Today’s quote for discussion comes from our own Brandon Friedman’s book, The War I Always Wanted, which I highly recommend, and not just because I think he should be rich and famous.

Buy The War I Always Wanted at Amazon.

I pose this as a direct challenge to the community: can you persuade me to support the recently vetoed bill to expand S-CHIP?  Support for this bill, and for an attempt to override the President’s veto, is nearly universal here.  Despite that, I intend to challenge the community to justify this to me. 

It is not truly important for you to bother to do this.  I am only one person, and few people share my opinion.  Further, whether or not you agree with me, this is very advantageous political theater, and undermining it by seriously questioning its foundations has disadvantages.  That being said, I’ll make my case, and I’ll even give you reason to believe you can succeed in converting me.

Welcome to today’s installment of quotes for discussion!  Without further ado…

Move to the room
Down on the bed
These are the things she said
And make it good
And make me clean
These are the things I need

But I can’t just want
Because it isn’t enough for me

We’ll understand
Talk in your sleep
Tell secrets that we keep
I’m calling you
Out of the crowd
Yeah mommy is so proud

But I can’t just want
Because it isn’t enough for me
And I can’t just want
You know it isn’t enough for me

Want isn’t clean
And want isn’t man enough for me
To make me believe
That want could ever fill my need
To be

And I can’t just want
You know its never enough for me
And I can’t just want
You know it isn’t enough for me

Want isn’t clean oh yeah yeah
Want isn’t man enough for me
To make me believe oh oh yeah
That want could ever fill my need
Want isn’t clean
And want isn’t man enough for me
Just make me believe
Make me believe
Make me believe

Many of you may wonder why I have been so dogged with my “Quotes for Discussion” posts over the last year.  I usually offer them up without context or commentary, and they are tangential to the point of the sites where I post them at best.  Further, few people, including few of you, bother to read them or discuss them.  And even more, sometimes the quotes, and my purpose in posting them, is very hard to gather.  So, I’ll tell you why.

It is my belief that most political programs and ideas fail because they are not conceived or implemented with people in mind.  Take, for example, Marxism. Marx knew a lot about economics, about philosophy, and about politics.  But every single society based on Marxism, from the Soviet Union to each commune and kibbutz has eventually failed, and failed badly.  The reason for that is simple: Marx understood people, individual people, very poorly.

This is the root of my politics: that it has to be about people, and how they really live.  I don’t support legalization of heroin and marijuana, prostitution and gambling, property rights and gun rights, because I think any of those things are so great in and of themselves.  People will abuse drugs beyond their capacity to manage, cheat on their spouses and lose their paychecks, believe in the ownership of their property and seek to defend themselves with violence, whether I condone it or not.  Policies meant to attack these things will inevitably fail and cause great injustice.

People complain about the bad things that happen to em that they don’t deserve but they seldom mention the good.  About what they done to deserve them things.  I don’t recall that I ever give the good Lord all that much cause to smile on me.  But he did.

Then read this.  Seriously.

That is why the Republican party is in shambles. The majority of us have decided that the movers and shakers in the GOP and the blogospheric right are certified lunatics who, in a decent and sane society, we would have in controlled environments in rocking chairs under shade trees for most of the day, wheeled in at night for tapioca pudding and some karaoke.

Aiyo!
Below the terra firma’s the murmur of many men
Resonatin’ the predication of RA’s eponym
It requires a higher degree of thought to transmit
Elevate above the base and retrace the semantics
Incommensurately we’ve been held incommunicado
From commoner to commodore – they breed bravado
I exercise authority over the lesser ranks
We rally and tally up at the shores of the West Bank
The shoddy lick the body politic – feel the kickback, son
Pardon the warden to remit that one
Sinkin’ solemnly into the vein of my pathology
I maintain the etymology of “I” defy chronology
Copy me, cosmically I seek to be laconic and terse
The meek shall admonish the earth
While the merits of inheritance are gainfully pealed
They symbolism of nepotism is painfully real
The provisioners of policy are plottin’ my demise
In addition, the aristocracy’s blockin’ the uprise
The commandant’s callin’ for change by any means
I’ve seen heaven and hell; it feels strange in between
Never settle – the medal pacifies rebel troops
But truth is the honor in the eyes of the resolute
Press on – employ the pen to postulate upon it
Verily I perform the pass summarily – you wonder why?

They say that he was born that way
They can’t imagine havin’ to go on that way
Maybe if you pray for him he’ll be drawn from the fray
Or maybe what? – maybe he’s OK…

Sharin’ hymns with the seraphims – praise in polyphonic fashion
The action reanimates the catatonic
Aid the abject and abjure the apathetic
Positive polarity and the draw is magnetic
They lurch and reel trynna reverse the field but can’t manage
The pull of my sign aligns planets
Secrets comin’ out in the wash of the ebb tide
Those who sought found; those who fled died
To the sight deprived sound might provide solace
The scholars of applied sciences supply the knowledge
Upon the foundation we erect the edifice – make it known
We dedicate the corner stone to Aeschylus
Fortified with more than 45’s – master the art of war
You blast trouble, but the struggle endures
Emaciated, the contemplative will kill for a drink
If not methodically restrained by the chain link
From my solid form I liquefy to be absorbed by the river
Stand re-delivered to mi amour
Chant “freedom” in their face and abase my captors
With grace I placate and await the rapture
In this colony I’ve seen atrocities personified
Still unable to affect the sovereignty of the allied
It’s the balance – they’re challengin’ your will to achieve
Imprison my coalition but the vision’s still free…

He had to have been born that way
A great many show envy towards the Lord’s protégé
And maybe if you pay for it he’ll perform a display
Or maybe what? – maybe you’re too late…

Common Market, My Pathology

In 1980, an African-American was equally likely to be either living in a college dorm or living in prison.  Not anymore.  In the last twenty-six years, we have made remarkable progress.

Today, the Census Bureau will release a study showing that American blacks are more than three times as likely to live in prison than in a college dorm.

And the study has more good news as well.  Hispanic Americans in 1980 were more likely to live in college dorms than in prison.  Now, there are 2.7 Hispanics in prison for every Hispanic in a college dorm.

If they keep handing out tracts like this, I imagine Creationism will be dead in a matter of months.

There Go the Dinosaurs

Cracked my shit up!

This diary will self-destruct shortly.

I was looking at our FAQ, and I had two things I thought should be added.

First of all, a list of Admins and Contributing Editors.  I know I can suss out who most of them are via the blogroll, but I didn’t know, for example, that pyrrho was one.  Not that this is a problem, but if I don’t know, probably newcomers don’t either.

Second, could we put up our current I/P policy there?  The FAQ doesn’t reflect it.