Point/Counter point, Castle Argghhh! style.

By Ry on March 2, 2008 | | Comments (3)

It’s been a while since I’ve had time to do much of anything online (with the taking care of my friend’s widow and all her legal issues, babysitting, and then getting really, really, sick), but I’ve been wanting to act as counter point to Kat for a while. She’s gone on a rampage with content. Some of it deserves very lengthy, serious, and thought out responses. Some of it doesn’t.

So let me kick off this counter-point to her in classic SNL style:
(more below the fold)

[Deleted. 15 yards and loss of down for completely un-needed inflammatory usage. -the Armorer]. Like I’m not going to be filleted for that, but that’s par for the course around here. Oooh, John may even break out the Castle Trebuchet from the inner bailey to placate the Castle Kittine Corps for that one. [No, I'll just use the Power of Big Edit and delete it, and spank you in the comments -the Armorer]

Obama this, and Obama that. Anyone remember Reagan? How creepy he was to the people on the left? Oooooh, he’s just a like a Hitler with the charisma and devoutness of the political following he developed (in a really bad mock Korean accent). His military build up was very expensive, broke the country from a liberal minded perspective, and was absolutely not what the liberals wanted(much like how we non-liberals/progressives/whatever they want to be called because they want to avoid the taint they rightly earned think that socialized medicine in the form of gov't funded healthcare will break the country's bank or is otherwise outright wrong) The cult-esque following Reagan still enjoys could be scary, if you didn’t understand it or the man. Viva la Reagan Revolution, anyone?

Or the Kennedy Clan, which to this day, 40+ years after the fact, has people talking about them being ‘American Royalty’ and so deeply invested in there being conspiracies to kill them off (why’d they miss The Swimmer? Cruel, cruel conspirators.). Come on. They detailed a destroyer to search for a missing pilot for a whole week because he was ‘John-John’ and a Kennedy? That was a whole lot more disturbing to me than the popularity and religious zealot like fervor of Obama and Obama-mania (which, funny enough, was a lot like the Naderite zealots at UCD during the ’00 elections----maybe not as big, but just as silly and predicated on perceptions than substance.). We’re the US. We don’t have, and never should, anything resembling royalty. That we do have people following the doings of the Kennedy's or the neo-royalty(celebrities) is far worse than Obama-mania. Hell, Fernando Mania (when Fernando Valenzuela was a rookie throwin' nasty screwballs for the Dodgers) was worse than Obama-mania (he's a Dodger and anything having anything to do with the Dodgers must be evil, by definition.)

That’s not to say I like Obama. I don’t. I don’t go in for the meat and potatoes of the man’s platform. Yes, he’s running predominately on promises of hope and change and won’t it be great to have all the stuff the Europeans have in terms of social welfare type stump speeches. So? This is new? This is new even for democrats? Like he can deliver? Anyone remember how 'Hillary-care' and the bulk of the Clinton agenda got stalled?

Sorry. I just don’t get the willies over Obama. Is he worse than Billary? No. There are differences in what they both promise but ultimately I think their policies are bad for our nation, what with the implied ‘you’re not making the right choices so we’ll just take over wherever you’re doing that, m’kay?’ imo. I don’t like that and find it a horrible direction for our country to take, but to get the willies over Obama and Obama-mania? Oh, come on. Spare me the over the top rhetoric and quit channeling the long departed ability to write said rhetoric of Maureen Dowd (I bet you she'd trade her dates with Mike Douglas for her writing chops back, Kat).

Ultimately, he’s just a guy. If elected he’ll be a president we as a nation will survive. We lived thru 8 years of Slick Walrus. We can do 8 more. Whatever Obama messes up, while exceptionally difficult to undo, we’ll find a way to fix. We’ve done that with bad presidents before. Nixon with his price controls, Carter in almost total, and the way the tax rates change with the presidents come to mind as ways we as a nation are pretty resilient in how we come back from idiocy of one president or another. Obama, if elected, will be just another number in a long stream of silly presidents with bad ideas. This too shall pass.

But there’s one good thing I’m seeing in the Obama candidacy. People don’t care about the man’s race. He’s gotten the Kennedy/Beetles thing going and nobody cares. You see on CNN after every primary that the white vote is almost evenly split if not going heavy for Obama. White racism is dead in America is what that tells me, contra John Stewart and his Daily Show funny-boys. That’s a good thing to know. If Obama wins, shudder at the thought, it’ll be because he snake oiled enough people into believing his bread and circuses routine and have nothing to do with race. Largely, that’s a good thing. Worth even living thru a 4 year term of the man to have the country realize that we have come that far if you ask me, so long as it heavily discredits race hustlers like Sharpton and Jackson.

Do I at least get to wear my hockey helmet when launched from the Castle Trebuchet, Castle Kitten Corps? With the digs John’s got now there’s actually room to fire me for transgressions instead of using BCR’s orbiting death satellites (which is what the USN test of the Standard missile system was really all about. It wasn’t a spy sat that was coming down. I’d engineered a fault in one of BCR’s sats and gave Mankind a chance to get rid of the sucker. I’ll take my payment in non-stale Cheetos all you guys out there, thanks.)

We now return you to an upright position and your regularly scheduled day of serious stuff here at Castle Argghhhh!
--ry

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3 Comments

By John of Argghhh! on March 2, 2008 10:52 AM
Ry, just because you toss in a comment about you know you are breaking the rulez doesn't mean I'm not going to twist your ear about it. Stop that. This political season is going to be long enough without sinking into snarkery at each other. I welcome the discussion. I will tire nearly *instantly* of gratuitous snarkage.
 
By kat-missouri on March 2, 2008 11:36 AM
(when Fernando Valenzuela was a rookie throwin' nasty screwballs for the Dodgers) was worse than Obama-mania (he's a Dodger and anything having anything to do with the Dodgers must be evil, by definition.)
First, Valenzuela isn't running for president. Second, though I did bang on him considerably, I did take apart one of his policies and plan to do more. Third, there is no guarantee we survive anyone's presidency if their policies are bad enough to put us in a weakened position economically, politically or militarily. Which leads me to number four and the fact is, as long as he is running for president on those ideas and using empty tent revivalists speeches to "snake oil" voters, I feel his oration style is open to serious discussion. Number five, Reagan didn't just speak about hope, change and the future. He talked about making America strong again exactly after having suffered really horrendous presidencies in the previous decade. Sixth, frankly, I was ten when Reagan ran for the presidency. My family were staunch democrats who didn't vote for him, so I can't attest to any Reagan mania, even among other voters. But, a discussion that Ry and I have had on another subject comes to mind. That being that the myth of our history is sometimes so powerful, people can't accept our history without it and, even the best intentioned fall prey to it. I believe that is what has happened with Reagan's supposed empty demagoguery that allegedly captured America's mind. I think I have a very poor view of folks comparing Obama's "all we are saying, is give peace a chance and let's tax the "rich", give everyone a free education and generally bankrupt the state for socialism" to Reagan's "peace through strength, the empowered individual, small government" approach. Optimistic? Yes, but it isn't simply Obama's "optimism" that offends me. It's his jolliness while he proposes spending us into tax oblivion and cozying up to terror supporting, mass murdering tyrants, reversing hard fought, paid for in blood freedoms for many people. Frankly, when I opened this, i was expecting a counterpoint on the building of the wall, which I've been waiting for before going on with the defensive failures and political costs of "castle under siege mentality". Instead, you're taking me to task for lambasting the ObamaNation? I'm laughing a little bit actually. However, I would agree with you on one point, that we aren't interested in his race though I believe that you're point about his winning will finally clear up the question of racism in America is a factor in many people's voting decisions, not what's best for the United States as a whole. As I noted to one of my Democrat friends (yes, I have some of those, shocking isn't it?), if I was still a dyed in the wool Democrat, I probably would be voting for him on the basis of my interpretation of race relations in the United States. Fortunately, I've broken free of the ideas that "feel good" politics is necessarily good for the United States. To sum it up Ry, as long as Obama is in contention for the presidency and I disagree with him severely on his policies, I'm going to continue to take him apart. Whether it is about his policies or his style because, for all the idea that we "might" survive his presidency, I'm not ready to hand it to him on a silver platter. Particularly this early in the game. No Passes.
 
By ry on March 2, 2008 10:25 PM
Well, Kat, some of what you've done about Obama is hysterical. You've done some substantive work, but much of it is 'look at the sillies', while mixing in some very fear mongery for good measure(these people are fanatics! Fanatics are scary!). Like I said, I don't much like Obama. But I find his campaign, and his partisans, harmless. His presidency will, imo, be bad for the country but we overcome bad policies over time. It won't be the worst thing in the world if he's pres. That would be a Kuccinich presidency. Obama is snake oiling. Fine, name me someone who hasn't in the last 40 years? Reagan was going to give us a 700 ship Navy and all kinds of other things, on a balanced budget. Where's that balanced budget(ask Tip O'Neill where that budget was, since Reagan wanted to scale back social welfare spending that the Dems were never going to allow to happen, and anyone who didn't just fall off the rutabaga truck knew it.) As for not knowing about Reagan, Kat, I was five in 1979 and come from a rather apolitical family. So? It still isn't hard to go back and look at what happened. It isn't hard to go back and look at what snake oil presidents peddled to get elected. 'No new taxes', even though most economists knew Bush 41 had to raise taxes to placate the worries of big money on the other side of the Pond. 'A peace economy, public healthcare, and a middle class tax cut!'. Ol' Billy boy delivered on none of them. 'I'm a uniter not a divider'---and how are you, brother! Nixon campaigned on being the guy to get the US out of Vietnam, and instead delivered Linebacker, Linebacker 2 in the early years of his presidency. Everyone sells snake oil. It's what pols do. Is Obama any worse than anyone else? No. Take his claims apart, but don't call him dangerous simply because he's all four Beetles rolled into one. Go after the real meat of the issues. Don't do the Dean scream kinda thing, making much ado about nothing(which Obama-mania is, much ado about a whole lot of nothing). And, come on, it was meant rather humorously. SNL references? The tag of 'I think it's funny'? Jonah GOldberg I'm not, but it wasn't meant as a bare knuckles take down.