Today in 'Libertarians are Dumb' News

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Rep. Paul Casts Sole ‘No’ Vote on Oil Spill Subpoena Power

When the House agreed to give subpoena powers to President Barack Obama’s newly formed oil-spill commission, 420 members voted for the plan and only one voted against it: Texas Republican Ron Paul.

A spokeswoman for Paul declined to elaborate on the congressman’s vote.

Paul’s son, Rand Paul, a Republican running for the open U.S. Senate seat in Kentucky, came under fire last month for supporting BP. In an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” he said Obama was “un-American” for criticizing the oil company, and said attacks on BP were part of the “blame game,” where tragedy is “always someone else’s fault.”

What is the rationale for this? I suspect it's something along these lines "Accountability of private companies isn't in the constitution. They should be free to do whatever damage they want - the founding fathers would have wanted it that way." Which would be consistent - and patently wrong, bad, stupid.

Today's poll:
[Poll #1583304]

Newsflash: General McFly(err, McChrystal) was just fired, which is what happens when one combines incompetence with public insubordination.

Comments

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

You didn't give me an option for someone who embraces all 4 of those...plus pornstache doesn't fit in any of them.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Sadly that's the devilish nature of polls - about 3 seconds after one is posted I realize that I missed things like Twilight Moms or All of the Above.

Pornstache is a caricature of Libertarian-conservatives, a category that should be labeled 'Troll Hard Without a Clue'.

[thies.livejournal.com]

Countdown until the Libertarians whine that this survey is "biased".....

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I voted for the childfree only because a) libertarians would be too broad to cover Sunlanders and b) everyone knows it's the hard left.

What is the rationale for this? I suspect it's something along these lines "Accountability of private companies isn't in the constitution. They should be free to do whatever damage they want - the founding fathers would have wanted it that way." Which would be consistent - and patently wrong, bad, stupid.

Why is it wrong?

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

So let's approach this situation in the specific. If the rest of the American political system took Ron Paul's approach, then BP could have issued a statement that after losing several people in the explosion that they wouldn't subject their employees to future risk and just walk away from the entire incident - leaving that 60,000barrel/hour underwater gusher for Somebody Else to deal with.

But since the government shouldn't be involved, and like Exxon, BP sees no sense in throwing good money after bad, who would ever deal with it?

Pretty much the only place I ever run across the hard left is ONTD_P.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

And they're just as stupid as the hard right, if (very) slightly less annoying.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

As a person who has no kids, doesn't WANT kids, and will never have kids, I call bullshit on that one. What does parental status have to do with the goddamned oil spill?

Same thing with religiousness. I'm pretty well convinced that the nutbags in Louisiana who want to "pray away the oil" are the most out of touch with reality regarding the oil spill. I'm not an atheist, but I'll give them far more credit than the idiots waiting for Sky Daddy to clean up their mess for them.

When will BP clean up the oil spill? Far too late.
When will God clean up the oil spill? Half-past never.

I'm not a libertarian, but calling out atheists and child-free folks on this one? Plain old stupid.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Subjective Poll is subjective - if that approach is good enough for the WSJ then by Marduk it's good enough for this place.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

"The Childfree" on LJ are, for the most part, baby-hating maniacs with persecution complexes. And I say that as someone to whom the label (childfree, not baby-hating, though I do kinda hate babies) would apply.

[ygrii-blop.livejournal.com]

The CF are as irritating as the kids they hate. Their whining is far more grating. I'm CF, too, but I stay as far away from the herd as I can.

[404.livejournal.com]

I truly hate CFers with a passion.

My defense of libertarianism

[readherring.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I have to take issue with the "Libertarians are Dumb" title. Ron Paul, for whatever reason, cast a hugely unpopular vote. Saying libertarians are dumb because of this is like saying liberals are dumb because Obama bailed out Detroit.

I don't think libertarians are that out of touch with reality. While the libertarians that are currently pining for anarchy are silly, I've found most libertarians to be fairly well grounded. They are certainly more grounded than the Tea Partiers, the Moral Majority types, the anti-capitalists, etc.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

WHere's the 'Discordians' option? Well of course theirs is a deliberate self-imposed delusion ;-)

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Is it a delusion when you know it's false?

And who needs reality when you have comedy?

Atheists?

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Why is nobody voting for atheists? I thought we were the most out of touch because we do not worship the material Creator of the flat and immobile earth.

Re: Atheists?

[miniaya.livejournal.com]

Oh, you!

Re: Atheists?

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

You really need some new material, no offense meant (you usually know when I decide to be offensive ;) )

Perhaps the time is at hand for the madman:

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

God is Dead!

Re: Atheists?

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

And oh, fuck, I may have just answered your inquiry.
Perhaps atheists are lumped into the philosopher category.

Re: Atheists?

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

And I did force the question by setting the poll up with radio buttons instead of check-boxes. So the results indicate a hierarchy of most annoying to least, and fascinatingly enough, it appears that Atheists came in at least 2nd to every single person to fill out the poll so far.

The funny for me in this post was the childfree and maybe atheist person annoyed with me...I didn't set the poll up by what annoys me, hell I am those in those 2 categories.

[retrofire.livejournal.com]

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

WIN

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

Philosophers are the most in touch with reality group on LJ. Read your Plato.

Two words

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

ender's shadow.

[reality-hammer.livejournal.com]

Because existing investigative organizations with such power are clearly insufficient when looking for a political scapegoat, especially one that can be accused shortly before an election and then hung in effigy at Obama's leisure.

Where's the commission with subpoena power that will be looking into the Obama administration granting exemptions for disaster recovery plans for this well?

Not to mention following the BP lobbying money....

(Failed insubordination accusation iz late.)

[op-tech-glitch.livejournal.com]

420 members voted for the plan and only one voted against it

Ironic considering all the "yeah baby legalize drugs!" crew who support Ronnie solely based on that one issue.

And I can't help but love how the libbies even managed to outscore the childfree for sheer batshittery. (Probably the only election they're likely to win any time soon........)

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

What is the rationale for this? I suspect it's something along these lines "Accountability of private companies isn't in the constitution. They should be free to do whatever damage they want - the founding fathers would have wanted it that way." Which would be consistent - and patently wrong, bad, stupid.

Probably the fact that human error didn't cause the pipe to burst - a methane gas bubble did. People can say all that want to that acoustic switches would have fixed the problem, but the world doesn't work on "if". The government, including Obama, approved the drilling. BP didn't have any back-ups to prevent a spill. The government AND BP are involved in this cluster-fuck of a cleanup effort, with the government taking primary responsibility. Both are to blame, but BP seems to be catching more flack for it than the government when they should be getting an equal share of shit thrown on them. The Left has chosen one side, the Right has chosen another.

Newsflash: General McFly (err, McChrystal) was just fired, which is what happens when one combines incompetence with public insubordination.

And really, what was the reason he was fired? Not one quote directly attributed to him criticized Obama or Biden and the rest were vanilla. The quotes that got him in the most trouble were from unnamed "aids" or "advisers". At most, McChrystal should have been reprimanded, but not fired. However, what's done is done and I hope that Gen. Petraeus has a better fight plan than COIN.