A VC - Latest Comments in A Voice Of Reason

Re: A Voice Of Reason

Roem — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:18:49 -0000

I've been staring at this comment box for 15 minutes, back and forth, trying to put everything I want to say into a short but poignant form. But my emotions on this issue have made it impossible.

So please accept this very heartfelt, "thank you."

Re: A Voice Of Reason

lars — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 22:21:04 -0000

I am so pleased we are tolerant of the intolerant, good strategy. Ask Europe.

Re: A Voice Of Reason

Mrinal — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:43:14 -0000

Being originally Indian, from the day I "got off the boat" in 99, I have NOT had one bad experience and consequently I have loved America and the people. I tend to compare immigration/foreign travel with that of a baby's initial phase of life and how they are raised - the first few (months, years) dictate your perspective and prejudices about that country (or life in the case of a baby)
I personally dont believe in even countries, Fred - we are all the same and we are all different.... some personal posts on it here: http://mrinal.vox.com/libra...

Re: A Voice Of Reason

Krishnan — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:31:56 -0000

Colin Powells comments are hardly surprising as he is on the Saudi gravy train like many ex- Secretaries of State James Baker, Albright, ...... . Perhaps you don't know about the generous gifts he has received from the Prince Bandar. But then most of State Department and large section of Washington is on the Saudi payroll not to leave aside our Ivy League campuses from Harvard, Columbia, and Georgetown.

And this is the very crowd which is always pushing the Islamist agenda and blaming the infidels for racism etc when it is Muslims having trouble with everybody from Buddhist, Hindus, Africans, Slavs, French, Brits .....around the world.

It certainly does not matter what your skin color, or religion is for the President of United states. But it does matter that the person loves this country. So it is certainly disconcerting to see Obama is bosom buddy with all kinds of Jihadist/islamist who hate America- Nation of islam, Ayers, Khalid Mansour, Rail Odinga, Rashid Khalidi, and list goes on an on, These people all are also very tight with the Wahhabi lobby.

Now you are a very bright man who can connect the dots if you go beyond your Utopian idealism of race and think about our nation's well being. Particularly well being when we are engaged in a long war with the Wahhabists.

Re: A Voice Of Reason

slowblogger — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 08:11:09 -0000

I have a different hypothesis that a community (or society) needs to have certain level of homogeneity in beliefs. It is a hypothesis because I am not very sure about it yet myself. I am not talking about the religion topic specifically, but about more general values.

It seems that small difference in beliefs and values in a group - from as small as a married couple to as big as a country - is healthy and can usually be moderated and compromised. When the gap is too large, it may be better to separate.

Now the question is... What is small difference and what is large difference? It is fuzzy, but as human beings we often feel it.

Re: A Voice Of Reason

fredwilson — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 07:28:26 -0000

I'll run with you andy anytime!

Re: A Voice Of Reason

Stu Rich — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 07:11:30 -0000

Amen Fred. I am constantly amazed at the collective tendency to immediately associate "Muslim" with "Terrorist". Prior to 9/11 the worst recent act of terrorism in this country was the Oklahoma City bombing. Timothy McVeigh was no muslim. The recent history in Northern Ireland should teach us that Christians are equally capable of terrorism. How did we develop this crippling fear of "others" in America?

Re: A Voice Of Reason

fredwilson — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 06:45:10 -0000

I don't worry about it

Because I pal around with former terrorists too St

I am not kidding. My kids go to a lefty school that has a number of former
terrorists as alums

I guess you shouldn't be reading this blog

Re: A Voice Of Reason

Hayk — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 05:21:42 -0000

There is no such thing as wrong, not in the context you mention at least. Bush has done what his predecessors have been doing since 1970s. Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, Bush Sr. had all ardently pursued and keenly acted on core precepts of Milton Friedman's legacy - the shock doctrine. Think invasions and subsequent economic "robbery" of Central and Latin American countries such as Nicaragua and Guatemala.

Also think policies implemented by IMF and World Bank - neocon cronies - for Asian countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand in the second half of 1990s.

What Bush did? He went along. He twisted and warped the entire Republican ideology into something completely unrecognizable and alien to what it must have been originally. Why Bush Jr. has one of the lowest approval rankings? Because America happened to have 9/11, Katrina, Iraq, Afghanistan and the current credit crunch during his stance and because he handled all those with less determination, less intention and less knowledge than those who came before him. In other words, he attracted spotlight because of unhappy match of grave events and his inability to act upon them accordingly.

That is all.

Re: A Voice Of Reason

S.t — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 21:00:23 -0000

Ya mean like a 'fairness doctrine' for the web? Or just another way for lefties to suppress free speech? That'd be like some sort of Liberal Fascism, right? That sounds great.

Re: A Voice Of Reason

S.t — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:49:42 -0000

It suggests that Obama would be just as chummy with Mohamed Atta-types as he is with William Ayers.

He can't differentiate.

Fred - it's not a 'Obama-was-born-a-muslim'-knock; it's a knock that Obama couldn't even get high-level security clearance b/c he'd fail the background check -- ya know, the 'hanging around with known terrorists'-thing sets alarm bells off...

When asked during the primary debate, Obama seemed pretty giddy that he really might get to meet the leader of Iran (oh, boy. can I really meet him?!). But he shrunk to about this small when asked when he would meet Gen'l Petraeus.

How does he get past this:
""I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same..."?????

Re: A Voice Of Reason

Sethop — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:41:09 -0000

You probably saw my spiel about never being able to claim victory, well I'm not sure if you can claim loss either, but blowing your nations credibility and an estimated 3 trillion dollars[1] without increasing your nation's safety one iota [2] probably counts as "losing". The Surge *would* have failed if it wasn't for those two things I mentioned, I think everyone was right to be skeptical. I don't think you can say it succeeded just because it happened at the same time as those other two things, without proving a causal link between the two. I'm sorry if this is all too complicated for you, I understand your brain is overloaded on RNC talking points and there probably isn't much room left in there for rational thought processes.

On the other hand, that's a good list. I'd forgotten how dumb some of the Democrats were about this stuff at times. However I would say that for every stupid thing a Democrat politician said about Saddam's WMD you could find 10 even more stupid things said by a Republican politician. And you had to parse some of it carefully - everyone knows that Saddam had chemical weapons, and actually used them in the past, but those things have use-by dates. In the end there was a lot of dodgy intel, and some people got fooled. The thing is, there were many more Republicans who *wanted* to get fooled, and a lot more Repulicans doing the fooling, in particular, the OSP at the pentagon. [3]

[1] for the calculations see the book on this by Stiglitz, one of the world's top economists.

[2] http://www.atimes.com/atime...

[3] http://www.newyorker.com/ar...

Re: A Voice Of Reason

andyswan — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 18:42:16 -0000

I agree.....and there are mirrored problems on the Left....which, combined, will hopefully give us 1-2 holes for alternate parties to gain some traction inside of!!!

Re: A Voice Of Reason

fredwilson — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 18:33:22 -0000

Andy

I think its the anti-libertarian desires of the right to force their 'family values' on the rest of us that has caused a lot of this resentment of red states in my world

I don't want the values of christian conservatives to make it so that my daughter can't get an abortion or my children can't find a life partner of the same sex if that's what they choose to do.

Its funny that the 'stay out of my life' mantra works for money issues but not for social issues

If the conservative movement would drop that line of thinking, I think they'd be right back in the majority in this country

Fred

Re: A Voice Of Reason

josh guttman — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 13:56:52 -0000

In their next release, let's get disqus to add a feature that enables blocking by ip address:)

Re: A Voice Of Reason

josh guttman — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 13:37:37 -0000

Amen brother. I agree wholeheartedly, this was the most important part of the endorsement.

Re: A Voice Of Reason

S.t — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 11:28:50 -0000

like when Harry Reid said 'the war is lost', or when Obama said the he thought The Surge 'would do the opposite'; or when Murtha said 'I will not excuse murder and that what's happened'?

Or when all these Democrats LIED about Saddam's WMDs with these Words of Mass Destruction?
http://www.snopes.com/polit...

Re: A Voice Of Reason

andyswan — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 11:05:13 -0000

I have no problem voting Dem. I have a problem with ceding my liberty to
the Federal Government in exchange for a benefit that I am fully capable of
achieving on my own. I do understand that there are some people (5% or
less) who are not capable of this, and it is one of my life missions to help
those people.....I just come from a school of thought that says charity is
most effective, most efficient, and most accountable when it comes at the
local, micro level.

I think it's incredulous to assume that because someone is not willing to go
along with Socialist-lite solutions, that they are 1) uncaring, 2) ignorant,
3) overly religious or 4) scared.

Most of "Red America" is an AMAZING place to live and raise a family. The
kind of place where you want to be if you get a flat tire.

We want the Government to protect our freedoms and leave us alone. That's
what happens when you grow up around people who grow the world's food, kill
their own meat and build their own homes. Oh, and by the way....we drive
SUVs because they fit our larger bodies and larger families better! :)

It's high time both sides of these debates started recognizing the
honorable, intelligent positions of the other....because the reality is that
our GOALS are often identical...we just disagree on process.

Re: A Voice Of Reason

fredwilson — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 10:44:24 -0000

He did vote with Bush 90+ pcnt of the time. As far as I know obama didn't hang out with former terrorists 90pcnt of the time

Re: A Voice Of Reason

oliver — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 10:19:50 -0000

Concerning the first question: You are the type of voter they're pandering to. Not that you *personally* are convinced to vote Dem, but in order to win swing states, convincing some of the voters that are afraid of a healthcare system that is run as ____ (fill in badly run government initiative here) helps. That, plus the lobbying by companies that have seen their healthcare benefits balloon, and would like the government to foot the bill from now on. As an aside: You should look into the basic public-private system continental european countries have in place--it's quite different from the British NHS system and should offer a good compromise. It basically involves the insurance part being non-profit, but the health care provision side being mostly privatized (apart from the academic hospitals).

Re: A Voice Of Reason

andyswan — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 09:12:14 -0000

If a "majority of Americans are in favor" of it, then why does the
Democratic party need to dilute it in order to "pander to the center-right
wing"?

Call me "red-scared", but I don't want the same people that run Social
Security, Medicare, Walter Reed, Public Schools, Congress, WIC, Public
Housing, the IRS, the Commerce Department, and TSA running healthcare.
Silly, I know.

Re: A Voice Of Reason

oliver — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 08:58:32 -0000

"core beliefs, which are wildly unpopular and unsellable".
I think when it comes to health care it is the other way around. A majority of Americans are in favor of a simple and transparent nationalized health care system as they see it functioning over in Australia, Europe or Canada. Just Google for "poll americans socialized health care" for numerous examples. The fact that the democratic party comes up with a half-assed solution shows they are pandering to the center-right wing voter which is afraid socialized health care will lead to communism (like it has in the rest of the world?). I therefore disagree with your statement that "most of this country and most of both parties is center-right", but admit that Americans have been swallowing the red-scare poppycock for decades.

Re: A Voice Of Reason

andyswan — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 08:53:19 -0000

By that logic, Obama is suggesting that McCain IS Bush. You tell me which is worse in this political environment :)

Re: A Voice Of Reason

fredwilson — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 06:26:08 -0000

Thanks for this comment

Re: A Voice Of Reason

fredwilson — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 06:25:08 -0000

It suggests that he is a terrorist

The implication is ³muslim terrorist² and the scary thing is there are
people out there who believe it

Sheese!