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Bernardo de La Paz

Bernardo de La Paz's Journal
Bernardo de La Paz's Journal
December 26, 2016

Social and fiscal conservatives hate liberals for two different reasons.

Politics is at least two-dimensional, so the "liberal vs conservative" rhetoric is inadequate on the face of it straight from the get-go.

A further problem is that many people indulge in binary thinking. They view themselves as "pretty good" but think that any liberal must be really very extremely bad because, you know, they're liberal.

Both liberals and conservatives, of all stripes, will fall back to a base of justifying their positions on the basis of Freedom.

Social conservatives hate liberals (especially social liberals) because to varying degrees they think they are decadent condemnable creatures who are leading society to the breakdown of the family, destruction of morals, and to hellfire and brimstone ala Sodom and Gomorrah. Some of them haven't even got to the point of accepting miscegenation (race mixing through marriage).

Fiscal conservatives hate liberals ultimately because of viewing things through the lens of the idea of voluntary versus involuntary charity. To varying degrees, they view government spending on poor people and social causes in any form (like public education) as taking from responsible people and giving it to irresponsible people. They frequently have an exaggerated view of the percentage of income that comfortably well off people spend on charity, or would spend if there were almost no taxes. They also tend to have no clue about the cumulative and synergistic effects of a thousand little disadvantages people might experience growing up and in their lives.

Of course, too many social liberals and fiscal liberals have correspondingly distorted views of conservatives.

Social liberals appeal to individual freedom, personal liberty.

Social conservatives appeal to freedom against the forces of darkness, as they see it.

Fiscal liberals appeal to the freedom from crushing disadvantages, for example FDR's third freedom: freedom from want.

Fiscal conservatives appeal to the personal freedom of giving to charitable causes only as much and in ways a person chooses.

October 28, 2016

Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves



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October 10, 2016

Trump is only the last stage: Nixon --> Gingrich --> Rove --> Palin --> tRump

President Nixon created the polarizing "Southern strategy" and appealed to the "silent majority".

Gingrich introduced scorched earth / take no prisoners politics including the government shutdown.

Rove perfected polarization seeking to obtain a rock solid 51% rather than a shaky 60%.

Palin made incompetent ignorance a Republican common-place.

Donald J tRump, birther con man in chief, keeps digging down to ever more deplorable depths.

October 10, 2016

GOP would have to saw off their Rump with a rusty hacksaw.

The traditional GOP has been brow beaten into a corner since the days of Newt Gingrich.

Now they can't get rid of the Ts / Teas / tRumps any easy way.

They surrendered their party to extreme polarization and ignorance and bigotry. They can't get it back.

Their best option is to abandon the Ts en masse and form a new party. Not one of those existing joke and nutty Tea-like "Constitutional" or "Conservative" parties.

The best thing the Democrats can do with a broken GOP (aside from all the obvious things like SCOTUS) would be to put through a new hard-nosed Voting Rights Act, without sunset provisions.

The next thing would be to permanently put state districting in the hands of independent commissions, but that would mostly require winning state Legislatures. That is more likely with Republicans fractured up and down the line and it would be much easier to capture state Legislatures with a new national Voting Rights Act.

October 8, 2016

(Check your pocket) 21st century women are not allowed to look like Barbie Dolls?

[font size = "+1"]Check your pocket. It contains 74 year old high tech invented by a Barbie Doll who was 20 years ahead of engineers of her time.[/font] And she is not the only highly intelligent woman who has chosen to be very attractive and sexual.

Any woman who chooses to look like a Barbie Doll can't be intelligent and feminist?

You judge books by covers only?

Yeah, you're getting backlash because of your illogical attitudes that also seem to be unenlightened.

At the beginning of World War II, [font size = "+1"]actress[/font] (actor, in today's terminology) Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil developed a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes, which used spread spectrum and frequency hopping technology to defeat the threat of jamming by the Axis powers.[4] Though the US Navy did not adopt the technology until the 1960s, the principles of their work are now incorporated into modern GPS, Wi-Fi, CDMA and Bluetooth technology,[5][6][7] and this work led to their being inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.


But, ... you want to control how she would choose to look and dress.

Lamarr's earliest inventions include an improved traffic stoplight and a tablet that would dissolve in water to create a carbonated drink. The beverage was unsuccessful; Lamarr herself said it tasted like Alka-Seltzer.[16]

With the ongoing World War, Lamarr was inspired to contribute to the war effort, designing a jam-proof radio guidance system for torpedoes. With the help of composer George Antheil, they drafted designs for a new frequency-hopping, spread-spectrum technology that they later patented.[17]

Lamarr and Antheil realized that radio-controlled torpedoes, which could be important in the naval war, could easily be jammed, thereby causing the torpedo to go off course.[18] With the knowledge she had gained about torpedoes from her first husband, and using a method similar to the way piano rolls work, they designed a frequency-hopping system that would continually change the radio signals sent to the torpedo.[19]

Their invention was granted a patent on 11 August 1942 (filed using her married name Hedy Kiesler Markey).[20] Yet, it was technologically difficult to implement, and the U.S. Navy was not receptive to considering inventions coming from outside the military at the time.[16] Only in 1962, at the time of the Cuban missile crisis, did an updated version of their design appear on Navy ships.


Perhaps your technical accomplishments exceed hers?

Your attitudes are those of men and their female collaborators who wish to control the sexuality of women. Women (and men) have every right to be sexually aware and active. But tRump has revealed himself to be a sociopathic predator who takes without permission.

In early 1933, at age 18, she starred in Gustav Machatý's film, Ecstasy (Ekstase in German, Extase in Czech), which was filmed in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Lamarr’s role was that of a neglected young wife married to an indifferent older man. The film became notorious for showing Lamarr's face in the throes of orgasm



October 3, 2016

Scrap tax deductions; Only direct Govt payments are accountable and transparent to the public.


The scandal is that the tax system is rigged to give hidden subsidies to the rich and the corporations.

There should be no tax breaks for anything besides basic citizen breaks, like interest payments on mortgages on primary residences.

Every other monetary aspect of government policy should be handled by direct payments where the benefit is public and accountable.

[font size = "+1"]Hidden tax benefits are a very corrupt cause of the corrosively massive inequality of wealth and income.[/font]
October 1, 2016

He has a choice: Litigate it, foment a pitchfork & torch rebellion, or look deep inside & accept it.

Guaranteed it will not be the last option.

He might try a scorched earth policy and try to make the obstructionism against Obama look tame.

He might try to split the Grumpy Old Paleface party and lick his wounds reminiscing about his Twitter-hall Putsch.

He might write "Mein Twitter Struggle" in his jail cell serving time on tax evasion, bribery, charity fraud, candidate declaration form fraud, and embargo busting, and plot there a Trump 2.0 with Roger "Goebels" Ailes, Roger "Himmler" Stone, and Stephen "Heydrich" Bannon.

He might be busy with a fire sale of assets when Putin pulls the strings of his Russian oligarchs and calls in tRump's loans.

He might end up selling toy jet planes in infomercials on late-night TV.

September 29, 2016

Everybody Knows the GOP is leaking, Everybody Knows the Mic was Busted

Everybody knows the 'lection is rigged
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the debate is over
Everybody knows the orange guy lost
Everybody knows the mic was busted
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the GOP is leaking
Everybody knows their candidate lied
Everybody got this horrid feeling
Like their TV or their phone just fried
Everybody talking to their sockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a Miss Universe
Everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

And everybody knows that it's now or never
Everybody knows that it's him or you
And everybody knows that you rule forever
Ah, when you've spun a line or two
Everybody knows Trump's deal is rotten
Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton
For his ribbons and bows
And everybody knows



-- with apologies to Leonard Cohen

Lyrics to Everybody Knows by Leonard Cohen




Live
September 17, 2016

Hotel policies and amenities available at the new Trump Washington DC hotel.

Check your guns at the desk.

Two forms of picture ID required to register. No birth certificates.

No room service for C people (colored).

Women with 36D and up get free pool privileges.

The hotel dick will check your hand size.

RT (Russia Today) channel available in all rooms.

Admire our art work! In the lobby we have a 6 foot portrait and we have an equestrian statue with a bare chested rider.

Are you an Attorney General? You are in luck because your room is on us for a week!

Free inspection of all devices for malware and viruses. Low low rates for 'removal' of any we find.

For your safety and comfort, our food is not inspected by the USDA and our toiletries are not approved by the FDA.

Room security includes a six foot high wall you can lock into position against the door.

To lower room rates but mostly to maximize our profit, maid service and restaurant wait staff are provided by imported workers paid minimum wages.

Take a room for two nights and get a 30% discount on Trump University courses.



We'll leave a dumpster fire burning brightly for you.

(Move or let me know if this belongs in the 2016 forum)

September 5, 2016

Why the uneven coverage: Trump intimidates with vexatious litigation. Sues anyone close to secrets

Trump intimidates with vexatious litigation. He sues anyone who gets close to his secrets.

David Cay Johnston interviewed by Amy Goodman

http://www.democracynow.org/2016/9/5/the_making_of_donald_trump_david

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: I wrote a piece for Politico magazine back in April about all of Donald Trump’s connections. And Donald finally called me. He’s had my home number for years. He’s called me at home in the past. And he said to me, "Well, you know, you’ve written a lot of things I like. But if I don’t like what you’re writing, I’m going to sue you." I said, "Well, Donald, you’re a public figure." In America, that means that he would have to prove that I deliberately, knowingly told a lie about him. And he said, "I know I’m a public figure, but I’ll sue you anyway." And it’s one of the reasons the news coverage of him has been so soft. He has threatened to sue everybody. That Politico piece that I wrote, I’ve been an investigative reporter for almost 50 years; I’ve never been lawyered like I was for that piece. And it didn’t have anything that hadn’t been published before. [font size = "+1"]He has intimidated the news organizations, and they’re not willing to talk about that.[/font]


See also http://billmoyers.com/story/making-donald-trump-told-journalistic-nemesis/

Vindictiveness is a point of pride for Trump, Johnston said. “His personal motto is ‘get revenge,’” said the reporter, who devotes an entire chapter to Trump’s speechifying and writings on the subject. Describing how Trump fired a female employee who, citing ethical qualms, wouldn’t call a banker friend on his behalf, Johnston quotes Trump’s own account from his book, Think Big:

“She ended up losing her home. Her husband, who was only in it for the money, walked out on her and I was glad… I can’t stomach disloyalty…and now [font size = "+1"]I go out of my way to make her life miserable.”[/font]

Profile Information

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Member since: Fri Jul 16, 2004, 11:36 PM
Number of posts: 48,988

About Bernardo de La Paz

Canadian who lived for many years in Northern California and left a bit of my heart there. (note to self: https: //images.dailykos.com/images/1043361/original/2016.09.19_sunflowers_header.jpg . https://i.imgur.com/1VKgdmc.jpeg)
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