Quote of the Morning

Posted on May 14, 2012 at 1:44 pm by Bob Cesca

“There is no — nor has there ever been — any Republican position that’s been no regulations. We are for regulations and always have been.” Republican operative Mary Matalin

Well, there’s Ron Paul for starters who wants to eliminate most cabinet level departments and leave almost all governing to the states. And here’s Mitt Romney over the course of one speech from March:

“For the last three years, Mr. Obama has expanded government instead of empowering the American people,” Mr. Romney said. “He’s put us deeper in debt, he’s slowed the recovery, he’s harmed our economy, and he has attacked the cornerstone of American prosperity — economic freedom.” [...]

“Our economic freedom will be on the ballot. And I intend to offer the American people a choice.” [...]

“This administration’s regulations are even invading the freedom of everyday Americans,” [...]

“A regulator would have shut down the Wright Brothers for their ‘dust pollution.’ And the government would have banned Thomas Edison’s light bulb. Oh yeah, they just did.” [...]

“And day by day, job-killing regulation by regulation, bureaucrat by bureaucrat, he is crushing the dream and the dreamers. If we continue along this path, our lives will be ruled by bureaucrats and boards, and commissions and czars.”

You get the point. By the way, I assure you, Romney will have czars if he’s elected. Why? Because it’s a word invented by the press as a cutesy way to describe advisers. Romney will have advisers and therefore czars. Sorry, Republicans.

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  • Draxiar

    Without regulations we end up having free-market anarchists that think nothing of trampling the rights of American citizens whom individually have no substantial power.

    We’ve seen it time and again.

    • http://phydeauxpseaks.blogspot.com Bob Rutledge

      Which, as you are well aware, is the Republican wet dream.

      • Draxiar

        Very well aware.

        *salute*

  • muselet

    Mary Matalin is a liar, but a clever liar.

    Of course Republicans are for regulation. They want to regulate women’s healthcare decisions. They want to regulate individuals’ recourse to the courts. They want to regulate (certain) religions.

    What Republicans are adamantly opposed to is substantive regulation of business.

    –alopecia

    • http://twitter.com/kerryreid Kerry Reid

      And the fact that James Carville is married to this woman is why I’ve never trusted him. They are nothing but a pair of political grifters.

  • http://phydeauxpseaks.blogspot.com Bob Rutledge

    Romney doesn’t need czars/advisers because he has Teh Magic Mormon Underwearses!!!!

  • GrafZeppelin127

    Nobody likes “regulations,” but they sure like what regulations do. “Get rid of regulations!” is just another way of saying “Let business and industry fuck you over!”

    It’s depressing that Mitt Romney’s entire argument, his whole raison d’être élu, is essentially a lie. It’s even more depressing that the public (i.e., the victims and potential victims of unregulated industry) is buying it.

    In a way, though, Matalin is right. Of course Republicans are “for” regulation. The only difference is who, what, how, and why they want to regulate. Even self-described libertarians and Paulites are more than accepting and willing to use the force of law (i.e., the force of government) to control people’s behavior; the only difference is who, what, when, how, why, under what circumstances, by what means, on whose behalf, and for whose benefit.

    • http://twitter.com/scifritz scifritz

      Agree…but, I’d say there are some regulations I like, for instance weights and measures…If someone tries to sell me something I want to know what it is and how much of it I am getting…which does make the economy more free and efficient because people don’t need to become experts and everything and carry around scales knowing that if someone tries to rip them off there are laws (regulations) that gives them recourse.

    • http://drangedinaz.wordpress.com/ IrishGrrrl

      “Even self-described libertarians and Paulites are more than accepting and willing to use the force of law…”

      Which is precisely why I tell them they don’t have clue what liberty is all about. I actually had one Pualite try to tell me that liberals and Paulites have a lot in common….puhlease!

      • GrafZeppelin127

        Liberals and Paulites have exactly three things in common: (1) they both want to tamp down the global war machine; (2) they both object to the surveillance state, and (3) they both want to legalize weed. That’s about it.

        • http://drangedinaz.wordpress.com/ IrishGrrrl

          I think #2 is wrong. They are perfectly willing to allow the govt to spy inside a woman’s uterus through state sponsored rape. I can’t think of a more over the line reach of governmental power into our private lives than that. Can you?

          • GrafZeppelin127

            That’s a bit of a distortion. The government is not the one doing the spying, is not seeking the … umm, “information” that can be found in there. It’s requiring a doctor to do the spying and show the information to the … umm, subject. We can split hairs over the difference between a doctor being required by law to do something, and the government actually doing the thing itself, but it’s not the same thing and in any case it’s not what I was talking about.

            I know what you’re saying, and I’m not in any way implying a defense of it or an excuse for it, but distortions like this are not helpful; this is what we expect from them. The forced ultrasound, abominable though it may be, is not “surveillance.”

          • http://drangedinaz.wordpress.com/ IrishGrrrl

            Surveillance: close observation of a person or group, especially one under suspicion.

            As far as observation, being inside ones body is as close as it gets. Your point was that Paulites don’t like surveillance because it impinges on their privacy, their liberty. The law I used as an example is the PERFECT example of the government impinging on a woman’s privacy and liberty. In what way is it not a good example of the hypocrisy of many so-called libertarians and Paulites, who cry about their liberty while cheering as it is being taken away from others?

            In regards to who is doing it, you are saying a doctor is better because he is not officially the government. Unless of course he or she works directly for the government such as at the VA, any of the armed services, etc, etc. Further on that point you’re splitting hairs. When a soldier follows an illegal order do we let him say, but it was an order? No, we don’t. By obeying that order, or law in this case, the doctor becomes an agent of the government. And although the point may partially be to shame her, it is also to get inside her private business and THAT is surveillance. In addition if you don’t think that information won’t be kept and used against women, as surveillance often is, then you need to take a look at the recent law in AZ that says an employer can question a woman about why she is on birth control and if it doesn’t conform to their religious standards, they can refuse to pay for the contraception. Or how about the law that has been proposed in several states that says a miscarriage should be illegal and punishable. Do you think those forced ultrasounds can’t and won’t be used? How long will you call it a distortion? When it affects your daughter or granddaughter?

            You know what’s not helpful? When men are condescending and tell a woman that she is not being helpful for speaking the truth, that she is distorting things like a wingnut. I usually agree with you Graf and I have a great deal of respect for you but you are flat out wrong on the larger point about the hypocrisy of libertarians and the finer point of whether it is or is not surveillance. If you had a vagina and your legs were in the stirrups, how much of a hairs difference would it make as to who was doing the looking? They aren’t just looking, they are gathering information to be used as weapons against women and they are eliciting the help of their very own doctors. So don’t you dare talk to me about distortion.

          • GrafZeppelin127

            No offense intended, IrishGrrrl. I was only trying to point out that we were talking about two different things; i.e., that this was not what I meant by “surveillance,” or the “surveillance state” in terms of what both liberals and libertarians object to.

            I completely agree with you on the hypocrisy and intellectual inconsistency of Paulite libertarians, who are more than willing to use the force of law, i.e., “government,” to control, compel, prohibit, incentivize and punish behavior, even though they claim they are all about “liberty” and the rest of us are all about “controlling people by force.” The only difference is who and what is to be controlled, how, why, and on whose behalf.

            I actually don’t know how Paulite libertarians, as opposed to generic Republicans and Republican partisans, feel about mandatory ultrasounds; I haven’t had that conversation with one. I suspect a lot of them may be opposed to it. Maybe not. Depends whether their self-professed libertarianism is more important to them than their fealty to the GOP, which some of them are not good at pretending. But the topic was Paulite libertarians, not Republicans or their fans/enablers generally.

            The distinction between the “surveillance state” that I was referring to (viz., PATRIOT Act, &c.), and the mandatory-ultrasound provisions you’re talking about, has nothing to do with gender; mine, yours or anyone else’s. Pointing out that one awful thing is not the same as another awful thing, or is not in the same category with another awful thing, does not imply that they’re not both awful or even that that the former is not more awful than the latter, nor does it imply that I don’t understand, care about, decry, and empathize with the potential victims of, the former. Nonetheless, I’m very sorry that I upset you.

  • http://drangedinaz.wordpress.com/ IrishGrrrl

    Graf, I appreciate your reply. I know MANY Paulites and every single one of them have this attitude of “liberty for me, but not for thee”, turning a blind eye to indefinite detention, forced ultrasounds, etc. But they don’t phrase it as an issue of just the “surveillance state”. They take a much broader understanding of government overreach. To them a number of very normal things are surveillance: the Census, tracking movements on the Web, observing bank transactions over a certain dollar amount, etc. It’s ALL surveillance and Big Brother to them.

    As a LEO I surveilled people all the time–by that I mean I watched them and gathered information on them. Sometimes the target knew and sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes they consented to it and sometimes they didn’t. 99% of the time I didn’t use that information. It was simply kept for the record and in case I might need it in future. But when I did use it, it was to coerce, manipulate and punish. Sometimes it was private information: medical, financial, etc. So I didn’t perform any medical procedures but I sure would gather that info and use it if I could (so long as it was within the letter of the law). So you want to split that hair and say that the example I gave wasn’t surveillance. Obviously, we disagree.

    Here’s why I became upset. It seemed as if you were minimizing the governmental intrusion into women’s lives and bodies because it doesn’t fit the “classic” definition of surveillance (which I disagree with). By minimizing it and treating it as if it was some kind of academic exercise, you are only reinforcing the Paulites’ dismissal of such things as being REAL violations of liberty. I am telling you that not only do I think there is no difference, but that the point is moot to what SHOULD be their and our concerns regarding violations of liberty through information gathering by the state or any of its agents.