Republican 2012 Presidential Nominee

[Navyblue]

GOP Race

No wonder it's so amusing!

[Gretzky's Mullet]

GOP Race

No wonder it's so amusing!

[Gretzky's Mullet]

[Satan's Evil Twin]

[key2thecup]

[Satan's Evil Twin]

Our great moral decline

Mar 2nd 2012, 21:04 by R.M. | WASHINGTON, DC

ASKED to explain his support for Rick Santorum in Michigan's primary, voter Sandy Munrosaid, "Now what we need is a strong political leader to do something to get us out of the moral slump that we’re in."

Mr Santorum would agree, having noted that "Satan has his sights on the United States of America." As would Mitt Romney, who has attacked the decay caused by Barack Obama's "secular agenda". Newt Gingrich has gone the furthest, stating, “A country that has been now since 1963 relentlessly in the courts driving God out of public life shouldn’t be surprised at all the problems we have."

But what are these problems? When considering America's moral decline, my first instinct was to look at the crime rate. If Satan is at work in America, he's probably nicking wallets and assaulting old ladies. But over the past several decades the crime rate hasfallen dramatically, despite what you may think. The homicide rate has been cut in half since 1991; violent crime and property crime are also way down. Even those pesky kids are committing less crime. There are some caveats to these statistics, as my colleaguepoints out, but I think we can conclude that crime is not the cause of America's moral decline.

So let's look elsewhere. Abortion has returned as a hot-button issue, perhaps it is eating away at our moral fiber. Hmm, the abortion rate declined by 8% between 2000 and 2008. Increases in divorce and infidelity could be considered indicators of our moral decay. There's just one problem: according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the divorce rate is the lowest it has been since the early 1970s. This is in part due to the recession, but infidelity is down too.

Other areas that might indicate declining virtue are also going against the perceived trend. For example, charitable giving is up after a decline during the recession. The teenage pregnancy rate is at its lowest level in 40 years. And according to Education Week, "the nation’s graduation rate stands at 72 percent, the highest level of high school completion in more than two decades." So where is the evidence of this moral decline?

Here's one for the declinists: the number of Americans not affiliated with any religion has increased, while the number of those attending worship services has declined. And here's another: out-of-wedlock births have increased in America so that now at least four in ten children are born to unmarried women. This is something Mr Santorum has focused on during the campaign, and he is right in pointing out that the children of unwed mothers in America tend to do worse in terms of health, schooling and income later in life.

But here's where the real debate over America's moral position comes into focus. As theNew York Times notes, out-of-wedlock births are increasing in much of the developed world—for example, over half of babies in Iceland and Sweden are born to unwed mothers. But according to Wendy Manning, a professor of sociology at Bowling Green State University, "In Sweden, you see very little variation in the outcome of children based on marital status. Everybody does fairly well... In the US, there’s much more disparity."

So out-of-wedlock birth need not correspond to worse outcomes for children. And if it didn't in America, should we still consider out-of-wedlock births a moral problem? One could ask a similar question about religion. While rates of religious participation may be declining in America, young people today have similar moral beliefs as their parents and grandparents. So is the decline in religious observance a moral problem?

When it comes to out-of-wedlock births, the issue is complicated because discouraging these types of the births may be a more efficient way of securing children than the type of nanny-state intervention that can be found in a country like Sweden. But in general, I think the debate over America's moral position comes down to this: Republicans want the best outcomes based on solutions that fit into preconceived notions of what society should look like. So even if there are few tangible harms that point to our moral decay, any move away from their vision of society is evidence of declining virtue. Democrats, on the other hand, are more concerned with outcomes, even if that means upending the way things were (or accepting that they have been upended and cannot be restored).

So in the case of out-of-wedlock births, Republicans would probably see the increase as a moral problem regardless of the outcome. Whereas Democrats might feel more comfortable with, say, promoting a corresponding increase in stable familial relationships outside of marriage. It is a dynamic we've seen elsewhere recently, in regard to issues like gay marriage and contraception. And it leads to a debate over what "moral" really means. If "immoral" means "causing avoidable harm to other people" then gay marriage, pornography, sex, reality TV, soft-drug use and euthanasia are hardly immoral, even if distasteful to some.

But as we grind through the Republican primary process, it seems like the debate over morality in America has less to do with moral outcomes and more to do with a vision of how society should look based on idealistic remembrances of how things were. So people like Mr Munro and the Republican candidates believe America is in a moral slump. The odd thing is, people on the left might actually agree, though for very different reasons. They are upset by the perceived greed of the 1%, and the broad acceptance of torture and war as foreign-policy tools. In the end, the debate over morality more closely resembles two distinct monologues.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/03/morals

Nice read pointing out that really, moral decline is a myth. Of course it won't matter to the very people who should reflect on it.

[Gretzky's Mullet]

Very nice read S.E. And nice that there are some facts in there to back it up, something most Republican arguments nowadays are sorely lacking.

[Satan's Evil Twin]

Ron Paul: No Federal Financial Aid for Tornado Victims

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, stood by his libertarian beliefs on Sunday, saying that victims of the violent storms and tornadoes that have battered a band of states in the South and Midwest in recent days should not be given emergency financial aid from the federal government.

"There is no such thing as federal money," Paul said, on CNN’sState of the Union. "Federal money is just what they steal from the states and steal from you and me."

"The people who live in tornado alley, just as I live in hurricane alley, they should have insurance," Paul said.

Paul said there was a role for the National Guard to restore order and provide care and shelter in major emergencies, but that theFederal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) led to nothing but "frustration and anger."

"To say that any accident that happens in the country, send in FEMA, send in the money, the government has all this money—it is totally out of control and it's not efficient," Paul said.

http://news.yahoo.co...-102533838.html

You know, Ron Paul would make an excellent Secretary of Defense under a Kucinich president. Or any president. "What? You expect me to bomb Yemen with tax payer-funded bombs?"

[Gretzky's Mullet]

^One of the main things I hold against Ron Paul and the libertarian ideology. I personally don't think a society can function unless individual liberties and freedoms are balanced against the well-being and betterment of society as a whole. Anyone who claims to want to represent Americans, and yet is willing to let American people suffer and die if they don't have enough money is something of a hypocrite in my view.

[Satan's Evil Twin]

^One of the main things I hold against Ron Paul and the libertarian ideology. I personally don't think a society can function unless individual liberties and freedoms are balanced against the well-being and betterment of society as a whole. Anyone who claims to want to represent Americans, and yet is willing to let American people suffer and die if they don't have enough money is something of a hypocrite in my view.

[G.K. Chesterton]

Increases in divorce and infidelity could be considered indicators of our moral decay. There's just one problem: according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the divorce rate is the lowest it has been since the early 1970s. This is in part due to the recession, but infidelity is down too.

[woot]

More legible repost:

ASKED to explain his support for Rick Santorum in Michigan's primary, voter Sandy Munrosaid, "Now what we need is a strong political leader to do something to get us out of the moral slump that we’re in."

Mr Santorum would agree, having noted that "Satan has his sights on the United States of America." As would Mitt Romney, who has attacked the decay caused by Barack Obama's "secular agenda". Newt Gingrich has gone the furthest, stating, “A country that has been now since 1963 relentlessly in the courts driving God out of public life shouldn’t be surprised at all the problems we have."

But what are these problems? When considering America's moral decline, my first instinct was to look at the crime rate. If Satan is at work in America, he's probably nicking wallets and assaulting old ladies. But over the past several decades the crime rate hasfallen dramatically, despite what you may think. The homicide rate has been cut in half since 1991; violent crime and property crime are also way down. Even those pesky kids are committing less crime. There are some caveats to these statistics, as my colleaguepoints out, but I think we can conclude that crime is not the cause of America's moral decline.

So let's look elsewhere. Abortion has returned as a hot-button issue, perhaps it is eating away at our moral fiber. Hmm, the abortion rate declined by 8% between 2000 and 2008. Increases in divorce and infidelity could be considered indicators of our moral decay. There's just one problem: according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the divorce rate is the lowest it has been since the early 1970s. This is in part due to the recession, but infidelity is down too.

Other areas that might indicate declining virtue are also going against the perceived trend. For example, charitable giving is up after a decline during the recession. The teenage pregnancy rate is at its lowest level in 40 years. And according to Education Week, "the nation’s graduation rate stands at 72 percent, the highest level of high school completion in more than two decades." So where is the evidence of this moral decline?

Here's one for the declinists: the number of Americans not affiliated with any religion has increased, while the number of those attending worship services has declined. And here's another: out-of-wedlock births have increased in America so that now at least four in ten children are born to unmarried women. This is something Mr Santorum has focused on during the campaign, and he is right in pointing out that the children of unwed mothers in America tend to do worse in terms of health, schooling and income later in life.

But here's where the real debate over America's moral position comes into focus. As theNew York Times notes, out-of-wedlock births are increasing in much of the developed world—for example, over half of babies in Iceland and Sweden are born to unwed mothers. But according to Wendy Manning, a professor of sociology at Bowling Green State University, "In Sweden, you see very little variation in the outcome of children based on marital status. Everybody does fairly well... In the US, there’s much more disparity."

So out-of-wedlock birth need not correspond to worse outcomes for children. And if it didn't in America, should we still consider out-of-wedlock births a moral problem? One could ask a similar question about religion. While rates of religious participation may be declining in America, young people today have similar moral beliefs as their parents and grandparents. So is the decline in religious observance a moral problem?

When it comes to out-of-wedlock births, the issue is complicated because discouraging these types of the births may be a more efficient way of securing children than the type of nanny-state intervention that can be found in a country like Sweden. But in general, I think the debate over America's moral position comes down to this: Republicans want the best outcomes based on solutions that fit into preconceived notions of what society should look like. So even if there are few tangible harms that point to our moral decay, any move away from their vision of society is evidence of declining virtue. Democrats, on the other hand, are more concerned with outcomes, even if that means upending the way things were (or accepting that they have been upended and cannot be restored).

So in the case of out-of-wedlock births, Republicans would probably see the increase as a moral problem regardless of the outcome. Whereas Democrats might feel more comfortable with, say, promoting a corresponding increase in stable familial relationships outside of marriage. It is a dynamic we've seen elsewhere recently, in regard to issues like gay marriage and contraception. And it leads to a debate over what "moral" really means. If "immoral" means "causing avoidable harm to other people" then gay marriage, pornography, sex, reality TV, soft-drug use and euthanasia are hardly immoral, even if distasteful to some.

But as we grind through the Republican primary process, it seems like the debate over morality in America has less to do with moral outcomes and more to do with a vision of how society should look based on idealistic remembrances of how things were. So people like Mr Munro and the Republican candidates believe America is in a moral slump. The odd thing is, people on the left might actually agree, though for very different reasons. They are upset by the perceived greed of the 1%, and the broad acceptance of torture and war as foreign-policy tools. In the end, the debate over morality more closely resembles two distinct monologues.

[Gretzky's Mullet]

Most of the results are in, and it looks like Romney will take the majority of the delegates given out on this day, by winning the most votes from Massachusetts, Vermont, Virginia, Idaho, and the highly coveted Ohio. Santorum carried North Dakota, Oklahoma and Tennessee while Newty took Georgia. While I write this, Romney has a (very) early lead in Alaska.

I think the winner of Super Tuesday is probably President Obama. Romney will obviously take the most delegates, but he didn't win decisively enough to squeeze any of his rivals from the race, meaning more weeks of expensive and destructive attacks between candidates to give even more fodder to the Democrats. As much as he's got a following around here, I think we can agree that Ron Paul is sticking around for one of a few reasons: 1. to retain the avenue for spreading his ideology, 2. to better position his son to run in 2016, or 3. because he doesn't know when to quit.

However, I think one way of looking at Gingrich remaining in the race is that it actually benefits Romney at this point. Right now, Gingrich and Santorum are probably splitting a lot of the "not Romney" vote. And Gingrich isn't likely to drop out in the near future either as I see it. The upcoming schedule includes Kansas (and I'd be shocked if they voted for anyone besides Santorum), and a bunch of territories and such, but also Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri and Louisiana before the end of the month (as well as Illinois and Hawaii, both probably Romney territory). Santorum won the non-binding primary in Missouri in February, but Gingrich probably figures to win Alabama and Mississippi, and might hope that momentum can drive him to a better showing in Missouri. He'll probably have an excellent shot at Louisiana as well. I imagine that the end of March would be a key time for Newt. If he can't pretty much win all of those states, it'll be tough sledding for him after that: a few Romney states punctuated by Pennsylvania, which I'm sure Santorum will win. Still, the longer it goes on, the better Obama starts to look for moderates who hear some of the lunacy that comes out of these guys' mouths in their quest to woo the extreme righties.

[Duodenum]

The problem with this stat is that it doesn't take into account any change in the rate of marriage. If more people settle for civil partnerships or a common-law relationship then there is obviously no need for a divorce.

[Satan's Evil Twin]

Obama to Romney: Make Your Case For War With Iran Or Quit Talking About It

With video!

[Gretzky's Mullet]

Very interesting. Obama has made almost no wrong moves, as I see it, both towards resolving this situation peacefully if at all possible and towards entering the election season a clear frontrunner. I'm ready to call President Obama what he is, which is one of the best foreign policy presidents in the history of the United States.

[Navyblue]

[Humble Rodent]

Interesting article about the GOP:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-lakoff/santorum-strategy_b_1338708.html

The Santorum Strategy is not just about Santorum. It is about pounding the most radical conservative ideas into the public mind by constant repetition during the Republican presidential campaign, whether by Santorum himself, by Gingrich or Ron Paul, by an intimidated Romney, or by the Republican House majority. The Republican presidential campaign is about a lot more than the campaign for the presidency. It is about guaranteeing a radical conservative future for America.

I am old enough to remember how liberals (me included) made fun of Ronald Reagan as a not-too-bright mediocre actor who could not possibly be elected president. I remember liberals making fun of George W.Bush as so ignorant and ill-spoken that Americans couldn't possibly take him seriously. Both turned out to be clever politicians who changed America much for the worse. And among the things they and their fellow conservatives managed to do was change public discourse, and with it, change how a great many Americans thought.

The Republican presidential campaign has to be seen in this light.

Liberals tend to underestimate the importance of public discourse and its effect on the brains of our citizens. All thought is physical. You think with your brain. You have no alternative. Brain circuitry strengthens with repeated activation. And language, far from being neutral, activates complex brain circuitry that is rooted in conservative and liberal moral systems. Conservative language, even when argued against, activates and strengthens conservative brain circuitry. This is extremely important for so-called "independents," who actually have both conservative and liberal moral systems in their brains and can shift back and forth. The more they hear conservative language over the next eight months, the more their conservative brain circuitry will be strengthened.

This point is being missed by Democrats and by the media, and yet it is the most vital issue for our future in what is now being discussed. No matter who gets the Republican nomination for president, the Santorum Strategy will have succeeded unless Democrats dramatically change their communication strategy as soon as possible. Even if President Obama is re-elected, he will have very little power if the Republicans keep the House, and a great deal less if they take the Senate. And if they keep and take more state houses and local offices around the country, there will be less and less possibility of a liberal future. More

[Buddhas Hand]

as matt stone and trey parker said in a south park episode , it is not much of a choice when you have to choose between a giant douche or a turd sandwich .

[key2thecup]

Exclusive: O'Keefe Video Exposes Voter Fraud-Friendly Policies in Vermont

James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas has released a new video exposing just how easy it is to commit voter fraud in Vermont.

The video, a sequel to O'Keefe's "Primary of the Living Dead" in New Hampshire, shows a Veritas agent entering various voting places around the state of Vermont, giving a different name each time. Each time, he is given a ballot without showing an ID, to his disbelief.

In the video, the agent repeatedly requests (but does not take) a Republican primary ballot. As he explained to Breitbart.com: "We wanted to remind viewers this is not a partisan issue. This is a situation wherein anyone -- Republican or Democrat -- can exploit the system."

The new video follows in the wake of a highly-politicized media attack on Mr. O’Keefe after his exposure of voter fraud in New Hampshire. Those videos resulted in calls from the left for O’Keefe’s arrest. However, the videos soon resulted in the New Hampshire State Senate passing a new bill requiring voter ID.

O'Keefe's new video from Vermont could not be more timely, coming the day after the U.S. Department of Justice's civil rights division blocked a Texas photo ID requirement for voters--to the applause of the American Civil Liberties Union, which claimed that the law was “discriminatory” against “Latinos, African-Americans, elderly citizens, and others.”

As the Project Veritas video shows, the current system in Vermont discriminates against actual legal voters, who must face the prospect of disenfranchisement by those who would vote in their stead illegally, or have their votes cancelled out by those voting illegally in place of deceased voters who have yet to be removed from the rolls. If it is not discriminatory for Vermont citizens to be required to show ID to get married or buy alcohol, it is certainly not discriminatory to make them show ID to vote.

“It is a national disgrace that ballots can be given out in the names of dead people,” O’Keefe told Breitbart.com. “Threats of government intimidation will not stop us from protecting the integrity of the ballot box. If any state has a system which encourages ballots to be given out to the wrong person, dead or alive, we will come to your state, we will film your poll workers, and Project Veritas will put the videos on YouTube. States like Vermont and New Hampshire have to take dead people off voter registration forms and clean up their act, once and for all.”

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/03/13/OKeefe%20Video%20Exposes%20Voter%20Fraud-Friendly%20Policies%20in%20Vermont