dr.e
Assistant Editor and Columnist, TMV

The title of this thread has lent itself to an ad hoc 'open thread' and as such I'll push in yet another direction:

American Medical Association backs House health bill

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The influential American Medical Association on Thursday said it supported the healthcare overhaul legislation moving through committees in the Democratic-led House of Representatives and urged its approval…

What's that damn liberal… activist AMA thinking anyhow?.. Dr.J?.. DLS?

Sorry to break up the thread hijacking

Why do you equate changing with the world that we ALL live in to a very narrow and negative definition of “activism”. Aren't you aware that if a thing isn't active / growing / changing… Eight times out of ten it's dead.

Is it politically correct to ask this about the Sonia Sotomayor we're seeing in the current hearings?

Note: Sotomayor didn't budge when Franken sought an activist stance by her, and didn't side either with Franken's ironic games about judicial activism that followed, as if she's a “right-wing extremist” [sic]:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124775868855652…

Is it politically correct to ask this about the Sonia Sotomayor we're seeing in the current hearings?

Note: Sotomayor didn't budge when Franken sought an activist stance by her, and didn't side either with Franken's ironic games about judicial activism that followed, as if she's a “right-wing extremist” [sic]:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124775868855652…

Is it politically correct to ask this about the Sonia Sotomayor we're seeing in the current hearings?

Note: Sotomayor didn't budge when Franken sought an activist stance by her, and didn't side either with Franken's ironic games about judicial activism that followed, as if she's a “right-wing extremist” [sic]:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124775868855652…

Is it politically correct to ask this about the Sonia Sotomayor we're seeing in the current hearings?

Note: Sotomayor didn't budge when Franken sought an activist stance by her, and didn't side either with Franken's ironic games about judicial activism that followed, as if she's a “right-wing extremist” [sic]:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124775868855652…

Is it politically correct to ask this about the Sonia Sotomayor we're seeing in the current hearings?

Note: Sotomayor didn't budge when Franken sought an activist stance by her, and didn't side either with Franken's ironic games about judicial activism that followed, as if she's a “right-wing extremist” [sic]:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124775868855652…

Is it politically correct to ask this about the Sonia Sotomayor we're seeing in the current hearings?

Note: Sotomayor didn't budge when Franken sought an activist stance by her, and didn't side either with Franken's ironic games about judicial activism that followed, as if she's a “right-wing extremist” [sic]:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124775868855652…

* * *

“I believe more in republicanism (little r) than democracy (little d).”

Sadly, republicanism is treated with disrespect even more than democracy is misused nowadays.

(There's _so_ much in the way of reforms and improvements to our structure of government that could advance republicanism for the better. But I wouldn't trust Washington and the political agents besieging it to do this any more than they could now start a lunar manned mission from scratch rather than what we achieved forty years ago. I don't have much faith in them to make more changes on behalf of democracy.)

*** SIDE NOTE *** Didn't Franken grossly misconstrue the Constitution and make a similar bogus “right” statement yesterday when talking to Sotomayor, truly twisting everything relevent, and even hinting that judges should find that people have a “right” to cheap (or even “free”) telecommunications services?

No… Senator Franken DID NOT grossly misconstrue anything.

Hopefully this isn't news to the right side of the room BUT neither “telecommunications services” nor “the internet” existed when the Constitution was written HOWEVER there's a lot of things that exist now that didn't exist when the Constitution was written that are now accepted as protected under the Constitution.

That is why a balance of power is so very important… It keeps the (OUR) Constitution

To misquote Forrest Gump: “Bogus is as Bogus does.” And the attempt to mischaracterize what the Senator said is both silly and… bogus and “That's all I have to say about that.”

Re: “Didn't Franken grossly misconstrue the Constitution and make a similar bogus “right” statement yesterday when talking to Sotomayor, truly twisting everything relevent, and even hinting that judges should find that people have a 'right' to cheap (or even “free”) telecommunications services?”

I spot bullshit when it is presented, unlike my critics, whom I deal KOs routinely…BAM! slump…

While on a trip out of the state this week, I got to see some Clearly Not Neutral hype-coverage of the Sotomayor hearings (broadcasting the Dem members in full, commenting on them, interrupting for commercials, and interrupting for other news like more hype and obscession with Michael Jackson while the Republicans were speaking). I heard Franken speak to Sotomayor yesterday. Franken is a comedian, a vulgar, extreme political commentator, and now that he has entered the Senate and participated in the Sotomayor hearings, he has established that he is an actor, too — he knows how to play the role of liberal Democratic Senator, indeed in the same tradition as Paul Wellstone (or a peer such as Kucinich, elsewhere in Congress).

“Freedom of expression” (which is primarily if not exclusively _political_ expression, and specifically includes the right to criticize the government, even a Holy, perfect liberal Democratic federal government in Washington, DC) is grossly distorted by Franken to mean a “right” [sic] claim to easy access to telecommunications, and Franken in saying this to Sotomayor implies she and other judges should recognize and “find” this to be true, with all that implies, for bogus “rights,” for judicial activism, and even for childish, self-absorbed liberal bloggers:

“It plays a central role in our democracy by allowing anyone with a computer connected to the Internet to publish their ideas, their thoughts, their opinions, and reach a worldwide audience of hundreds of millions of people in seconds. This is free speech, and this is essential to our democracy and to democracy. We saw this in Iran not long ago. Now, Judge, you're familiar with the Supreme Court's 2005 Brand X decision, are you? …

Brand X deregulated Internet access services, allowing service providers to act as gatekeepers to the Internet, even though the Internet was originally government funded and built on the notion of common carriage and openness. In fact, we've already seen examples of these companies blocking access to the Web and discriminating on certain uses of the Internet. This trend threatens to undermine the greatest engine of free speech and commerce since the printing press. …

Internet connections use public resources; the public airwaves, the public rights of way. Doesn't the American public have a compelling First Amendment interest in ensuring that this can't happen and that the Internet stays open and accessible? In other words, that the Internet stays the Internet?

[I]sn't there a compelling First Amendment right here for people? No matter what Congress does — and I would urge my colleagues to take this up and write legislation that I would like — but isn't there a compelling, overriding First Amendment right here for Americans to have access to the Internet? “

["FRANKEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Judge Sotomayor"]

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009…

Actually, you are correct. I believe more in republicanism (little r) than democracy (little d).

Actually, the theory itself often fails, not just its execution; the term and the concept is often misused.

In the case you were referring to, J. West, your attempt to understand is, in fact, pathology. (You are studying diseased behavior if not diseased minds.)

The longest quote was about the idiocy about claiming a “right” to health care because it's part of or an example of a broader “right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” that is played with (chidlishly) on that thread by proponents of government health care. I have seen the same, exact, idiocy by someone in the past (complete with misuse of the Declaration of Independence as well as predictably the Preamble in addition to misconstruction of part of the Constitution itself) to support a judge's finding of a “right” to a guaranteed minimum income.

That is a _specific_ example of a “right” [sic] to something made the same stupid way as with health care.

(I added as a bonus the global-”right” [sic] activist assertion that auto-haters have a “right” to alternative transportation.)

*** SIDE NOTE *** Didn't Franken grossly misconstrue the Constitution and make a similar bogus “right” statement yesterday when talking to Sotomayor, truly twisting everything relevent, and even hinting that judges should find that people have a “right” to cheap (or even “free”) telecommunications services?

Here I go again trying to understand the liberal mind.

Do you actually believe that on one side, the liberals want peace, love, flying unicorns and happy things for everyone, regardless of race, creed or color, while the conservative side wants war, hatred, dead, rotting unicorn corpses and bad, mean things for everyone except rich white men?

Are these evil conservatives genetically bad from birth or is it a product of their selfish, right wing environment?

When a conservative watches a program like “Countdown with Keith Olbermann”, does he recognize how stupid and evil he (as a conservative) is or does he think Keith is talking about another (different) republican party?

If you meet a conservative at a party or at work, do you feel you should be able to have them arrested for their crimes against humanity? Do you know any conservatives personally who are probably lynching blacks or beating up gays on the weekend for fun?

Please let me know the answers to these questions. I need to find out where these ideas come from.