I agree with President Obama that it was all time-wasting silliness

[fpb]

The best thing about this is that it may at last have killed the insane Trump candidacy (I can't believe there was anyone in the Republican Party disposed to give this lecherous crook the time of day). The only good thing, in turn, about the Trump candidacy, is that it should make us Italians feel less bad about Berlusconi.

Comments

[shezan]

The only good thing, in turn, about the Trump candidacy, is that it should make us Italians feel less bad about Berlusconi.

Alas, true.

Presuming this is about the birth-certificate stuff...

[lectorpoemarum]

...not only is it stupid, it rather plays into Obama's hands, by associating opposition to Obama with this sort of stupidity

Re: Presuming this is about the birth-certificate stuff...

[fpb]

I disagree with you about government healthcare, but otherwise this strikes me as a very shrewd intervention. Especially what you say about the Obamacare proposals. What bothers me is that most conservative objections seem aimed not at the Obamacare proposals as such, as much as at any kind of state health provision, direct or indirect.

I'm not happy with either side

[lectorpoemarum]

I was trying to distinguish between different objections there.

I'm solidly against any sort of government healthcare that would support abortion (or euthanasia/physician-assisted suicide, or whatever horror is dreamed up next), and I think that (given that the Democratic Party are both the main supporters of government healthcare and the ones who tend to claim abortion is a women's-health issue) that would in practice put me against most proposals.

My generic objections to government healthcare in general, on the other hand, aren't moral ones, but merely pragmatic doubts - if I were convinced that it would work, without major harm, I might support it

Re: I'm not happy with either side

[mindstalk]

Why are you not convinced government healthcare can work, given that something like a couple dozen countries have one form of it or another, and that our own senior citizens seem rather happy with Medicare?

For that matter, while the experiment is only 4 years old, the world doesn't seem to be ending under Massachusetts health care. Some strains from transition and the nationwide collapse of tax revenues, but nothing terminal.

[super_pan]

I really don't want Trump running for President, because then it will be so difficult to avoid him. Right now, I can avoid him by not watching his show, but if he's going to be in the news all the time, it will be much harder. Looking at him, and watching his stupid face makes me want to punch myself.

[fpb]

Berlusconi to the life!

[affablestranger]

Madhouse.

That's where I live. A madhouse, and most of the sane people keep their heads down and stay quiet for fear of catching psychopathic/sociopathic attention and assault.

[fpb]

Unfortunately, the internet has powered a lot of nuts. One guy with an e-mail account and a send button can make himself a nuisance to hundreds of sane people.

[affablestranger]

I also have a beef with the press, who so often inflate the credibility and visibility of such lunatics because of the needs of a twenty-four hour news cycle. They bring these cancers to open air, and then they metastasize. And so we get Ed Schultz, Glenn Beck, Michelle Bachmann, Alan Grayson, and so forth. The airwaves get so bogged down in irrational, paranoid, vicious sieges that many people and their concerns and affairs get left hanging in the wind to twist.