Monday potpourri

Louis Foxwell thinks Free Republic is going downhill, but still awesome.

I was among the first group who started on these threads in 1997/8. It was purer then, and shallower, and less rambunctious.
There is a greater mix of ideas, slanders, and idiots today. Many of the basest commentators are ignorant. But they are here and they have the chance to learn something.
This is still the very highest form of dialogue on the web. There is profound erudition, deeply principled thought and expertise beyond any hoped for expectation on virtually every topic. There is no better plaace to be.
Perhaps that is why we have attracted intellectual bumpkins from grade school, Rush’s heads full of mush. Give them pith and they will grow in wit and wisdom.

GraceG wants to cull the drug users:

you wanna stop drug use I have an idea...

1. Quietly intercept drug shipments and poison them with a random poison.

2. Run a PSA that tells everyone drugs do indeed contain poison because the government put the poison in there.

3. Repeat 1 and 2 until the problem takes care of itself...

No shooting of dogs or no knock raids required...

CodeToad keeps his vocab pure:

“public policy.”

Liberal term there. Just what does the public have to do with a dying patient? Since when was it your business?

driftdiver is presumably only thinking of White people here:

“Define “terminally ill””

Under Obamacare its when you are no longer a contributing member of society, aka not paying taxes.

Bryanw92 thinks Hitler saved the world:

History would have certainly been different if that man had killed Hitler, but not the history that most people believe it would have been.

Without Hitler, impoverished Germans would have probably embraced Red Banner Communism. They would have joined with Stalin and the two nations would have still tried to conquer Europe and beyond, in the name of the international brotherhood of workers.

How would WW2 have gone with Germany and the USSR united against the rest of Europe. What would an America, which was run by a Progressive (communist) throughout the 1930’s have done as the red wave swept across Europe and into Africa and Asia?

Even if killing Hitler in 1917 would have saved the 6 million Jews who died in the camps, Stalin’s treatment of Jews wasn’t much better.

If you don’t think that Germany would have slipped into Communism, just look at how easily it’s happening in the USA right now and we aren’t nearly as miserable as the people of Germany in the 1920’s and 30’s.

yefragetuwrabrumuy hilariously takes the liberal argument about media consolidation and calls it 'The conservative rebuttal'

The conservative rebuttal to this goes from the opposite direction: that the MSM has effectively become an oligopoly of about a dozen corporations, who organizationally are both vertical and horizontal monopolies.

That they have tiny amounts of competition does not make them competitive. So what is needed is to “anti-trust” these media companies to force competition.

The Federal Communications Commission used to have a powerful rule in place limiting individual media market domination by one or a few companies. That is, companies were limited in how many TV stations, radio stations, newspapers, etc., they could own or control in a single market.

But right now these dozen companies control the whole range of entertainment.

“Globally, large media conglomerates include Viacom, CBS Corporation, Time Warner, News Corporation, Bertelsmann AG, Sony, Comcast, Vivendi, Televisa, The Walt Disney Company, Hearst Corporation, Organizações Globo and Lagardère Group.

“As of 2012, The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the US, with News Corporation, Time Warner and Viacom ranking second, third and fourth respectively.”

So from the conservative point of view, breaking up this oligopoly and limiting growth, either vertical or horizontal, in media companies, would promulgate vastly more free speech and points of view to be aired.

I like to compare it to the breakup of AT&T, which in retrospect was essential for technical growth in the US across a huge band of communications. AT&T was “stuck in the 1960s”, and was a log-jam to innovation.

And there are still people who bemoan the end of that monopoly. For why, I have no idea.

See, this is what happens when you never talk to a liberal - you accidentally stumble into liberalism!

Patton@Bastogne's Newt boner is visible from outer space:

I personally met Newt and Callista Gingrich at the last Florida primary campaign stop in Tampa ...

they each graciously gave me their signatures in my copy of "The Federalist Papers" ...

As I departed that extraordinary "moment in time" ...

I looked at Newt Gingrich and said, "Thank you, Mr. President"

Newt Gingrich quickly, instinctively, looked up from his written signature,

as a sniper would when suddenly recognizing his prized target.

There was a genuine "fire in his eyes" ... the same fire that General Washington had at Valley Forge and Yorktown.

I will never forget that moment.



I firmly believe (and pray) that Newt Gingrich will be the 45th U.S. President of the United States of America.

"Let it be written. Let it be done."

Obadiah thinks the GOP's lack of mouth-frothing rage equals support:

What - exactly - is the difference between a Democrat and the GOP-e? In what areas of substance does the GOP-e differ from Democrats?

Obamacare? - no
Amnesty? - no
Abortion? - no
Expanding government? - no
Hating Conservatives? no
Federal fiscal integrity? - no

Just where is there any difference?

nascarnation - the Clintons murdered too many people to show Obama was a Kenyan usurper:

I’ve been pretty much convinced on here that the Clintons were blackmailed by the Chicago Mob over Arkancides.

So while Hillary could fire an occasional pot shot, the heavy artillery was mothballed.

Otherwise, I’m sure Palladino and Sutherland would have had very good success digging up the true history of Barry Hussein Soetoro.

cherry knows how to tell who is gay:

look at his skinny little wrists.....it seems so obvious.....

Man, jolly old Lazamataz is really gone sad and crazy lately:

Obama Can’t Help Dems Keep Senate

Oh, but he can.

Not by showing up to campaign, but by transferring Federal Funds to Democrat election efforts.... money stolen out of the nonfunctional Obamacare website.

Not by showing up to campaign, but by ramping up voter fraud to a 15% - 20% level.

Not by showing up to campaign, but letting illegal immigrants vote, and suing to prevent voter ID checking.

Oh, he will be helping. In fact, I predict a Republican bloodbath.

Nowhere Man was taught to hate MLK from a young age:

On Pittsburgh's North Side, we have a MLKjr elementary school. I remember watching them build it when I was a little kid in the early 1970's, it opened in 1973 IIRC. I'm sure you got a lot of schools named after him around the nation. I do remember asking Grandma who was Martin Luther King when I was that age, she just called him an agitator and a communist. I'm a Glenn Beck listener but I think Beck idolizes him too much, I guess because before I would drink the Kool-Aid, I want to know more about MLKjr, you know, like the equivalent of kicking the tires, looking under the hood, the frame underneath and so on to use a car analogy. MLKjr did say a lot of right things and so on, but still there is a side of me that is skeptical on him when I've read articles where he dissed Barry Goldwater and advocated wealth redistribution.

Check out his profile. He seems to be a character: "Angry Pittsburgh area "Neo-Victorian/Edwardian,"