todd h -- if I were Obama (and illustrating why, as I've thankfully always had the good sense to recognize, I never had a future as a politician, lol), this would be my reply to those fine gentlemen from RTR (caution, strong language):
seriously, that's incitement to treason -- protected speech? -- yeah, sure, of course, that's how we do it in this country -- but incitement to treason nonetheless
Traditionally, the division between conservatives and liberals has been over the role and size of the welfare state: liberals think that the government should play a large role in sanding off the market economy’s rough edges, conservatives believe that time and chance happen to us all, and that’s that.
But both sides, I thought, agreed that the government should provide public goods — goods that are nonrival (they benefit everyone) and nonexcludable (there’s no way to restrict the benefits to people who pay.) The classic examples are things like lighthouses and national defense, but there are many others. For example, knowing when a volcano is likely to erupt can save many lives; but there’s no private incentive to spend money on monitoring, since even people who didn’t contribute to maintaining the monitoring system can still benefit from the warning. So that’s the sort of activity that should be undertaken by government.
So what did Bobby Jindal choose to ridicule in this response to Obama last night? Volcano monitoring, of course. And leaving aside the chutzpah of casting the failure of his own party’s governance as proof that government can’t work, does he really think that the response to natural disasters like Katrina is best undertaken by uncoordinated private action? Hey, why bother having an army? Let’s just rely on self-defense by armed citizens.
The intellectual incoherence is stunning. Basically, the political philosophy of the GOP right now seems to consist of snickering at stuff that they think sounds funny. The party of ideas has become the party of Beavis and Butthead.
On traditional white supremacist and neo-Nazi sites there are lengthy discussion threads about what would happen if Obama were elected president. Dozens of those posts are derogatory and employ all kinds of racist slurs. Others speculate that such an Obama victory would kick off a race war between whites and blacks. And some even raise the possibility that he could be assassinated. But talk like that is rare and extremely careful — probable evidence that the white nationalists who inhabit these sites are deeply concerned that their comments are being monitored by law enforcement for any criminal threat relating to the presidential race. In fact, Obama reportedly received federal Secret Service protection unusually early in the campaign season because of concerns about a racially motivated attack.
The most heated anti-Obama talk appears to be on Internet sites that allow people to post messages anonymously. One such site, JD Underground, is a list ostensibly devoted to lawyers, although further details were not available. It has carried a particularly venomous thread, entitled Nigger President, that has stretched from January into this month.
Im hoping someone will do his public duty of putting a bullet through Obamas head, said a poster identified as Kill Da Nigga. Another poster suggests bring[ing] back lynchings and concludes with a warning: LOOK OUT NIGGER. THE KLAN IS GETTING BIGGER!!!!!! And a third, using the screen name amerikkkan, says only, The deep south is making plans.
[with comments]
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Secret Service Protection for Barack Obama
nvpatentlawyer October 09, 2008
The great people in the Secret Service have remarkable tools to protect their clients. For those who are worried about Barack Obama's safety, watch what is on our team protecting the Obama family!
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