea Party activists he spoke to were unemployed and on benefits. Figures.
“I thought this was toby-timNATHAN-LUKE.org (???) Come on you other two, where’s your incessant, parrot-like input?”
Oh, so you’re someone who posts here regularly yourself, but have just changed your name to cover it up? And I’ve got a pretty good idea who.
As for this ’socialism’ business, how come none of these right wingers are campaigning to have the military de-nationalized? Your army is socialist right now, but for some reason that’s different. Pure hypocrasy.
March 31st, 2010 at 7:21 am
@ Tim
The FBI is now making public, only things that make Fox News look good? Now that’s a revelation considering how BHO’s justice dept. (as well as BHO himself, his cabinet and congress) is shredding/adding to the Bill of Rights.
Nah. Just trollin’ ya.
Although it’s interesting that you use the word “BHO,” which was what Fox News started calling Barack Obama after they realized the whole “Hussein” thing wasn’t gonna carry over with the mainstream (because, you know, it’s racist).
Got to go Stitfel. For now I’ll go on being that right wing, spit slinging, rock throwing, propane line cutting extremist. ( At least in their eyes )
No biggie. You’ll all be dead in a year or two anyway, right? ‘Cause of “socialism?” So it won’t much matter.
Oh, so you’re someone who posts here regularly yourself, but have just changed your name to cover it up? And I’ve got a pretty good idea who.
Holy cow, you’re right! It’s Mark! He’s the only one who can awkwardly cram 8 left-wing conspiracy theories into one sentence like that. Also, he’s the only one who’s ever gotten quite this emotional over political talking points….most people I know aren’t that emotionally-attached to them.
Although I already had this sneaking suspicion that Mark/Tommy and, um….Tsitfel Krejeenk….were the same person.
March 31st, 2010 at 10:56 am
“(because, you know, it’s racist).”
I knew it, Frank put you in here just to mess w/ us, didn’t he?
Man, that’s a relief, it was so emotionally impacting to think anyone could have such beliefs w/o being a raving lunatic…but still, I might burst into hysterics at anytime so, please, keep the Kleenex ® handy would ya?
March 31st, 2010 at 11:02 am
Hello Mark.
March 31st, 2010 at 3:01 pm
“Paul said if a man does not work he should not eat.” Quite so . . . Paul said this not Jesus. Does that make this divine? Paul was concerned with “Thessalonian Christians expecting the imminent return of Jesus, who have stopped concerning themselves with day-to-day living.” This isn’t the word of god, it’s the word of Paul trying to hold his church together.
Did Jesus go around asking the poor WHY they were poor or if they were lazy?
“Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you will, you can do good to them…”
“But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”
March 31st, 2010 at 4:30 pm
I know, I know, I’m letting myself be pulled into this.
Toby came dangerously close to admitting that the word Jesus spoke was devine. He needs to be careful, Nathan, Tim and luke might want to take him outside the city gate and stone him.
Sorry, laying all sarcasm aside, its great to know we serve a God who laid a foundation of love, mercy and grace. Christianity is perfect, christians are not. ( Thats where Gods grace comes in )
I have a tendency to be like Jonah. LORD JUST KILL’EM ALL!!!!
Or like Peter, only I would use a two handed broad-sword to take off the heads of some of these idiots. But Jesus would rebuke me and tell me to get behind Him. I have to remember that He would feel joy and excitement if one of these guys were to except Him and love Him in return. Even if more than 1.9% of thier socalled facts were true, they can’t seem to understand that those mistakes would be man made, not God made. Oh well, probably just words to them.
Till next time
Mark, oops
I mean Tommy
March 31st, 2010 at 8:08 pm
Hello Mark.
Aw crud, I spat out my cheeseburger when I read that! XD I love how it looks juxtaposed with the previous post, all long and rant-licious*.
(*=may or may not be an actual word)
Man, that’s a relief, it was so emotionally impacting to think anyone could have such beliefs w/o being a raving lunatic…
i c what u did thar! U copied mah stile bro that’s kewl
Toby came dangerously close to admitting that the word Jesus spoke was devine. He needs to be careful, Nathan, Tim and luke might want to take him outside the city gate and stone him.
Well….
1) It was my understanding that Toby’s comment was specifically exploring your perspective (i.e. in the style of, “if you believe this, then do you believe..”), so any question of divinity or lack thereof is moot in any sense other than an inquisitive one.
2) I’m not Christian, remember? I don’t support stoning people to death for proclaiming or disclaiming their faith. Gol durn mah lack of proper values….
I have a tendency to be like Jonah. LORD JUST KILL’EM ALL!!!! Or like Peter, only I would use a two handed broad-sword to take off the heads of some of these idiots.
Holy crap….sounds like someone needs a visit from the 4chan Party Van….
I have to remember that He would feel joy and excitement if one of these guys were to except Him and love Him in return.
Since you brought it up, it may help to say that I already except Jesus. I except a lot of what he says from my worldview because I think it’s crazy….but that’s kinda off-topic, so yeah.
Till next time
Mark, oops
I mean Tommy
I KNEW IT!!
April 1st, 2010 at 4:34 am
“Nathan, Tim and luke might want to take him outside the city gate and stone him.”
As Tim says, we’ll leave the stoning of those who disagree with you to the religious people. You’ll find that we prefer reasoned debate.
“Even if more than 1.9% of thier socalled facts were true”
Reminds me of that quote: “78.9% of statistics are made up on the spot” - Vic Reeves.
April 1st, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Your army is socialist right now, but for some reason that’s different. Pure hypocrasy.(sic)
Uh, there’s this document called The Constitution of the United States of America (see: “enumerated powers”).
Foreigners, sheesh.
April 1st, 2010 at 1:48 pm
Here, swiney, swiney! Catch the pearl…dang, trampled again…poor, virtuous pearls…they just don’t stand a chance in the mud of the pen.
April 1st, 2010 at 8:13 pm
Point made.
April 1st, 2010 at 8:39 pm
Uh, there’s this document called The Constitution of the United States of America (see: “enumerated powers”).
Foreigners, sheesh.
All enumerated powers do is state that Congress can only take actions based on powers afforded them by the Constitution, sans exceptions made in cases like the Bill of Rights or other specific protections.
…perhaps you could explain how that is even *tangentially* related to the subject?
Here, swiney, swiney! Catch the pearl…dang, trampled again…poor, virtuous pearls…they just don’t stand a chance in the mud of the pen.
Point made.
….what?
I think you’d be easier to understand if you stopped posting under two screen names.
April 2nd, 2010 at 4:01 am
//…perhaps you could explain how that is even *tangentially* related to the subject?//
The jug-head said that support for the military is tantamount to being pro-socialism.(???) “Therefore”, real socialism is no different….criminy, and I just said no more casting of pearls in futility. Don’t know what Dr. Turek is doing in his absence, but it is surely high time I joined him…in the absence part, that is. So lame here.
April 2nd, 2010 at 8:56 am
Oh well, if Dr. Turek is not coming back and Stitfel is joining him, then I have no one else to leave comments to. I’m sure they have their computers set with some protective system that won’t let bible verses through. And it is obvious that they never borrowed a bible to see what Matthew 7:6 even says. If they did ( and still do not understand Stitfel’s comment about the pigs and pearls ) it would be bright of them not to admit it…
Sighing off.
Tommy
April 2nd, 2010 at 12:47 pm
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April 2nd, 2010 at 5:01 pm
The jug-head said that support for the military is tantamount to being pro-socialism.
What?! Since when does Jughead from Archie Comics post here? All I saw was when Mr. Barley said this:
Your army is socialist right now, but for some reason that’s different. Pure hypocrasy.(sic)
Which is interesting because the military *is* comprised largely of socialist policies — your bedtime and waking time, your mealtime, details of your sexual behaviors, your dress and hair styling, and your daily routine are all dictated by what is most efficient for the whole. That’s arguably the entire point of having an army in the first place (and it’s also the whole point of having “socialism” in the first place), so I don’t see an easy way around that argument for you — especially not one regarding the list of powers that are specifically afforded to the government under “enumerated powers,” which frankly have nothing whatsoever to do with this conversation.
Don’t know what Dr. Turek is doing in his absence, but it is surely high time I joined him…in the absence part, that is. So lame here.
And yet, later on that same morning:
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Simply lift and separate your random access memory boards, and RAM that baby right in! Then get set for hours of web surfing w/o any of that burdensome “word of God” nonsense convicting your heart, towards a straighter path, that might include eternal salvation. Upgrade to the optional IBTU! (I’m Better Than U!) suite for a virtually never ending, cacophonous litany of liberal talking points, tirades, cliches, “facts” and other information developed at our, “Made from whole cloth” laboratories.
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(the Bible Cork is a product of BFD industries and is not responsible for ANYTHING. Please direct all consumer complaints to CFCH -the Circular File Clearing House- for resolution)
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And then there was your post as “Tommy.” Ya know, threats to leave are generally more effective if you actually, you know, *leave*….
( and still do not understand Stitfel’s comment about the pigs and pearls )
It’s not that nobody understands your pearls-before-swine reference. Any n00b can pick apart such a simple metaphor. Rather, it’s that it’s not very original. Come on, quoting a book that’s over 2000 years old that everybody knows about? Get with it, man! Quote some Lovecraft or something. Not the popular ones, either — the obscure decrepit ones that not even Metallica writes songs about.
Or you could quote Minor Threat. Nobody seems to quote them much 0.0
April 2nd, 2010 at 5:04 pm
P.S.
Almost forgot why I came here….sorry folks, I got distracted by the Trollercoaster ride XD
I was going to ask Frank or the gang if maybe they had heard of this militant Christian group, “Hutaree,” who recently tried to pick a firefight with the ATF. You can find the stories on Yahoo! AP if you search “Hutaree” and “militant Christian.”
I’d be interested in hearing from you guys on this, given your leanings and whatnot.
April 2nd, 2010 at 8:16 pm
Would parody those last two posts but not into being overly redundant in a repetitive, obnoxious, overbearing, excessive, superfluous, unnecessary way right now - maybe later. Also too, as well, they are a perfect fulfillment of s’Tsitfel previous parodies (if “he” in fact was trying to be prescient), not to mention fine examples of self parody.
[/hateful/rage-filled/emotional/Christian/snit]
April 2nd, 2010 at 10:10 pm
Would parody those last two posts but not into being overly redundant in a repetitive, obnoxious, overbearing, excessive, superfluous, unnecessary way right now - maybe later. Also too, as well, they are a perfect fulfillment of s’Tsitfel previous parodies (if “he” in fact was trying to be prescient), not to mention fine examples of self parody.
Well, “parody” is generally supposed to actually be ironic….just making nonsensical remarks about something doesn’t make it a parody.
April 2nd, 2010 at 10:32 pm
//Well, “parody” is generally supposed to actually be ironic….just making nonsensical remarks about something doesn’t make it a parody.//
Point taken, I just thought it would have been a bit clunky to say, your comments were “fine examples of nonsensical remarks about (the issue being discussed)“, but, consider it “fixed” now.
April 3rd, 2010 at 1:10 pm
I feel like I have retired more times than Brett Farve. But each time I make my ” last ” posting, someone makes the opportunity to return so interesting. But I’ll bet Green Bay never said that Brett Farve, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning was ” REALLY ” just Peyton in disguise trying to………..whatever.
Anyone with any common sense ( which certainly leaves out our socalled friends from the left ) can tell that Stitfel has common sense and yet is very well educated. I on the other hand operate on common sense only. ( Do not have a lot of formal education.) Praise God he can use all of us though. ; Well, all that are willing.
So, where does that leave us. Oh yea, it would appear that anyone would be able to discern that Stitfel and I are two very different people who simply agree that satan and friends are destroying what God has entrusted us with. ( mostly with the polictcal structure of today and yesterday ) For the most part, the church is sitting by quietly letting this happen.
I will make my decision of retirement during the off season.
Tommy
April 3rd, 2010 at 2:33 pm
Point taken, I just thought it would have been a bit clunky to say, your comments were “fine examples of nonsensical remarks about (the issue being discussed)“, but, consider it “fixed” now.
Well, if you did that but also took it a step farther by explaining why you think that, and how you think it “should” be, then we would actually be approaching a reasonable discussion. Also, you wouldn’t have to hide behind the disclaimer of “it’s a parody.”
But I’ll bet Green Bay never said that Brett Farve, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning was ” REALLY ” just Peyton in disguise trying to………..whatever.
Whatever, Mark.
Anyone with any common sense ( which certainly leaves out our socalled friends from the left ) can tell that Stitfel has common sense and yet is very well educated. I on the other hand operate on common sense only. ( Do not have a lot of formal education.) Praise God he can use all of us though. ; Well, all that are willing.
So, where does that leave us. Oh yea, it would appear that anyone would be able to discern that Stitfel and I are two very different people who simply agree that satan and friends are destroying what God has entrusted us with.
You also:
-have the exact same mannerisms;
-use the same extravagant, hyperbolic metaphors;
-frequently promise not to post anymore but continue to do so;
-ignore criticism or comments directed at you or your points or methods;
-refuse to acknowledge anything that is said unless it is said at least 3 or more times by multiple parties;
among other things.
[/blah]
April 3rd, 2010 at 3:21 pm
Sounds like ” ranting ” to me……
April 3rd, 2010 at 4:14 pm
I can’t help but think, “Oh, come on, are you serious?” when someone says something about satan. Do many christians even think about satan? Do they even believe that anymore? It seems that most christians blame “evil” on humanity because “we’re fallen” and all that jazz. To say that there’s some supernatural agent of evil out there is ridiculous. It seems very similar to saying, “The boogeyman made me steal twenty dollars out of grandma’s purse!”
April 3rd, 2010 at 4:27 pm
Sounds like ” ranting ” to me……
Yeah, he does a lot of that, too. I think he’s just copying me, though, to be honest….
April 3rd, 2010 at 4:33 pm
P.S. Mr. Toby, I think “Satan” is pretty much a metaphor for selfishness. After all, selfishness can be seen as “the root of all evil” if you adopt a morally-objectivist point of view — things like rape, murder and stealing are only necessary to a mind that operates on selfishness and personal gain. To a person who doesn’t place his/her own immediate needs over the well-being of others, those things aren’t necessary at all.
Try this next time you hear “Satan” being blamed for something that somebody did (i.e. “Satan has corrupted our Congress,” or “Satan worked his way into that terrorist’s heart and made him do evil”): replace the word “Satan” with “selfishness” and see how the meaning becomes apparent. A lot like people believe God is “in your heart,” it would also make sense if Satan was “in your heart;” they represent two sides of human tendency. God being the “good” or “selfless” side, Satan being the “evil” or “selfish” side. In a way, you could argue that they’re the same being — humans themselves. With that interpretation, a significant amount of religious lore that was confusing before becomes easily understandable.
April 6th, 2010 at 5:27 pm
Going back to the tea party comments and comments about spitting and threats and such . . .
“A Washington state man has been charged with threatening to kill Democratic Sen. Patty Murray over her support for health care reform, leaving voicemail messages at her office saying she had a target on her back and “it only takes one piece of lead.”
Federal agents arrested Charles Alan Wilson without incident in Yakima, Wash., on Tuesday.”
April 7th, 2010 at 3:29 am
Going back to reality: 20th century style liberalism terminated well over 100 million human beings not including babies murdered in/outside the womb. But, to be fair, the carry over from that antiquated belief system based on our God fearing founders liberated and enriched the lives of many hundreds of millions more, and that no doubt is why “climate change” is destroying the planet. Hey, never said freedom was perfect. Then again, we’ve yet to be totally free as of this writing………………….
April 7th, 2010 at 7:06 am
Whatever, Mark.
April 7th, 2010 at 2:12 pm
And you call living under a supernatural dictator (as christopher hitchens might put it) being free? It’s okay to be charitable if you’re religious and be charitable through your church, but the minute a community comes together and decides that some charity can come through the government, then that’s wrong and tyrannical. Sure, right, whatever. Pick a position. Do you want to live for yourself and only yourself or do you want to be a part of a community and take on some of the responsibilities that entails?
April 7th, 2010 at 5:01 pm
and again . . .
“WASHINGTON — The FBI arrested a northern California man Wednesday for allegedly making threatening phone calls to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over health care reform, law enforcement officials told The Associated Press.
Charges against the man have yet to be disclosed, but they are expected to be filed in federal court in California.
Several federal officials said the man made dozens of calls to Pelosi’s homes in California and Washington, as well as to her husband’s business office. They said he recited her home address and said if she wanted to see it again, she would not support the health care overhaul bill that since has been enacted.”
April 7th, 2010 at 7:06 pm
I find it sad, exactly how few conservatives/Republicans are willing to actively and openly condemn the actions of these violent terrorists that have been harassing members of Congress and local governments. It doesn’t matter how strongly you disagree with current government policy, if you resort to violence (or threats thereof), you are a terrorist. That is what a terrorist is — someone who uses violence or threats as a political recourse.
I wonder why there aren’t more right-wingers openly condemning such behaviors without first having to be confronted by “liberals” about why they haven’t done so yet.
April 7th, 2010 at 9:37 pm
For the liberals on this site to be consistent (see: honest), they would have to convert to a life dedicated to the complete and total abolition of Islamic-terror. Outrage at those daily occurrences -which number in the thousands each year (and those guys don’t mess around w/ idle threats, they splatter human bodies across acres for sake of “political recourse”)- would needs be out and out avenged by these hypocrites to be proportional to the crocodile tears shed over the “terrorists” of pelosi, murray, et al. It really is embarrassing, to anyone of good conscience, that such enormous focus on the mundane is being harped on to the utter exclusion of any outrage over the actual death and destruction happening every single day by “people” these hypocrites don’t even have the courage to publicly condemn, let alone stand up and fight against.
Let me say it for y’all: “What are you talking about ? We denigrate, condemn and ridicule religious fanatics all the time here. We rip Christians, and followers of Christ, and people who love Jesus, and all those other terrorists who live in the south of America.”
You know, guys, it really doesn’t matter that you don’t get it, I’m just letting you know that others do. And we can see through your transparent, phony outrage to the core of your being and it aint pretty, I tell ya for sure. But keep on revealing yourselves, if you like, right thinking folks need to never forget what left thinking folks are all about: deception
April 7th, 2010 at 10:34 pm
John 1:17
For the law was given through Moses, but “grace” and “truth” came through Jesus Christ.
If someone has no desire to accept Jesus Christ for who he is,and no concept of what grace gives us. Why in the world would we expect them to understand truth. For truth to be placed beside grace shows just how important truth is. At least to those who understand where we would be without grace.
Once again, I’m sure its just silly words to some.
Tommy
April 8th, 2010 at 1:09 am
Mr. Tst—Ts—Tse-tse fly, whatever, what exactly are YOU doing about islamic extremists? Do you really think that we think any higher of some other bogus collection of antiquated fortune cookie drivel than we do of your religion? No. We dismiss them all. Because under the right circumstances your religion could send you over the edge of extremism and you’d think you were perfectly justified—holy even—in the midst of insidious mania.
And where did islamic extremism exist in this thread until you brought it up? Put down the martyr complex then take some ritalin and focus.
April 8th, 2010 at 2:26 am
Okay, once more for the simple minded:
If “Billy” points at you and laughs, it is not the same as when “Ali” cuts your guts out with a dull knife. So, little boy(s), you should maybe be more careful to watch what Ali is doing than Billy. Like, maybe you should tell Mommy about Ali first? Yes, coulds be maybe you should.
note: the amount of death threats one receives is directly related to name recognition. can you imagine how many death threats Tom Delay or Rush or someone that people have actually heard of get? It is literally hundreds of times more than the above mentioned losers and yet, mystery of mysteries, you never hear them whining about it.
[/illustration#499999999999999ofhowwimpytheleftis]
April 8th, 2010 at 2:35 am
Thank you, Thank you.
And I would like to give special thanks to Toby for making my POINT!
April 8th, 2010 at 4:30 am
“If “Billy” points at you and laughs, it is not the same as when “Ali” cuts your guts out with a dull knife.”
…Or when Sheamus the Catholic blows up your pub in Ireland. Or attempts to slaughter the whole of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative cabinet in Brighton, UK.
April 8th, 2010 at 6:16 am
For the liberals on this site to be consistent (see: honest), they would have to convert to a life dedicated to the complete and total abolition of Islamic-terror. Outrage at those daily occurrences -which number in the thousands each year (and those guys don’t mess around w/ idle threats, they splatter human bodies across acres for sake of “political recourse”)- would needs be out and out avenged by these hypocrites to be proportional to the crocodile tears shed over the “terrorists” of pelosi, murray, et al. It really is embarrassing, to anyone of good conscience, that such enormous focus on the mundane is being harped on to the utter exclusion of any outrage over the actual death and destruction happening every single day by “people” these hypocrites don’t even have the courage to publicly condemn, let alone stand up and fight against.
So you’re denying that these are terrorist acts?
If “Billy” points at you and laughs, it is not the same as when “Ali” cuts your guts out with a dull knife. So, little boy(s), you should maybe be more careful to watch what Ali is doing than Billy. Like, maybe you should tell Mommy about Ali first? Yes, coulds be maybe you should.
Yes, how delightfully innocent these Christian terrorists are acting! From an article on Peninsula daily news:
Several federal officials said Giusti made dozens of calls to Pelosi’s homes in California and Washington, D.C., as well as to her husband’s business office. They said he recited her home address and said if she wanted to see it again, she would not support the health care overhaul bill that since has been enacted.
…
A Selah man has been charged with threatening to kill Democratic Sen. Patty Murray over her support for health care reform, leaving voice mail messages at her office saying she had a target on her back and “it only takes one piece of lead.”
What a laugh! Oh, those wacky extremists!
…
These are death threats and if you can’t see that then you are willfully ignorant.
Also, I dunno about you, but Hutaree was doing more than “pointing and laughing” at the federal government and ATF. From the AP article:
“On July, 25, 2009, according to the prosecution, David Stone encouraged members to train harder because war was approaching. Stone indicated that he wanted to “own his own country.” Stone referred to law enforcement as part of a New World Order “brotherhood” and he spoke about killing law enforcement officers.
The Hutaree were divided into two teams who were being trained to kill law enforcement, according to Waterstreet. The group built a “hit list” consisting of federal judges and educational leaders.
Kristopher Sickles, one of the nine defendants, allegedly wanted to explode a bomb at the police department in Huron, Ohio, and killed his cat so he could “see if he had it in him to kill something he cared about,” the prosecution claims.
Waterstreet also played the courtroom an audio recording of David Stone, during which he says, “People around the world are waiting for people like Hutaree to go to war.”
If you are going to denounce these people by saying they aren’t “True Christians,” then I don’t have any need to take your criticisms of Islam seriously for the same reason.
note: the amount of death threats one receives is directly related to name recognition. can you imagine how many death threats Tom Delay or Rush or someone that people have actually heard of get? It is literally hundreds of times more than the above mentioned losers and yet, mystery of mysteries, you never hear them whining about it.
So you believe it’s okay to threaten people with death, because everybody does it?
Somehow I think you’d feel differently if it had been your name on the hit list….
…Or when Sheamus the Catholic blows up your pub in Ireland. Or attempts to slaughter the whole of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative cabinet in Brighton, UK.
But imagine if a Muslim had sent that same death threat. You can bet folks like Mark/Tommy/whatever-his-other-alt-is
would be up in arms about “Muslim terorrists.”
April 8th, 2010 at 10:12 am
“But imagine if a Muslim had sent that same death threat. You can bet folks like Mark/Tommy/whatever-his-other-alt-is
would be up in arms about “Muslim terorrists.””
Well, at least Sheamus believes in jesus . . .
April 8th, 2010 at 10:17 am
If you are going to denounce these people by saying they aren’t
“True Christians” then I don’t have any need to take your criticisms
of Islam seriously for the same reason??? WOW!
Thank you Tim for driving my point HOME!
April 8th, 2010 at 10:19 am
Yes, yes, I made your point. I don’t know where the bear s*** in the buckwheat. None of us here have any concept of forgiveness because we don’t believe in your zombie.
“can you imagine how many death threats Tom Delay or Rush or someone that people have actually heard of get?”
Right. Like if Rush Limbaugh got a death threat you wouldn’t have the stink of it pouring out of your radio for days. He’d ride that publicity and hatch more conspiracies than a paranoid schizophrenic off their meds.
April 8th, 2010 at 10:37 am
I wonder, do you really have this deep rooted passion for the safety of Tom Delay or Rush. OR, is there simply a hate for the word Christen. I’m certainly detecting HOSTILITY.
April 8th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
I don’t have anything against anyone named christen. In fact I have a cousin named kristen.
April 8th, 2010 at 4:44 pm
Thank you Tim for driving my point HOME!
Your point that my point was that you can defend Islam using that exact same argument? 0.0
These vague terms are basically nonsense to me. Perhaps you could be more specific….what exactly is your “point?” You seem fond of saying that it’s been proven, but if you don’t even state what it is then that’s kind of moot….
I wonder, do you really have this deep rooted passion for the safety of Tom Delay or Rush. OR, is there simply a hate for the word Christen. I’m certainly detecting HOSTILITY.
1) Can’t speak for anyone else, but the fact that I oppose terrorism has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not I care about the people being terrorized. I really don’t like a lot of people, famous or no. But that doesn’t mean I would support terrorism directed against them. I oppose terrorism on principle — if violence is the only means by which your point can be made, then your point is not worth making. It brings to mind some approximation of an old saying:
“If the law is on your side, pound the law. If the facts are on your side, pound the facts. If neither are on your side, pound the table.”
2) I think your above quote proves that you are trolling. A supposedly “informed” political Christian who can’t spell Christian? Sure, okay.
:/
April 8th, 2010 at 5:47 pm
I’ll see if I can emotionally overcome the fact that I spelled Christian incorrectly.
Thanks for making my point once again.
April 8th, 2010 at 8:10 pm
@ Tommy
At some point, it just gets tiresome “debating” people w/ no intellectual curiosity and no interest in truth. Yes, it can be amusing as they do exactly what you predict they will do time after (open the door into their own faces) time but, eventually, it gets old - Like pretending to throw the stick for a dog to fetch. Then again, even dogs learn they’re being had after two or three fakes. That is how these guys go beyond amusing -straight through boredom- and into the great beyond of amazement w/ their, apparently, endless capacity to regurgitate the same old tired platitudes and bumper stickers regardless of the facts.
The mere mention of “AGW”, for instance, sends them into apoplexy as they recite old, proven to be lies a thousand times over, “facts” about how ultra-freezing, record breaking temps the world round actually proves the veracity of global warm…er, uh, “climate change” or whatever they’re calling it this week. Quite sad, to be honest. Sadder still is the fact that they’ve effectively purged this entire site of anyone w/ a functioning think box (excluding a very few who don’t check their brains at the door before entering).
April 8th, 2010 at 9:09 pm
At some point, it just gets tiresome “debating” people w/ no intellectual curiosity and no interest in truth.
*sigh*
I know I’m wrong for continuing to engage in this trolltastic, argumentative nonsense….but I have to say it….
So you know how I feel!
There, now we’ve done our tet-a-tet. Can we stop waving juvenile insults back and forth now? I’ll even let you have the last word on this one.
Like pretending to throw the stick for a dog to fetch. Then again, even dogs learn they’re being had after two or three fakes. That is how these guys go beyond amusing -straight through boredom- and into the great beyond of amazement w/ their, apparently, endless capacity to regurgitate the same old tired platitudes and bumper stickers regardless of the facts.
You know, for all the talk you offer about “facts” and having “proved us wrong” about things (things we’ve barely managed to discuss, at that….), you sure seem hesitant to actually directly cite anything. Are you ever going to cite anything, or do you plan on repeating these insults and assertions? I can’t seem to find any of your posts (as your new name, or as Mark) in which you actually refer to real information that can be accessed by people who are not inside of your head.
Don’t get me wrong, troll arguments are fun and I can carry them on for a long, long time, but I also enjoy intelligent discussion. Moreso, in fact.
April 8th, 2010 at 9:12 pm
P.S. And what’s this about “driving people away” from this site? There were, what, 5 posters here to begin with? I can count Matt Garwood, Andrea, Emily Jean Smith, Frank Turek himself, Plumb Bob, and then there’s Nathan Barley and Toby R. and Luke and myself. Okay, so 9. Maybe a couple more from several years ago. Not exactly the widest user base.
Besides, speaking as an agnostic/atheist, I would *much* rather read comments that are full of attempts at intelligent debate, than I would a bunch of comments in which people agree with each other over minute details of the discussion — whether I agree with the issue being discussed or not. I learn very little from people who agree with me about everything.
April 8th, 2010 at 9:51 pm
//Not exactly the widest user base.//
Only been here since last year and thought there must have been more than 9 people to ever post here. I stand corrected.
//I learn very little from people who agree with me about everything.//
Please, Tim, tell me anything you have ever learned here -of significance- that was contrary to what you already “know”. I understand the virtue of stability and all but, when was the last time you had an epiphany? Granted, I am a recent convert from decades of atheism to Christianity so it is more likely to repent (to think differently or reconsider / see: Strongs G3340) in that circumstance but still, you are technically in your formative years, intellectually speaking, and it seems it would take a very established ideological character to resist the brilliant arguments put forth by Dr. Turek.
Seriously now, you (and every one of your cohorts) display a 100% inability to accept anything outside the orb of your preexistent ideology and in so doing, reduce thousands of years of human development down to a narrow vision so myopic as to suggest a total lack of seriousness on your part. Can you see the irony in that?!? Your enormous font of wisdom, gained from some 20 odd years experience, dwarfs the minds that led man (by your own accounting) down from the trees, out of the caves and into universities, outer space and the utter most parts of the human psyche!
The mind boggles.
(more accurately) The hubris of it, one can hardly fathom.
April 9th, 2010 at 11:45 am
Mark: “You don’t have to think it’s funny but at least acknowledge my attempt at it. *sheesh*”
Mark, I think the problem is that your attempts at humor are no more absurd than the serious bits of your posts, so it’s hard to tell the difference.
“There were, what, 5 posters here to begin with?”
Yeah, but who knows how many of them were actually Mark posting under different names?
Agreed on the ‘facts’ thing. I long ago gave up asking him to provide any backing for the nonsense he spews out. I’ve no idea whether he honestly believes any of it is actually true. Maybe that’s why he needs to invent other posters here, so he’s got people who’ll agree with him.
April 9th, 2010 at 1:15 pm
Tim
You may consider this posting an insult in and of itself. I’m sorry if thats the case.In your postings I can tell that you believe what you believe ( even if I don’t agree ) and you enjoy a good debate. You,re not insulting to what other people believe, you simply want the opportunity to disprove it. I can live with that.
I, too, believe what I believe. That belief is that my Father in heaven is the one true God, Jesus Christ is my salvation and His Holy Spirit resides in me each day. This I hold dear. Its not my place to force this belief on anyone else. nor will I try. Simply share it if they will allow me to.
My daughter dated a young man for over a year that was not sure he believed that God existed at all. He is a very good young man with high moral character. We spent a lot of time together working and shooting guns( no we never shot at each other ). We were both very open to discuss why we ” believed what we believed ” and enjoyed each others company.
Tim, what I will not do is put what is dear to me ( the pearls that Stitfel refers to ) out there for anyone to trample over. Nathan does not even believe I am my own person,( certainly kills my incentive to discuss anything with him ) he says I’m Mark or Stitfel. I don’t get it. Toby is an insult in and of himself.; see his comments on The Birch Tree Challenge. But I could have been a little more direct with you and a little less sarcastic.( Although I do enjoy good sarcasm ).
I live on a farm and this time of the year starts to get very busy so this “MAY” be my last posting. We’ll see.I may see you over at The Birch Tree Challenge. I like what Matt is trying to do over there.
Tommy
April 9th, 2010 at 5:50 pm
//Not exactly the widest user base.//
Only been here since last year and thought there must have been more than 9 people to ever post here. I stand corrected.
//I learn very little from people who agree with me about everything.//
Tim, tell me anything you have ever learned here -of significance- that was contrary to what you already “know”. I understand the virtue of stability and all but, when was the last time you had an epiphany? Granted, I am a recent convert from decades of atheism to Christianity so it is more likely to repent (to think differently / reconsider) in that circumstance but still, you are technically in your formative years, intellectually speaking, and it seems it would take a very established ideological character to resist Dr. Tureks’ very persuasive arguments.
Seriously now, you (and every other person of the liberal bent here) display a 100% inability to accept anything outside the orb of your preexistent ideology and in so doing, reduce thousands of years of human development down to a narrow vision so myopic as to suggest a total lack of seriousness on your part(s). Can you see the irony in that?!? Your enormous font of wisdom, gained from some 20 odd years experience, dwarfs the minds that led man (by your own accounting) down from the trees, out of the caves and into universities, outer space and the utter most parts of the human psyche.
The mind boggles.
(more accurately) The hubris of it, one can hardly fathom.
note: hope this shows this time. still waiting after 24 hours above.
April 9th, 2010 at 6:26 pm
You,re not insulting to what other people believe, you simply want the opportunity to disprove it.
Not even that, really — my goal isn’t (and has never been) to deconvert Christians or prove anyone wrong. It’s just rare that a Christian person puts up a blog or forum where you can ask questions straightforwardly and candidly, and usually get something approximating an answer (every now and then, like when I’m at work or in the studio, I think of an argument that seems pretty hard to counter, so I pitch it just to see what comes back).
Most Christian blogs are like Don Koenig or Plumb Bob, who just rant insanely about things and then delete any attempts at consumer input (or any comments that don’t stroke their ego enough). So in that respect, although I disagree with Turek on many points (of course), I do have respect for the fact that he doesn’t just delete anything I post. I mean, a more thin-skinned blogger would have deleted probably half of what I’ve posted by now ;D
(Then again, I figure, why blog if you don’t want to hear what people think about it? Half of the fun for me is reading comments about what I write….if I was just writing for myself, I probably wouldn’t bother.)
Nathan does not even believe I am my own person,( certainly kills my incentive to discuss anything with him ) he says I’m Mark or Stitfel.
This is the internet, where it’s possible that anybody is anybody. Maybe you’re Mark. Maybe not. Maybe I’m Andrew. Maybe I’m Toby. Maybe I’m Turek posing as an atheist. Who knows? Maybe we’re ALL THE SAME PERSON AND WE JUST DON’T KNOW IT YET, like in Secret Window 0.0
But seriously, although I do believe that “Mark” is several other posters here, I don’t actually care whether “he” is or not. That’s just something I say to rattle “his” cage a bit because “he’s” so easy to agitate. Usually I try to play it straight, but every now and then I decide to throw “him” a bone and troll back~
(Although tip: If you ARE Mark, one telltale sign that you’re the same person is sticking to the same or similar details of similar arguments. Rarely in an internet debate do multiple persons adopt the *exact same* positions on the *exact same* issues. That’s how I know Tsistawhatever and Mark are the same guy. Consider that advice from a professional troll~)
[/random attitude change]
April 9th, 2010 at 6:42 pm
//If you ARE Mark, one telltale sign that you’re the same person is sticking to the same or similar details of similar arguments.//
You gotta be kidding. Yes, “The Four Leftisteers” do exhibit diverse writing styles but the content varies only in scope. Other than that it is the identical, dead-horse-being-flogged-yet-again, talking points anyone can scoop up on their clipboard over at huffpo, dailykuss, etc.
Also (sorry for this obvious surrender to my ego), please tell of a specific instance in which I, er, um, uh, I mean, “Mark” has acted “agitated”. “Easily” or otherwise.
..am I posting now?…he said for the 3rd time…
April 9th, 2010 at 7:04 pm
nope
April 9th, 2010 at 7:04 pm
well, thats retarded
April 9th, 2010 at 7:50 pm
Kneejerk leftist,
What?
(And ‘retarded’ is really not exactly a good word to use in polite company. Seriously.)
Thanks,
Luke
April 9th, 2010 at 8:52 pm
nope
Nope what?
well, thats retarded
Wow. Just….wow.
Kneejerk leftist,
Ah, I finally get it! I wondered what he was getting at with that weird username. I just figured it was like German or something 0.0
April 9th, 2010 at 8:57 pm
100th comment FTW!
[/internet convention]
April 9th, 2010 at 9:37 pm
comments being screened for you-know-what-eration.
at end of last one i asked - am i posting now?
then answered myself - nope
which did post to which was answered
thats ret*****
savvy?
April 9th, 2010 at 9:40 pm
actually, that makes me opposite of knee-jerk leftists… just wanted to extinguish myself from usuals here…
April 9th, 2010 at 9:58 pm
actually, that makes me opposite of knee-jerk leftists… just wanted to extinguish myself from usuals here…
Why would you want to extinguish yourself? YOU HAVE SO MUCH TO LIVE FOR!!!
Unless you meant distinguish.
And I know what you mean. When I put my foot on ball-point (which I sometimes inadvertently do while sitting at the computer desk), my knee tends to jerk to the left. Well, my left one does, anyway. My other knee jerks to the right. But I don’t usually have them both on ball-point at the same time. So it’s not too weird.
April 10th, 2010 at 6:10 am
“Why would you want to extinguish yourself?”
When he makes a typo, you’re supposed to quote it, then put a sarcastic (sic) at the end. That’s what he does, anyway.
April 10th, 2010 at 2:38 pm
Mark: “Now, as for the substance and rationale of your arguments, you would be better served showing some deference in light of the severe beat down you are suffering.”
Is this an example of your sarcastic attempt at humor? As in, saying the opposite of the truth for comic effect? If so, I AM actually starting to find it funny. Or at least laughable!
April 11th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
I don’t quite understand, ( or can’t get my poor petite mind around it ) this Mark thing. Mark has only made two postings out of 108. If he’s trying to sound like a lot of people, I would say that he’s not very smart.
As to us sounding alike. Well, I would say that we are ( in this country ) made up of about 42.3% to the left, 42.6% moderate and 17.1% to the right. Making up about 102% of the total population.( REMEMBER, most %s are made up on the spot anyway.) HEY! Sounds kindalike a left thing.
You have left to extreme left, but they all seem to operate in the anything goes block.
You have moderate, which translates to - - just about worthless. ( Just my opinion.)
And then you have the right. All rights are considered extremist.
The right believes there should be limits to what a person should be allowed to do when it affects the majority.
It would appear that Stitfel and I both fall under the 17.1% and both enjoy a little sarcasm. But this Mark thing is causing me to have to seek ther-a-py from a ther-a-pist.
And then theres Toby…………..Well no sense going there.
April 11th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
You gotta be kidding. Yes, “The Four Leftisteers” do exhibit diverse writing styles but the content varies only in scope. Other than that it is the identical, dead-horse-being-flogged-yet-again, talking points anyone can scoop up on their clipboard over at huffpo, dailykuss, etc.
The fact that you’re still going on about this proves to me even further that you are Mark~
If someone had accused me of being the same person as Mr. Toby or Mr. Barley or Mr. Luke, I would have chuckled and moved on because it’s not relevant to any point I’ve made whether or not I am those people. I could be all of those people, or I couldn’t, and it wouldn’t have any effect on the truth or falsehood of anything I say.
Also (sorry for this obvious surrender to my ego), please tell of a specific instance in which I, er, um, uh, I mean, “Mark” has acted “agitated”. “Easily” or otherwise.
You’re clearly bothered by the fact that I think you’re Mark. Why is that? Does it change the value of what you have to say in some way? Or do you intend to argue that you’re correct because other people agree with you? If the answer to either of those is “no,” then I don’t see why you even still care who I think you are.
don’t quite understand, ( or can’t get my poor petite mind around it ) this Mark thing.
I don’t think it’s because your mind is too small, because I think you know and are impersonating (of course~). But all the same I will explain it to you, since you seem so very concerned about it.
If I were shown one of Mark’s posts that I have not read, and I was not given the name of the person who made the post, I would be able to tell if it was Mark based on his speech patterns. Later on in the same post I just quoted above, you exhibit an exact mirror of that speech pattern:
As to us sounding alike. Well, I would say that we are ( in this country ) made up of about 42.3% to the left, 42.6% moderate and 17.1% to the right. Making up about 102% of the total population.( REMEMBER, most %s are made up on the spot anyway.) HEY! Sounds kindalike a left thing.
You have left to extreme left, but they all seem to operate in the anything goes block.
You have moderate, which translates to - - just about worthless. ( Just my opinion.)
And then you have the right. All rights are considered extremist.
The right believes there should be limits to what a person should be allowed to do when it affects the majority.
^That is one paragraph exactly. In the span of that one paragraph (10 sentences), you manage to transition through the following subjects, without focusing on or explaining any of them in any degree of detail:
-You sounding like Mark
-The political makeup of the population
-The nature of statistics
–Liberals say “anything goes”
–Moderates are worthless (but that’s your opinion)
–The right is considered extremism
—The policies of the right
You managed to divert the conversation (this tactic, whether you meant it or not, is called a “Red Herring”) from whether or not you are Mark, to an attempt to justify the attempts of convervatives on the right to regulate the actions of the few with regard to how they affect the majority. Which, I may point out, has nothing to do with whether or not you are Mark. Which, ironically, leads me to believe that you are Mark.
It’s a very bad idea (for the sake of clear discussion) to tackle so many topics in such a brief space; you don’t allow any room for exposition or context, and by jumping so rapidly between ideas with so little context, you mostly serve to confuse and obfuscate whatever your original point was. I imagine this is the result of not planning out what you will say in advance, rather just writing what comes to mind and posting without proofreading (I used to do that a lot when I first started using the internet).
It’s not that Mark is the only person who does that online, of course — the giveaway is that there are such specific and precise degrees to which Mark suffers from this problem, and you suffer to those exact degrees as well. Yes, you both make (meh) “jokes,” but that’s not the giveaway — the giveaway is that they come from completely out of left field, often bear little relevance to the topic at hand, and tend to spark tangents that lead off in unforeseeable directions that wind up further obfuscating whatever your original point was. It’s a very specific attempt at a very specific method that is not likely to be replicated by chance (or justified by the odds of diversity) alone.
I’d like to break down one of Mark’s posts to show further similarities, but this post has gone on long enough and I really need to go to the bookstore in town before they close~
And then theres Toby…………..Well no sense going there.
Toby’s not a place, so you can’t go there anyway!
[/lame]
April 11th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
P.S. Just an experiment….I wonder if Turek would find this tasteless enough to moderate away:
It would appear that Stitfel and I both fall under the 17.1% and both enjoy a little sarcasm. But this Mark thing is causing me to have to seek ther-a-py from a ther-a-pist.
Just whatever you do, watch out for therapist!
[/lame]
April 11th, 2010 at 6:23 pm
//You gotta be kidding. Yes, “The Four Leftisteers” do exhibit diverse writing styles but the content varies only in scope. Other than that it is the identical, dead-horse-being-flogged-yet-again, talking points anyone can scoop up on their clipboard over at huffpo, dailykuss, etc.
The fact that you’re still going on about this proves to me even further that you are Mark~ //
It’s stuff like your above “response” that makes me think you are disingenuous. I wasn’t “going on” about your accusation - the point being made was that it is ridiculous to think Tommy, Stitfel, Mark and I are all the same person based on content w/o acknowledging the “four mockingbirds of the leftocolypse” (Luke, Tim, Toby R. and Nathan/Andrew/Mike/whatever he calls himself today) for the harmonious group of lads that they/you are. That is strikingly obvious, and still you misdirect.
Sorry, but that’s just phony…if not just a heap trollish.
April 11th, 2010 at 11:01 pm
Interesting thought that in your post you refer to yourself by name and then say “I”. As in:
“the point being made was that it is ridiculous to think Tommy, Stitfel, Mark and I are all the same person”
Columbo would totally have you by the short and curlies with that one.
“Toby’s not a place, so you can’t go there anyway!”
Here, here!
April 11th, 2010 at 11:04 pm
It’s stuff like your above “response” that makes me think you are disingenuous. I wasn’t “going on” about your accusation - the point being made was that it is ridiculous to think Tommy, Stitfel, Mark and I are all the same person based on content w/o acknowledging the “four mockingbirds of the leftocolypse” (Luke, Tim, Toby R. and Nathan/Andrew/Mike/whatever he calls himself today) for the harmonious group of lads that they/you are. That is strikingly obvious, and still you misdirect.
Are you sure you read what I said? Before you answer that, let me point out again the part where I directly explained why your opinions about these so-called “similarities” between my, Mr. Luke’s, Mr. Toby’s and Mr. Barley’s postings are completely meaningless to me:
If someone had accused me of being the same person as Mr. Toby or Mr. Barley or Mr. Luke, I would have chuckled and moved on because it’s not relevant to any point I’ve made whether or not I am those people. I could be all of those people, or I couldn’t, and it wouldn’t have any effect on the truth or falsehood of anything I say.
…
You’re clearly bothered by the fact that I think you’re Mark. Why is that? Does it change the value of what you have to say in some way? Or do you intend to argue that you’re correct because other people agree with you? If the answer to either of those is “no,” then I don’t see why you even still care who I think you are.
What would you gain from my belief that you are not Mark, exactly? I will tell you. You would gain nothing. So my belief (or lack thereof) to that effect is ultimately meaningless to either of our arguments. In fact, the original accusation I made was made as an experiment to see how you would respond — I didn’t originally feel certain whether you were or were not Mark. It’s only after you’ve repeatedly displayed similar tactics to his (and an outward tendency towards ad hominem and mostly-unprovoked aggression) that I became certain.
P.S. Although I will spell it out once more in case I have been unclear….I am saying that I am not concerned what you think about my relationship with other posters here. And I am saying that there’s no reason for you to care what I think. But you do. I find that interesting. I’m curious as to why that is. Your behavior is a telltale sign of a person who is obsessed with controlling other people’s thoughts and behavior — you are aggressively seeking a means by which to convince me that you are not Mark, simply for the sake of convincing me, even though there is no practical benefit for you in doing so — when you could just as easily disregard such an accusation and respond with logical points, or ask me why it would matter if you were Mark.
I mean, if you had accused me of being someone else, do you know what I would have said, verbatim? I would have said this:
“So what if I am Nathan Barley? What does that have to do with [topic of discussion]?”
And that would be the extent of my concern.
[/boredom]
April 12th, 2010 at 4:39 am
Who on this board has ever called himself Mike? Examples please Mark. I posted with my real name here for a while, before nutters started emailing me, when I became Nathan Barley (because it amused me to imagine them trying to google THAT name). That’s the only time I changed my name. Hardly the ’sock-puppetry’ of Mark.
For the record, I’m not convinced that tommy is Mark, but the Tsitfel Krejeenk poster definitely is.
May 20th, 2010 at 10:53 pm
For anyone who’s interested in hearing about how atheists are taking a stand against extremist Islam, you might want to check out “Draw Muhammed Day,” where everyone depicts the prophet Muhammed (which is strictly against Islamic law) in an attempt to protect free speech and make a statement against people who threaten violence in the name of Islam. Hemant at Friendly Atheist did a compilation of drawings sent in by the community over there:
http://friendlyatheist.com/201...../#comments