Blagnet.net

Many, many quotes of the day!

I probably visit Vox Popoli, Vox Day’s blag, about once or twice a month, and when I can avoid or ignore the egomaniacal self-promotion and non-Christian-bashing, I am rarely disappointed. There were a couple gems in his recent posts:

There’s no shortage of evidence that most people are idiots. This is fundamental to the most basic understanding of human society. But what’s special about American college students is not that they’re not idiots devoid of wisdom and life experience, it’s that they truly believe they are highly knowledgeable and well-educated despite reliably demonstrating the exact opposite. I despised them when I was in college and I would probably loathe them more now if I ever had to have any contact with them.
—A flock of C-gulls

I guess you might not be pleased about this [nationalization of banks in England], but hopefully you wont be anti-Keynesian all your life, many great advocates of a system start off by being opposed to it.
—a reader to Vox Day, who is a student of Austrian economics

Then in the last post currently on page 1 of his blag, I found the link to this Reason magazine survey of many writers, comedians, pundits, et al. on the impending election. There were quite a few quote-worthy passages:

I don’t vote, and don’t expect I ever shall. Being even one-scintillionth responsible for placing the unbelievable and unspeakable powers of the current U.S. government in the hands of any of the people seeking it strikes me as irresponsible in the extreme. Besides, as everyone knows, those who vote have no right to complain about the outcome.
—Brian Doherty

The more people who believe that the 2008 election will end the abuses of the Bush era, the easier it will be for the next president to perpetuate Bush’s noxious principles and precedents.
—James Bovard

I will miss the honest conservatism of the GWB era—when many conservatives stopped pretending to give a damn about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and denounced as traitors anyone who did not kowtow to the Commander-in-Chief.
—James Bovard, saying what he’ll miss about the Bush regime

I have looked for a single example of their [the Bush regime's] acting in the best interests of the American people, the republic, or even decent conservatism. There are no examples, whatsoever. Such perfection belies the “Standard Model” that they were merely venal morons. Such uniformity of accomplishment smacks of deliberate intelligence.
—David Brin

I believe the answers to all the problems we face as a society won’t come from Washington, it will come from us. So the way we decide to live our lives and our decisions about what we buy or don’t buy are much more important than who we vote for.
—Drew Carey

As for Bob Barr, he is a duplicitous, double-talking SOB and I’d rather pluck out my right eye than vote for him.
—Shikha Dalmia

I am voting for Barack Obama, because I believe in hope and change and unicorns.
—Ryan Sager (extra points for giving me no clue whether that was sarcasm)

I’m voting Democrat because I think lawyers should run the country, because the last two years under their control has gone so well, because the government has done such a great job with FEMA that they should also be in charge of our school choices, health care choices, and retirement choices, because they protect me from crime so well that I don’t need a gun, because I want to pay more taxes (especially Capital Gains), because unions need to be stronger against evil corporations, because trade with foreign corporations is anti-American and we need to protect American jobs, and mostly because I’m tired of having so many choices and want someone else to make them for me.
—Michael Shermer

[In response to, "Who will you vote for?"] Thought about doing the Black President thing gradually by voting for Bob Barr.
—Roger Stone (It’s a joke about Bob Barr looking kind of black. We who are from Georgia have heard that one before. I thought it was hilarious.)

The last question in their survey was, “Leaving George W. Bush out of consideration, what former U.S. president would you most like to have waterboarded and why?” I mean, that’s honestly a pretty poor question. It’s probably too sadistic and violent to even put in as a hypothetical gag question. It doesn’t mean some people [cough]Woodrow Wilson[cough] didn’t deserve it, but it’s not that healthy to wish for or fantasize about certain people being tortured.

I think a much better way to ask a question that gets across the same message is simply, “Leaving George W. Bush out of consideration, who do you think is the most heinous, monstrous president in our history?” Or, at the very least, “If you had a lineup of all 41 presidents before GWB, and a gun with only one bullet, who would you shoot?” (Instant death is a hell of a lot better than torture. I’d shoot Woodrow Wilson. So sue me.) (Though I might also throw a curveball in there and say Alexander Hamilton.)

Anyway, disregarding the inappropriateness of the question, which was surely recognized by most of the people who gave a non-disgusted answer, here were some good responses:

Woodrow Wilson was our worst president mainly because we had no business getting involved in WWI and therefore every American who died in that war died for nothing. American intervention also upset the balance of power in Europe, which led to the rise of both Communism and Nazism. Wilson was a rabid racist and did terrible things domestically as well as internationally.
—Bruce Bartlett

Woodrow Wilson. Jailed political dissenters, created the Federal Trade Commission, got us into World War I. He also enacted the first federal income tax, the first modern military draft, and the first federal drug prohibition. Wilson also re-segregated the federal government. When blacks protested, he told them to consider segregation a “benefit,” not a debasement. An all-around loathesome human being.
—Radley Balko

I’ve never looked at any President with any reverence. I never saw any cause and effect between my daily life and a decision of the federal government.
—Doug Stanhope

I thought it was kind of odd that so many respondents didn’t mention, and some couldn’t even remember, the name of the Libertarian Party candidate they voted for for president in 2000—Harry Browne. (I actually voted for him.) I mean, I figured he was about as famous of an LP presidential candidate as Ron Paul. He did run twice in a row, after all.

Also, I didn’t realize how important the 1980 presidential election is considered to have been. I guess it was a huge deal that Reagan beat Carter and (I think) the GOP got a majority in Congress.

Posted in Democracy, Elections