There's nothing wrong in believing in those ideas because when implemented correctly, it can be beneficial for the country. But to think a clown like Herman Cain was the best man to articulate those ideas and that he had the intellect to challenge and debate those principles is- putting it mildly- incredibly foolish.
Here's my favorite example of "personal responsibility" being a crock of crapshite turdballs: Number of Americans killed in car crashes in 2008: 34,172 0.0011% of Americans die every year to car crashes. Train deaths in the REST OF THE WORLD in 2008: 214 (The calculator laughed at me when I asked it to divide 214 by 7 billion) There's the free market for ya! Notice how 34,000 Americans die each year to car crashes, but the rest of the world makes do with a range of 100-500 deaths on trains. Yet we advocate driving in the United States as a form of 'personal responsibility.' I dare someone to find 'personal responsibility' that actually works in real life.
Yup. That was the only logical conclusion someone could have gotten from that post. As far as reading a post and then finding a reasonable response goes, I salute you. No. I think we should make a "phil80 day" to commend you for your reading skills. And for those of you who think this was a bitterly sarcastic response to what could possibly have been one of the most poorly-constructed thought processes our country is capable of, think that no longer. Know that I hold nothing but admiration for people who see a statistic that contradicts their beliefs about life and respond with a ridiculous, dystopian straw man. Shame on you doubters. I agree wholeheartedly that the response to poor driving on overcongested roads not improved since the 1950s (when our population was 1/3 its current size) is to simply ban cars. And - since we are firing on all cylinders today - we should ban freight trucks, school buses, and mail delivery vehicles. It's an intelligent thing to do. An example of what not to do would include: 1) Redesigning densely-populated urban areas so that sections of the city are off-limits to motor vehicles - hippies in Boulder have an entire section of their city open only to pedestrians and muscle-powered vehicles. And their city is going to hell. 2) Create more alternatives to driving, such as subways in urban areas, light rails in suburban areas, intercity trains, foot paths, bike paths, encourage carpooling, etc. 3) Redesign cars to be much more safety-conscious. A horrendous example would be to prohibit engine ignition unless the driver seatbelt is fastened. Again, I must insist that these options do nothing but encourage terrorism and harm our way of life. We should just ban cars.
Quit your rambling and learn how to construct an argument. If you're going to spew out statistics, then connect and articulate it to a legible argument.
first, it's only fair to point out that people kill themselves on the road elsewhere: in france in 2009 almost 4000 people died in accidents. if you consider that the US has roughly 4.7 times the population you're looking at a traffic mortality rate in the US about double that of france, which suggests two possible conclusions would come out of further analysis: i) that automobiles are as dangerous in europe as the US but ii) the far more widespread use of public transport here has saved many lives. sadly, such a transportation model is unreachable in the US. even if resistance to it wasn't so deep on so many levels (personal responsability/freedom, lobbying from the automobile and oil industries, the huge public outlay alternative systems require) the american landscape has become so entwined with the personal automobile that it would take at least a half century of urban planning (of a concerted and centrally ordained type that has NEVER been done in the US, and would itself meet unsurmountable resistance) just to make european-style public transportation viable.
Two things: 1) Keeping a car from starting without having a fastened seat belt. Aside from Matrix-style highway chases, when will this ever be a bad idea? How is it urban planning? 2) America in many ways is different than the rest of the countries in the world; we have much more space between our cities, lots more people, large mountain ranges, etc. Yet countries that adopt - as guignol posts - a different style of urban planning tend to have fewer accidents, and countries that mimic us have more accidents and more deaths. Don't just write us off because you think you have more experience in the world. Actually justify your beliefs. Why are more vehicular homicides a good thing?
Cars? WTF happened here? Who is voting for Cain in South Carolina? http://current.com/community/93620567_latest-colbert-ad-vote-for-cain.htm
Herman's Back. And more irrelevant than ever before. Did you know he had a rally in DC this weekend? Me neither. http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2...rally_at_the_capitol_fails_spectacularly.html Signing up for Herman Cain's "Revolution on the Hill" was easy. There were ads at the top of plenty of conservative news sites. The registration for three events -- a Sunday reception, Monday morning seminar, and Monday afternoon rally -- was free, and included a boxed lunch. Cainiacs had a full hour to get between the Virginia hotel where the seminar would be held and the Capitol lawn where they'd listen to speeches and music. Six free buses were available to move them. ... Only 283 people signed up for the indoor seminars, and only 620 signed up for the rally. By my count, less than half of the first number honored their Eventbrite pledges; only a little more than one-third of the rally-goers actually showed up. The failure had repurcussions. Tea Party of America members, promoting an upcoming documentary based on Dinesh D'Souza's book about Barack Obama, had hundreds of leftover promotional flyers. "I was told to expect thousands of people," grumbled Judd Saul, one of the volunteers. A good pic in this blog, too. http://dcist.com/2012/04/nein_nein_nein_herman_cains_anti-ta.php
To steal a joke from the slate comments: Nine. Nine. Nine. Well, that does add up to 27, which is the actual attendance.
Hermain Cain's straight up trolling at this point: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdpN5C1_flQ"]Rabbit - YouTube[/ame] [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1rjf7zdD-M"]Chicken - YouTube[/ame]
Longer article from slate here. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_..._a_failed_presidential_candidate_.single.html Quitting the presidential race worked out brilliantly for Cain. Contrast his life with that of Newt Gingrich, still technically running for president. Cain now heads three organizations, with loosely defined goals—Cain Connections, Cain Solutions, and the Herman Cain Foundation. At this reception, he will announce a video channel called CTV. Its flagship show, confusingly enough will be called Cain TV. A short preview shows the host, a beefy joke writer named Rodney Lee Conover, mocking the life and loves of Sandra Fluke as a cartoon of the birth-control advocate sprawls lazily and lustily on a dorm room bed. It compares awfully well to the no-end-in-sight tragedy that is Newt 2012. When he left Congress, Gingrich started founding think tanks and holding conferences that people actually showed up to—the strategy that Cain is Xeroxing. Those think tanks, now Newt-less, are shutting down. Running for president doesn’t give Gingrich space in the media to share his grand ideas. It gets him headlines about being bit by penguins. The life of the professional has-been is sweeter than the life of the has-been candidate. On Sunday, Cain and his flock finish the appetizers and move into a conference room decked with American flags. The theme is a tribute to Andrew Breitbart, and the conservative media pioneer’s successors are ready with a tribute video and speeches to the “fallen soldier.” (That’s Cain’s phrase.) The ex-candidate keeps referring to “300 people” in the room, even though half that many are actually occupying chairs. “Don’t worry about the numbers that turn out,” he says. “It was a small, passionate group that fired King George.”
Well, for these guys, it has to be left field that is an automatic out. Actually, given the state of the GOP, they're playing with left field and centerfield closed.