dagblog - Comments for "Our current collective political insanity"

What is a moral conservative?

EmmaZahn — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 23:10:16 +0000

In reply to My observation is that the

What is a moral conservative?

My observation is that the

Donal — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 13:28:42 +0000

In reply to Unfortunately, it seems to me

My observation is that the core teabaggers have the educational attainments necessary for their business success, They might be contractors with engineering degrees, financial consultants with economics degrees or car salesmen with high school degrees. Whether that makes them highly-educated is a matter of opinion. I think the poorly educated folk tend towards the moral conservatives rather than the fiscal conservatives, but that might just be my experience.

Unfortunately, it seems to me

Verified Atheist — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 14:15:21 +0000

In reply to We haven't had a genuine Left

Unfortunately, it seems to me that the loudest voices are the poorly educated, both practically and theoretically. I find it hard to argue that the teabagging right are "highly educated professionals". There are those on the left that qualify as that, but even there, I think the "highly educated professionals" are drastically outnumbered by the uneducated, both in terms of numbers and in terms of voice.

We haven't had a genuine Left

cmaukonen — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 13:32:28 +0000

In reply to Absolutely. I think that the

We haven't had a genuine Left in this country since the McCarthy era. The communist witch hunts scared them all away. What we have is a whole lot of intellectual masturbation on both sides of the political fence.

What is most astounding and a bit amusing is that the people who are yelling the loudest come from the same socioeconomic and intellectual demographics. Both the teabagging right and the loudest of the self proclaimed left are highly educated professionals. Both arguing the exact same talking points with few variations as they did in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

All this hubris and rhetoric being on both sides coming off more like sophomoric attempts at say FU and FU2 with out actually doing so. Neither side being willing to actually challenge the other face to face but through surrogates in the media and elsewhere.

When any actually do attempt to challenge the other side face to face at a rally, town-hall or other political event they are immediately disavowed by both sides.

Absolutely. I think that the

Verified Atheist — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 12:17:09 +0000

In reply to Well there is a strange left

Absolutely. I think that the numbers of people who qualify for the definitions used here for "fake-Left" are significantly less than the numbers of people who qualify as "real-Right".

At the risk of proving

Verified Atheist — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 12:15:06 +0000

In reply to And this is the most insane

At the risk of proving Orion's point about condescension, is it insanity or unawareness? Is the rat insane to eat the rat poison?

Well there is a strange left

Richard Day — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 02:02:36 +0000

In reply to Our current collective political insanity

Well there is a strange left that is for sure.

But it is less dangerous than the far right!

In my humble opinion.

And this is the most insane

cmaukonen — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 01:34:06 +0000

In reply to Our current collective political insanity

And this is the most insane part of all.

Humanity would need five Earths to produce the resources needed if everyone lived as profligately as Americans, according to a report issued Tuesday.

As it is, humanity each year uses resources equivalent to nearly one-and-a-half Earths to meet its needs, said the report by Global Footprint Network, an international think tank.
"We are demanding nature's services - using resources and creating CO2 emissions - at a rate 44 percent faster than what nature can regenerate and reabsorb," the document said.

"That means it takes the Earth just under 18 months to produce the ecological services humanity needs in one year," it said.
And if humankind continues to use natural resources and produce waste at the current rate, "we will require the resources of two planets to meet our demands by the early 2030s," a gluttonous level of ecological spending that may cause major ecosystem collapse, the report said.
Global Footprint Network calculated the ecological footprint - the amount of land and sea needed to produce the resources a population consumes and absorb its carbon dioxide emissions - of more than 100 countries and of the entire globe.
The think-tank worked out how many resources the planet has, how much humans use, and who is using what.
Back in 1961, the entire planet used just over slightly more than half of Earth's biocapacity.
Today, 80 percent of countries use more biocapacity than is available within their borders. They import resources from abroad, deplete their own stocks and fill "waste sinks," such as the atmosphere and ocean, with carbon dioxide.
The average American has an ecological footprint of nine global hectares (23 acres), or the equivalent of 17 US football fields.
The average European's footprint is half that size, but still too big to be sustainable in the long term.
At the other end of the scale are impoverished countries like Malawi, Haiti, Nepal or Bangladesh, where the footprints are around half a global hectare, or 1.25 acres - often not even enough to provide for basic food, shelter and sanitation, the report said.
But there are relatively easy measures that can be taken to slow the rot.