HyperInfluential's Comments (682)

“I think there is a dangerous level of irony in the fact that, in order to protest people illegally crossing designated border lines, the teabaggers illegally crossed the borders set up by police to prevent violence between the two groups.

So poor people from Mexico crossing the US border to try to feed their kids should be dealt with as harshly as possible, but white teabaggers should be allowed to cross police designated borders with impunity, and then apparently insult the people on the other side. GOP logic at its finest.”

“Actually the question is very simple: Who crossed the designated boundary lines between protests? Why do you think the police set up two separate areas for the two groups? Was it because if they got in each others' faces, violence would be far more likely to ensue? The person who violated the police rules and aggressively entered the opposing protest area shares much of the blame for the violence that occurred.”

“I'm pretty sure they weren't LITERALLY egging people, though THAT would be a video sure to go viral!”

“I was with you until you said Joe Scarborough was "hunky". I think you might need new glasses.”

“You are mistaken. They did indeed clearly and unequivocally call themselves "tea baggers," even going to the point of using the rallying cry "Teabag Washington" before it was tactfully explained to them why the entire rest of the country started giggling. We have the signs and footage to prove it. Karl Rove cannot wish these facts away. Deal with it.”

“I agree with you that the requirement to purchase health insurance MUST be scrapped, either by Congress or eventually by the Supreme Court. It is 100% unconstitutional to require people to purchase anything! People have the right to go their entire lives without ever picking up a Federal Reserve Note if they choose not to, and they certainly have the right to choose not to use medical care, or to pay for medical expenses out of pocket rather than pay huge premiums that likely would add up to more than their expenses in a given year anyway.

My mind boggles that legislators could seriously be considering such a thing, and comparing it, apples-and-oranges style, to car insurance! If you want to drive a car then you must also purchase the insurance, just as if you want to ride a bicycle you must have a helmet too, or if you want to practice medicine you must have malpractice insurance. It's fine to say that if someone wants to do something dangerous they have to take precautions, but it's completely out of left field to say that you can then be required to purchase something just because Congress thinks you ought to have it!

If we ever once give Congress the power to force us to buy things, there will be no end to the number of "essential" products their lobbyists will think of for us to be required to own.”

“The short answer is yes, yes you should chip in to pay for our nation's medical care, even for people who you apparently feel deserve to suffer because of their immoral lifestyles. It is in fact YOUR duty to help make this country as great as it can be, and you ought to be proud to do your part to defeat a killer that takes thousands of American lives every year: lack of proper access to healthcare.

But if you don't care about being proud of yourself for helping to make a great country even better, or if you don't believe your Deity will reward you for contributing to the welfare of those less fortunate than yourself, you should support public healthcare for the simple reason that diseases are contagious and if there are a lot of sick people running around breathing on you, eventually you too will become ill. Remember smallpox? Ever heard of H1N1? We are all connected. Everything you touch in a given day has been touched by thousands of other people. Other, germy, disease-infested people.

Public healthcare is a right, and it's the decent thing to do, but if all you care about is yourself, it's STILL the smart bet to make because germs don't care whether you're moral and upstanding or not.”

“A justice of the peace IS a state official. It's really frightening to me how many people seem to have no concept of what American marriage actually is. It is a state contract which you can choose, if you wish, to have blessed in a religion of your choice. Or not. The state doesn't care. It's only concerned with noting that these two Social Security subscribers have now formed a household unit and should be taxed accordingly, that the partners in the unit should be given hospital access rights, the right to dispose of each others' property after death, and all the other numerous rights granted by the state to the taxpayers entering the partnership agreement. That IS marriage RIGHT NOW. How do people not know that?”

“The sine qua non of marriage is NOT the right to conceive children together, it is the right to be considered full partners before the law, so that partners can help and support each other without any interference from anybody. Many married people choose not to have children or simply are not capable of it but their PARTNERSHIP is as rock solid as any couple who does have children. Furthermore, there is not now nor could there ever be in the United States any law saying who may and may not procreate together. You are free, and will always be free, to mingle your genes with anyone who will permit you to, thanks to the wise Founders who insisted on separation of church and state.”

“Thanks, Josh, for taking the time to write this intricate rebuttal! I know it's so long many short-attention-span folks will probably just skim it, but there were a lot of lies to debunk. I couldn't believe nobody at HuffPo even checked the basic facts of the names that apologist guy was throwing out, to find out no such people exist! Come on, HuffPo, it's an opinion article but you shouldn't let people just make up nonexistent figures to bolster their shaky opinions!

The great thing about Huffington Post is that it's not tied down to corporate sponsors, and can do things like publish a really long, intricate piece like this, to set the record straight. Thanks, HuffPo!”

“I think all people of goodwill have an obligation to help this ancient party retire gracefully to the history books before it embarrasses itself any further.”

“Thank you for this thoughtful analysis! I think you're right, it's time for whatever remaining Flower Children exist to dust off their sandals and set aside their everyday concerns once again, and activate to overwhelm the haters with Love! Come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now!”

“That's weird because whenever I see him, he's telling people they have to take matters into their own hands because he's terrified of the duly elected government. I've seen him shake and cry to express his fear about our President and his team, and that strikes me as odd because the whole world knows which of the two, Bush or Obama, was the frightening one. And yet not a tear during all those eight years, when the United States of America abandoned freedom for "security". People were actually "disappeared" off our streets, and not a word.”

“Thank you.”

“"Limited government" is code speak for "let polluters pollute" and "let the poor starve." Last time I checked, every political party in Europe was far, far to the left of any of ours. Remember? The awful socialist Europeans?

It's remarkable how when the leaders say "forget," it's like it never even happened for you people. I guess Orwell and Barnum were both right. You really can fool 21% of the people into thinking doublethink all the time.”

“So tell the Swedish they're oppressed.”

“You've read Ayn Rand. Now read "If This Goes On" by Robert A. Heinlein and get back to me.”

“Bingo! Also they've got us running full time combating this fallacy so we can't focus on our own important causes.”

“Haven't you heard? Up is down, black is white, cats and dogs, living together, it's anarchy! Glenn Beck has rewritten history and now we're about to find out if Rove was right and they can get away with it.”

“ANYWAY, your assertion was that a cradle-to-grave safety net ALWAYS leads to Big Brother, then you admitted that there were many countries where that was not the case! If it EVER happens, then your assertion is false!”

“Hmm, I see, so you're saying for some reason this solution won't scale out. But you don't cite any actual impediment, just an assertion of the complexity of the problem.

I am 100% certain that the nation that put people on the moon can handle administering a Danish-style social security system. We did invent the computer, you know. The Social Security Administration and ATM machines seem to have no problem keeping track of everyone. Think of the jobs created in IT! Those people spend it, too.

Unless you can show some actual reason why what works on a small scale can't be successfully scaled up, your argument is invalid.”

“"With one comes all," huh? There's just no way humanly possible to separate a large government safety net from a large fascist dictatorship. They're just inseparable. The bursar at the financial aid department will automatically become a Komissar when the "socialist" switch is flipped.

Why don't you tell the people of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, etc that they're living under Big Brother as an inevitable consequence of their social security system, because they don't seem to realize it. Keep scoring waaay higher than us on tests of national happiness too. Weird, that.”

“Exactly! I would think the government has to be a little bit "big" in order to govern over over 250 million people. We saw in Katrina how "strangling the government in a bathtub" worked out. It turns out we need some big muscle to move heavy objects and save lots of people from disasters and build roads across 2,000 miles of territory. Big is beautiful! As long as it's smart.”

“Well, you have a point. It takes a big government to either oppress all people in a fascist regime, or to make sure all people are covered with a cradle-to-grave safety net. Yes, largeness is required in both cases. My god, you should write the history departments of the world and inform them of this amazing discovery!”

“I am not a Libertarian. I am for opening our borders to all who seek the promise of our land. I also believe in an extensive government safety net, with cradle-to-grave basic life support, health care, education, and child care, and universal unionization of all jobs; basically the Danish Model.

People can't be free to pursue their dreams when they're too hungry to study or too poor to take the classes they want. It benefits us all to have everyone who wants to be a doctor actually have the opportunity to become one.

I'm glad you see the need for more than two parties, but it saddens me to see how you've been deluded into conflating socialism and fascism. The two are not related in any way, even if some regimes of the past happened to use both.”