Mach8's Comments (706)

“So the cop uses the guys face to smash a window and THE GUY is charged with two felonies? This is getting ridiculous. We are becoming a police state in the most literal sense.”

“So "threatening" is not getting lynched for looking at a white woman? Or sitting at the same lunch counter? Or using the same public bathroom?

This false equivalence argument is weak and counterproductive.

Bet HuffPo scrubs this one too...”

“Why not? Gays are blaming Blacks for gay marriage being in retreat. Gays have a far greater problem than Black opposition to gay marriage yet the Black community is the recipient of its anger.”

“Yet you seem to give the hundreds of thousands of whites who voted for it a pass. As well as the many whites who have been instrumental in defeating gay marriage EVERYWHERE.”

“Good luck with the gay marriage thing then.

When you guys stop killing the messenger and listen to the message then maybe, just maybe, YOU might have a clue.”

“"Left to individual states where blacks are numerous and where blacks thump their bibles as heavily as any thumper, marriage rights, no matter how much of an outreach Gays do, would never pass."

How do I not "get it"? You don't seem to "get" that Blacks, for the most part, are not a statistically significant voting bloc on the gay marriage issue. If the Blacks who voted on the issue voted 100% for gay marriage, gay marriage would STILL be in complete retreat as it is now.”

“This is nonsense. Blacks don't make it a priority to turn out on votes regarding gay issues. Gay marriage has been shot down EVERYWHERE. Prop 8 passed because more of EVERYONE, whites, blacks, latinos, voted for it. Sad but true. Vilifying a group because your message failed is cheap and guarantees future failure. It seems like gays are more interested in acting the victim than finding a message that WORKS.”

“I have to laugh at people like you. Ms. Goff's essay was excellent and clearly outlined the deficiencies of the LGBT movement to move gay marriage forward. And you offer more excuses? Hilarious.

First of all, calling it "marriage equality" was asking for trouble. Gay marriage "equal" to heterosexual marriage? I think the majority of people feel that gays should have equal protection under the law (wingnuts and fundamentalists notwithstanding) but if the notion is to get people to accept that homosexuality is EQUAL as a practice to heterosexuality, good luck with that. Most people simply don't believe that and no amount of calling them "homophobes" is going to change that.

I've stated time and time again that the LGBT community is engaging in the wrong fight and have been insulted in many creative ways. But I'm just the type of person the LGBT community needs because I actually believe in their right to have equal protection under the law. A system built on hypocrisy will ultimately fail, whether its a government or advocacy movement.”

“"Government funding of basic research has been astonishingly productive. Over the past five decades it has led to the development of the Internet, lasers, global positioning satellites, magnetic resonance imaging, DNA sequencing, and hundreds of other technologies. Even when government was not the inventor, it was often the facilitator. One example: semiconductors. As a study by the Breakthrough Institute notes, after the microchip was invented in 1958 by an engineer at Texas Instruments, "the federal government bought virtually every microchip firms could produce...­."

Yup, capitalism is great at commercializing stuff but not so great at actually INVENTING it anymore. Every time someone regales me with tales re: the strengths of capitalism, they grow oddly silent when I bring up the fact that almost every great technological stride of the last 60 years has come via government R&D and funding. The government is making more millionaires now than the so-called "free market."

So much for Adam Smith and the "Invisible Hand."”

“The U.S. consumer doesn't have a choice. Wages have stagnated while the cost of everything has tripled in the last 8 years. Cheap Chinese goods are about all anyone can afford now and the U.S. doesn't manufacture anything anymore.

I'm sick of people trying to pin our economic woes on the American public.”

“China already has the means to disable the U.S. GPS system and destroy its most fearsome weapons, its aircraft carriers. Intelligence is the name of the game for our military and, without it, it is vulnerable. Remove the intelligence component and compromise its reach and the U.S. essentially has to go mano-a-man­o... who do you think has the better numbers? I guarantee Chinese small arms aren't as fickle as their U.S. counterparts and their military probably outnumbers the U.S. military 4-to-1.

What good would it be to loan someone money and not be able to call their marker? It's inevitable that China will ultimately develop the means to completely negate the strengths of the U.S. military. The countermeasures to defeat U.S. super-weapons are far cheaper than the super-weapons themselves. China may spend less on weapons but I'm pretty sure its investments are more strategic.

Congress has put the U.S. up as collateral for its loans, thinking that it can simply default in the worst case scenario. Our taxes primarily only pay interest on our debt to China and the Federal Reserve. The wealthy elite has decided to deliver this country into serfdom to pay off their benefactors and retain power. As time goes on, the U.S. people will only have two choices... serfdom or destruction.”

“Everyone has a right to disagree with actual facts. Hey, few people like truth. But when you make up your own "facts" and call it "news," then there's a problem. When you remove the proof that you are making up the "news," then you are simply a propaganda outfit.”

“Chasing your own tail, KDog? Because your response was laughably circular.”

“Hah! Fanned.”

“So Fox "News" gets called out as a fraud news organization and then removes the PROOF. I can see it now...

Progressive: Fox "News" is a sham news organization.

Conservative: PROVE IT!

Progressive: Ummm.... ahhh....

When you can't win the game, change the rules. If Fox were indeed a REAL news organization, it would not have any problems with the clips remaining on YouTube. They are "news" after all, right?”

“Funny... I posted stuff like this last year when the so-called "marriage equality" movement had a full head of steam and Prop 8 was on the horizon. I stated that the LGBT movement was making a big mistake equating its struggle to the Black civil rights movement. Needless to say, that didn't go over very well. No doubt gays have endured persecution, but there are plenty of ways in which gays have far more acceptance than Blacks do even today.

As long as the LGBT community keeps attempting to make false equivalence arguments for its cause rather than focusing on the very legitimate legal argument it has for demanding same-sex marriage, it will continue to face disappointment. Regardless of how anyone may feel about the LGBT lifestyle, same-sex marriage is a choice between two consenting adults and should be respected under the law. It's almost impossible to argue against gay marriage from a legal standpoint, at least reasonably.”

“"The "Great Recession" has given employers the excuse they need to fire everyone ("sorry, it's the recession"). Consequently, productivity has shot up considerably. This is a good thing that will have long-term positive effects on the economy. And as businesses replenish their inventories, companies will be forced to hire good people to help them create those inventorie­s."

The problem isn't unproductive workers but incompetent business leadership. When the economy tanks, many of a business's most productive workers get laid off while incompetent leadership either rides out the storm or rides off into the sunset with their severance packages. Bad economies rarely make the rich poor but often make the less rich a lot more poor.”

“How much of Goldman's profit is based on financing ventures that produce actual jobs, services and products? How much is produced simply from crafty mathematics? My guess is that far more profit is produced from the latter.”

“"Do our cops understand the survival benefits of treating people with dignity and respect, of behaving with maturity and self-discipline?"

No.

At least 5 minorities have been unjustly killed by police officers this year. And this doesn't include the instances of abuse that have been captured on film. The police are becoming an occupying force on our streets. As long as the so-called "decent" cops support their fraternity that condones the oppression and murder of citizens for being a different color or speaking a different language, incidents like this are likely to become more frequent.”

“If those guys are caught ANYWHERE that recognizes an EU extradition treaty, they'll be spending 5 to 8 years curing Italian "sausages" in their bums. So I hope none of them is interested in visiting France, England or any other EU country.”

“You are being too literal.”

“I've come to realize that there is a fundamental misunderstanding between the so-called "left" and "right." The fact is that the ideas that form the basis of both sides are correct:

"Conservatism" is based on the fundamental concept of "freedom".­.. but that term really means "freedom from force or coercion." A true conservative believes that people shouldn't be forced to do anything they don't want to do. They oppose government because governments are the ultimate users of force and coercion. Law enforcement and taxation can and often do become repressive forces to control population and dissent so a true conservative opposes those them. That doesn't sound too stupid, right? Ironically, ANARCHY is the logical solution.

But Republicans and corporatists have bastardized that idea to use it to get people sign on to their agenda of enforcing the rule of a wealthy elite. Today's "conservatives" say they "oppose" government but what they really want is a government that protects corporations and monopolies while undermining the ability for people to work collectively in opposition to those interests. In that respect, Republicans won't ever truly reduce government.

cont.”

“cont.

"Progressives" believe in the fundamental power of the collective­... the idea of individuals working together for the common good. Collectivism is in our DNA and part of human nature, that is why we have tribes, families, nations, etc. Even corporations are types of collectives. The whole is always greater than the sum of its parts.

Democrats have bastardized that idea by making the government the focal point of the collective effort. When people are FORCED to be part of a collective, they are no longer free. That's why "socialism" and "communism" are such bad words to conservatives, they are FORCED collectives.

In all of this, the government looms. The "progressive" agenda is a knee-jerk response to the government undermining its freedom by protecting corporate interests. So progressives are trying to get the entity which is CREATING THE PROBLEM to solve it.

So BOTH groups are being lied to. Republicans won't ever reduce government in a way that benefits ALL people and Democrats are willing to give the state too much power.”

“"And every other Democrat would have gone after Wall Street with a vigor we have not seen from this president.­.."

I stopped reading after this. If Weston actually believes this, I want some of what he is smoking.”

“So, McCain in the pocket of Big Telco... the irony is hilarious.

So now the government guaranteeing a level playing field on the Internet is "regulatio­n." How many major companies would have remained stillborn if their bandwidth had been throttled? It's better to have telcos determine what sites we can go to instead of the FCC insuring that all packets pass through the Internet with the same priority?

If this passes, there are going to be MAJOR issues...”