[Arne]: Seems to be de riguer [sic] nowadays for conservatives (or RWers at least) to redefine themselves as "liberals in the original meaning of the word"

[Susan]: Err..no it doesn't. That's your RW bogeyman alarm going off unchecked again

I've noted it. And you will too eventually, we hope, even if you're a bit slower on the uptake. It may take the trouncing you Rethugs get in 2008 before you all start "reinventing yourselves" in earnest. The alternative approach is to deny that today's discredited conservatives were really "true conservatives"; that approach is also showing its head, and will be taken by the more severely afflicted wingnuts and little Freep goofballs.....

[Arne]: ... and let us decide where on the political spectrum you stand.

[Susan]: Absolutely. Despite all the protestations to the contrary, it's obvious that most people here who take Glenn's side are absolutely batshit tree-fucking mad, and you can call me Susan if isn't so.

As they say, Susan, opinions are like a$$ho....

Cheers,

the American experiment will be dead as King John McCain begins His Most Sovereign Imperial Reign

so, little Johnny and little Georgie both want to be king!?

this means that both of them need to go to Britain and become members of the British Royal Family and then start a War of Succession with the current folks on the throne

I have to admit I didn't really follow that. But I'd like to hear more.

that one thing the Constitution needs to survive is that all 3 branches not conspire to destroy it.

Or allow themselves to be neutralized.

Or that the citizens allow same.

Well, it was Gatlinburg in mid-July

And I just hit town and my throat was dry,

I thought I'd stop and have myself a brew.

At an old saloon on a street of mud,

There at a table, dealing stud,

Sat the dirty, mangy dog that named me "Sue."

Well, I knew that snake was my own sweet dad

From a worn-out picture that my mother'd had,

And I knew that scar on his cheek and his evil eye.

He was big and bent and gray and old,

And I looked at him and my blood ran cold

And I said: "My name is 'Sue!' How do you do!

Now your gonna die!!"

-Johnny Cash

Referring this to a British-derived concept of 'monarchic' rule is misleading, I think. Me being British, I immediately noticed, when I started reading the serious American press, that Calvinism had had a much more profound effect on the USA than it had on Britain. The Calvinist axioms include the notion that an absolute morality should be revealed to each virtuous individual by an interior revelation. Thus, morality is non-negotiable, every individual being expected to proceed by the interior light of his own revealed moral sense. This makes impossible demands on the law, so the law too ends up being treated as a revealed text. This requires that the whole system of legal philosophy also bases itself on an imagined non-negotiable revelation derived from 'Judeo-Christian values.' Everything else is regarded as debauched, and I think this is why 'liberals' (not to mention Leftists in the proper, radically sceptical, sense) are regarded as, at best, a sort of demi-monde. My impression is that our monarchy, at the time of your revolution, while famously oppressive and barbaric in its colonial policy, was forced to deal with our own bourgeoisie on the basis of a quite cynical, Lockean moral philosophy, not at all 'the divine right of kings.'

Explicitly, Obama is a junior senator, and your expectations of him are silly.

The first two pages of comments, Pow Wow, and the "verbal bash-down" tone convinced me anything goes... mepex and Big Tuna on the same page? Tuna on Toast Day? Harpy Ladies and jelly beans. off-topic.

An announcement. hush.

No tell a secret in a cornfield?

The corn has ears and tells secrets. A stalk brings a corn ear. A stork is gonna mean I'll be a PaPa again! That's great news to me. Don't tell anybody yet. I can't stop sharing any good news. ~ Hope!

Dates always arouse me. Glenn mentions the 1770's and the Declaration, Constitution etc., Bill of Rights, etc, get some thought. It to try to look deeper into a past cultural setting. That's good news too... Looking deeply.

"How unripe we yet are." Thomas Jefferson.

Where have we been? Dozing. Lulled. Inured.

Of course, debate/discussions always got heated and existed pre-Declaration Of Independence etc., A book I'm browsing 1700's mentions a French scientific man who went to task with Thomas Jefferson. A pro-King man named, Georges-Louis Leslerk, comte de Buffon was condemning people who desired Independence from King George. Jefferson took offense at Buffon's rhetoric/writings... Buffon insisted America could not support human inhabitants. They need a strong king? NO!

Buffon objected to the New World (a acorn nut?). He despised the wildness. "People who tried to be domesticated (formed a colony) had degenerated in America," Buffon said. His idea were in books around 1749. Buffon had been respected, and the colonies were struggling to earn cultural respect. The views of Buffon was distressing and like wildfire... Colonies were irate. Agitation began to spread, and aided toward a fermenting of more serious discussion... HOW WE WANT TO BE GOVERNED?

(It's not easy to measure minor/major events, and the various personalities who live, and are participating. My thought. There are so many similarities)

Another "troll" era? There was another man named, Abbe Guillaume-Thomas-Francois de Raynal, in 1779 who revived Buffon's views. He described America as... "A place where everything carries vestiges of malady."

It was a Bashing of anything era. Similar?

I believe all the discussion, vile/virtue, leads us along...

I believe it will not degrade into despotic reign. I hope...

It's a one of the comments.... "You have to read Glenn's book"...

How have you been?

Obama is an example of something called a "junior senator."

Ponder that awhile, and you may get an answer to your questions.

What explicitly is your point of view on my questions?