The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been highlighting for me a very interesting paradox in how we understand the concept of responsibility:
BP repeatedly disregarded safety problems, according to a new damning investigation from ProPublica that was copublished with The Washington Post. Documents about internal safety investigations leaked to ProPublica by “a person close to the company” show a pattern of neglect and a culture skewed toward silencing whistle-blowers.
The investigations described instances in which management flouted safety by neglecting aging equipment, pressured employees not to report problems, and cut short or delayed inspections to reduce production costs.
That article was from a month ago, even before Texas Congressman Joe Barton expressed regret that BP was being pressured to take responsibility for the spill with a $20 billion fund set aside to cover the damage.
We often point to how the law treats corporations as equals to individuals as a major problem that creates skewed outcomes within our legal system and a dangerous downstream effect on society. But I’m not sure that that alone captures the depth of the problem. The problem is that we have two separate notions of what it means to be responsible – and that individuals and corporations are held to very different standards.
We make a lot of laws in this country that focus on our individual behavior. We zap speeders on the freeway and set up red light cameras. We fine people for jaywalking or drinking a beer on the sidewalk. We make people wear helmets on motorcycles and seat belts in their cars. The value of these restrictions are sometimes debated (and I certainly don’t like some of them), but they almost always have the broad support of the public – and few politicians dare to challenge the necessity of these laws that require responsibility on our part, both to ourselves and others. Government is seen as being the hammer necessary to force people to be responsible citizens.
But when it came to the years leading up to the devastating oil spill that wrecked both the environment and the economy of the Gulf Coast, the government was completely hamstrung in its ability to get BP or its partners to exercise even a minimal amount of responsibility, or even punish them when their previous irresponsibility led to actual damage (like when the Texas City refinery blew up, killing 15 people).
Part of this happens through outright corruption, but part if it is also from a belief that if we hold companies responsible with regulations, we’ll make it too hard for them to succeed and move our economy forward. Following this idea to an extreme, we now treat corporations far more kindly than we treat individuals. It has become an internalized double-standard that government protects society by holding individuals responsible, but endangers society by holding corporations responsible.
This article from last weekend in the New York Times shows how easy it is for companies like the ones at the heart of the Gulf oil spill to exploit this tendency:
With federal officials now considering a new tax on petroleum production to pay for the cleanup, the industry is fighting the measure, warning that it will lead to job losses and higher gasoline prices, as well as an increased dependence on foreign oil.
But an examination of the American tax code indicates that oil production is among the most heavily subsidized businesses, with tax breaks available at virtually every stage of the exploration and extraction process.
According to the most recent study by the Congressional Budget Office, released in 2005, capital investments like oil field leases and drilling equipment are taxed at an effective rate of 9 percent, significantly lower than the overall rate of 25 percent for businesses in general and lower than virtually any other industry.
…
Jack N. Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, warns that any cut in subsidies will cost jobs.
“These companies evaluate costs, risks and opportunities across the globe,” he said. “So if the U.S. makes changes in the tax code that discourage drilling in gulf waters, they will go elsewhere and take their jobs with them.”
Can you imagine if individuals were treated the way we treat oil companies? Sure, your honor, I killed a busload of children while driving drunk, but if you make me pay too step a penalty or force me to stop drinking and driving again, I’ll just take my productivity to another country!
Even within the White House, which is supposedly run by anti-business socialists, this skewed mindset has a foothold:
I was on Good Morning America this not-so-good morning, doing what I could. But I was struck by something that George Stephanopoulos said: he claimed to have been speaking to an administration official who asserted that what we need to get businesses investing is for business to know that the government has stopped — presumably, that means no new spending, no new regulation, whatever.
GS is a careful guy, so this must be true. And it’s shocking — not that people are saying this, but that someone inside the administration is saying it.
It’s garbage, of course: businesses are refusing to invest because they don’t see enough demand for their products. And administration economists know that it’s garbage. But obviously some people in the WH — I’m guessing a political person, but who knows — have bought the right-wing line hook, line, and sinker.
In the meantime, while we cower in fear of potentially spooking these fragile businesses who can’t survive unless government becomes completely subservient to their every whim, we can’t even extend unemployment benefits to the folks who aren’t being hired by any of these great, glorious businesses. And this may highlight the full extent of our double-standard. Politicians see spending money on subsidies for oil companies as being necessary to help our economy, but see spending money on the unemployed as a waste, even though the latter belief is completely baseless. It’s as if we could have the perfect economy by keeping the corporations perfectly happy but jettisoning all these pesky human beings weighing down the system.
Good writing, Lee. Well put. Please continue!
The spill in the gulf is a good example of the principle of diminishing returns as applied to technology. Yes, we can build wonderful machines that can drill for oil five miles under water, but in the end is it worth it?
It would have been easier, cheaper, and healthier, to simply live in walkable communities and driven smaller cars and not needed that oil and the risks and problems that came with it.
Does anyone really think that we could have managed that system in a way that a spill like this never happened?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_spills
Great post Lee!
So if everybody worked for the government, we’d all have money to go and play all the time. Whee!
Why is it when lefties write about economics that the logic, rationality, and reason flee.
Lee,
You are completely right about the rightist notion of accountability–hang individuals for their perceived wrongs, but never corporations. If we have a death penalty for individuals, then we should have the same for corporations. What is the justification for a limitation on damages that might be assessed against a corporation in a civil suit? If the evidence supports a jury’s determination, then why should random caps interfere with that determination? So what if the damages award puts the corporation out of business? If the wrong committed justifies the award, then a corporate death penalty would seem in order.
@2
If we drilled in ANWR, there wouldn’t have been a spill a mile under water. They drill where they are allowed to get what we need. (I’ll apologize if you don’t drive, don’t use plastics and don’t eat commercially grown food for including you in the “we” in the previous sentence, but somehow I doubt it.)
It’s not like they WANT to drill in deepwater, it’s just not off limits. Yet.
@4
Why is it every time you post something on here you make shit up? We’ve never said or claimed anything you’re claiming we said.
7
Ah, c’mon, Michael, you know that Delbert lives in Wingie World. His passport says he gets to make shit up, even on the fly, if necessary. So, don’t be too hard on the lad. He knows no better.
Deleted by author. Proud got it right.
@6
You do know that the oil from this failed oil rig was not going to be used anytime soon, don’t you? The oil companies go around drilling these holes, then plugging them with a spigot that they can turn on or off at anytime. You can be damn sure that if we found enough oil in the US to drop the price of gasoline to 50 cents a gallon, the oil companies would cut back on supply to keep the price high.
And some of the oil from Alaska is sold to Japan, so why are we selling our oil to foreigners? Oil companies only care making money and not about energy independence for America.
@10
He doensn’t know and gives a shit less.
Excellent post Lee!
All the cries have been coming from the people in the Gulf, the heartbreaking stories hammering via Youtubes and articles (I’ve been following this mess religiously). At the same time I’ve read Republicans (especially from Louisiana and Alaska) screaming ‘You can’t shut our unsafe oil rigs down!!!’ Don’t mess with our jobs! (Not getting much sympathy from posters all over the states, I might add. Especially from Folks sweating since their own unemployment checks have expired or shortly to expire.)
Never-mind all the fishing/hotel/tourist industries and regular people that most likely have lost THEIR livelihoods and culture in this fiasco for decades or a life time. “Screw them, I want my OWN!” mentality.
What people refuse to believe is that the oil drawn from the Gulf Gusher or Alaska doesn’t stay in the U.S.A., it goes to the World market. We Americans get to live with the environmental horror & disaster, so the foreign companies can reap the profit.
Read a few days ago on one of my favorite blogs where, last weekend, a couple of people checked out some inlets in Alaska. 21-years after Exxon Valdez, turned out they didn’t even need to use the garden trowel to dig for oil, just their footsteps left pools of oily water to collect.
BP has done everything possible to trash their state of Alaska, why would BP give a crap about turning the Gulf into a sewer of massive proportions?
While I’m on a rant, I must say all the massive OVERLOAD of BP advertisements telling of ‘how much they care and showing how they are doing everything to make things ?right?’ – just makes me throw up.
Don’t think BP realizes how insulting their ads feel. Tell that to the birds covered & slow cooking on the beach in HOT oil, heated up with the summer sun.
6’4″ Cop Bullies 4’11” Videographer as She Videos a BP Worker Taken Away in Ambulance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pi8R_FUGys
Krugman also took this up in his column today.
But deference to corporations is just one aspect of class deference. For example, take the latest wave of propaganda regarding the immorality of default, and how we poor prols should just ‘suck it up’. Somehow, the rich have a different take:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com.....-rate.html
First, if they were drilling in ANWR, they would have been even more successful in dodging responsibility and soiling a different environment. BP’s business practices show that they were more than willing to take the risk of disaster in order to make the most money possible.
What is clear about this post is that the idea of differing consequence and levels of responsibility for individuals and for corporations is that it IS NOT an issue of RIGHT or LEFT. It is a waste of time to frame it that way. Obama’s team isn’t even snookered by corporate bullshit. They know that giving in isn’t the right thing to do. The other day Axlerod reportedly agreed that focusing on deficit reduction is a bad idea, but he believes the “public” wants a stop on spending and that we want a stop on spending as it applies to the unemployed and state support. IF he is correct (and many people believe that the public doesn’t really care as much about the deficit as they do about jobs) then Axlerod’s position is entirely cynical and designed to meekly preserve political points. Obama has emphasized “bridge building” over having the strength of his convictions. At every level, the Democrats have utterly failed in excerising any sort of character or strength at stepping out there and opposing the Republican agenda. It is as if they don’t hold the majority at the National level. The same is true in Washington State. Who needs the right when we have our beloved cowardly, political weasely, impotent, enraging Democrats? So we need to quit painting this as a right versus left and start holding Dems responsible for this. YEah, the stage was set before Obama, but quit sitting on your hands and acting like there’s not a damned thing that can be done now. Quit giving into BP.
We SHOULD buy ALL our oil overseas..
The idea that drilling. finding but selling oil overseas is wrong is naive. The oil we sell is a tiny part of what we use and makes the ocst of what we use lower.
A bigger issue is why drill at all? As the supply nof oil decreases, oil in the ground will be mnoney in the bank. The present value of US oil reserves, may be far greater then the amount we earn by selling the stuff now.
The real problem here is a flaw in our model of capitalism. American corporations have no incentive to think in terms of more than a decade. Selling oil or using up our reserves now, means the US will be poorer in the future.
Yet another EVIL CORPORATION rant by a guy who works for an EVIL CORPORATION, buys gas from an EVIL CORPORATION, banks with an EVIL CORPORATION, has a mortgage with an EVIL CORPORATION. yada yada yada.
The Progressives only hope in the upcoming elections is to attack EVIL CORPORATIONS…and distract voters from ObaMao’s incompetence and Marxist Agenda. Even ObaMao is joining in the attack comparing congressional Republicans to dangerous teenage drivers and binge-spending drunken sailors, Obamao held no metaphor back as he hit the campaign trail for the first of two stops in toss-up mid-term Senate races.
EVIL CORPORATIONS provide insurance for your home, car, life & health.
It’s obvious the only alternative to EVIL CORPORATIONS is for the GOOD SAMARITAN GOVERNMENT to take over everything and, as Delbert pointed out…we can all work for the Government and life will be soooooooo great.
This is pretty pathetic Lee when you consider how much YOU rely personally on EVIL CORPORATIONS for your existence.
The in-Corporate Person
On this I agree with Lee.
Why should any corporation be treated as a person?
Actions should have consequences, but punishing a corporation may have no consequence for the people who run the thing. Suppose, for example, that BO goes bankrupt. Lots of workers and pensioners will feel the pain, the management? not so much.
Microsoft, Google, Apple, Boeing .. are all in this boat. Lets take Msoft, since it is our local behemoth and since Msoft .. while public ..still has some very, very big share holders.
Now imagine that a glitch in the MS software used in Ford cars causes some cars to explode. Lets also suppose the glitch was the result of a corporate policy to tolerate a certain level of sloppiness in the code.
If that glitch were the fault of an individual car builder, the criminal trial would destroy him. If the error were intentional, a manslaughter trial would follow.
If the perp were a corporate “person” the worst that might happen is that Steve Balmer might lose a billion or two.
@18
You apparently didn’t read my post very carefully (or you’re just a moron). Saying that corporations should be held responsible for their behavior and actions is no more a belief that corporations are evil than saying that individuals should be held responsible for their behavior and actions is a belief that individuals are evil.
If you don’t punish corporations for their irresponsibility, you end up with evil corporations. That’s the point of the post.
Did you come here to have an intelligent discussion about what I wrote, or did you come here to demonstrate to everyone how poor your reading comprehension skills are?
The governing philosophy you describe is called plutocracy, and our economic system is a plutonomy.
@18 Cynical
“EVIL CORPORATIONS provide insurance for your home, car, life & health.”
What irony here!
Why is it “conservative” to support big corporations and oppose big government. How are these things different?
In fascist states they are NOT different. Corporations in China and Russia are usually owned by the government or by government agencies. Lenovo is largely owned by the Chinese Army. Is that good or bad?
After WWII, we had war crimes trials for individuals from GTermany, the corporations however came out of this pretty well. Americans who profited from Nazi investments, e.g. Henry Ford, certainly were not punished.
What Cynical is missing here is the issue of responsibility. Our system exempts individuals from responsibility by creating corporations. If the Insurance company that Mr. FC so likes defaults on his insurance, the worst that can happen to their executives is that they need to seek other jobs.
By the way, the founding fathers by and large were opposed to the kinds of concentrations of wealth we now call corporations.
I think this is a consequence of unbridled capitalism, which, ultimately, is not compatible with democracy.
We as a country have been sold this bill of goods about all taxes being bad, and the government being a corrupt destructive force. Remember Ronald Reagan’s “most terrifying words”: “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”
Making government regulation bad, and ultimately making government an object of ridicule and derision, has been part of the Conservative playbook all along. It’s part of getting people to vote against their best interests.
@22
I think the fascism reference is very on point.
Fascism is a bit hard to define in a consistent, objective way, but certainly a close alignment between a repressive, imperialistic government and certain powerful industries and companies is a central feature.
The sad reality is that justice is a chimera.
Those people or fictional people who have the ability or power to escape it usually do.
In 2010 it is still possible for a corporation responsible for the worst ecological catastrophe and the death of 11 men to receive sympathy from a political party.
In 2010 it is still possible for a public security officer to shoot an unarmed man he has detained face down on the concrete in the back, killing him, and for it to be judged as a bad accident.
Speaking of gulf disasters, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Goldy wrote over 50 posts criticizing the government’s response to that disaster. Now we have a Democratic President. And we have another disaster in the gulf with another poor federal response.
Can someone help me find Goldy’s posts criticizing the Obama administration’s response?
Horsey’s cartoon from July 7th was on-point, as well:
“Save us from Big Government!”
[Deleted – off topic]
@28
You have to know that was off-topic right? Goldy will put up an Open Thread sometime today where you can pretend that people care about your creepy obsession with me.
@27
Absolutely perfect.
Troll @ 26: Is there ANY post here in where you don’t want to take it off-topic? I’m beginning to think you guys have morning briefings…
You lefties are really something. You continue to drive gas-guzzlers, use plastics and buy food grown with petroleum-based fertilizer. Hypocrites, one and all.
@32
How is that relevant? I love the fruits of our modern world (although I don’t think my Prius qualifies as a gas-guzzler). My post is only hypocritical if you believe that the fruits of modernity aren’t achievable in a world where we hold corporations accountable for irresponsible behavior. And if you believe that, you’re a sucker. It’s not true. We can make corporations act responsibly and still have a modern productive world. In fact, I believe that we can advance further in technology by doing so.
Wingnut idiot @4 spews: “So if everybody worked for the government, we’d all have money to go and play all the time. Whee!”
That’s not what Lee (or anyone else) advocated, dumbass.
“Why is it when lefties write about economics that the logic, rationality, and reason flee.”
The simple answer to this is we need a Republican Party, in the same way apartment dwellers need rented storage units, to warehouse the jackasses who don’t know what logic, rationality, and reason is because they never had any to begin with. See, e.g., the wingnut idiot who posted @4.
You righties are really something. You continue to drive on public roads, breath clean air and buy food grown with government subsidies. Hypocrites, one and all.
Many economists believe another stimulus package, in the $80 – $100 billion range, is necessary to prevent another recession later this year.
However, Republicans are blocking the administration’s proposals for extended unemployment benefits and aid to states and cities, because they’re against economic recovery.
Remember, this is an election year. We still have millions of unemployed. Why would anyone vote Republican? I mean, why would you be in favor of another recession and more unemployment? Only Republicans want that.
@35 It’s time for “Joe Republican” again:
Day in the Life of Joe Middle-Class Republican
A TvNewsLIES Reader contribution.
By John Gray Cincinnati, Ohio
Joe gets up at 6:00am to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot full of good clean drinking water because some liberal fought for minimum water quality standards. He takes his daily medication with his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and work as advertised.
All but $10.00 of his medications are paid for by his employers medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance, now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs this day. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.
Joe takes his morning shower reaching for his shampoo; His bottle is properly labeled with every ingredient and the amount of its contents because some liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained. Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some tree hugging liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the subway station for his government subsidized ride to work; it saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees. You see, some liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.
Joe begins his work day; he has a good job with excellent pay, medicals benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe’s employer pays these standards because Joe’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed he’ll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some liberal didn’t think he should loose his home because of his temporary misfortune.
Its noon time, Joe needs to make a Bank Deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe’s deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some liberal wanted to protect Joe’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the depression.
Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae underwritten Mortgage and his below market federal student loan because some stupid liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his life-time.
Joe is home from work, he plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive to dads; his car is among the safest in the world because some liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. He was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans. The house didn’t have electric until some big government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification. (Those rural Republican’s would still be sitting in the dark)
He is happy to see his dad who is now retired. His dad lives on Social Security and his union pension because some liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn’t have to. After his visit with dad he gets back in his car for the ride home.
He turns on a radio talk show, the host’s keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. (He doesn’t tell Joe that his beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day) Joe agrees, “We don’t need those big government liberals ruining our lives; after all, I’m a self made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have”.
@33 Sigh. You can’t reason with stupidity, Lee. Surely you must know that.
@38
Uh, yeah, I’m aware.
Over the last 2-1/2 years, the right-wing radio blowhards have been trying to excuse corporate responsibility for the banking crisis 0f 2008-2009 by blaming previous government administrations (going back to Carter) for “forcing” banks to loan mortgages to people who couldn’t pay for them. Included in these rants are specific references to the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which prohibited banks from red-lining minority areas for discrimination in lending practices.
In trying to place the blame for the housing and banking crisis on the CRA, they are also making a thinly-veiled attack on minorities, inferring that they are too irresponsible to loan money to, and that the corporations were somehow “forced” into making these loans which nearly brought down the U.S. economy some thirty years later.
Of course, the facts are considerably different. Loans made under the CRA didn’t default at any greater rate than they did for the U.S. population as a whole. The real blame was rather widespread, involving a large number of people who wanted to make a quick profit – “flippers”, investors, real estate agents and mortgage brokers, bankers peddling sub-prime mortgages promising exhorbitant profits – even to those who didn’t need them, and Wall Street investment firms who bundled risky mortgages into investment packages so that the real risk couldn’t be ascertained.
But the key here is that the bankers had the responsiblity and ability to prevent this from happening at all, simply by maintaining prudent mortgage lending practices. But this didn’t promise the quick buck, so they played a risky game instead, and called on the government to bail them out when the house of cards collapsed. When criticized, they tried to blame the victim, claiming that it was the borrowers who were at fault, they shouldn’t have taken out the loans in the first place. They conveniently leave out the part where the banks could have simply refused to approve the risky loans, nobody was holding a gun to their head.
Central to these wingnut claims is the allegation that the problem was all caused by those on the lower end of the economic spectrum – those who were alleged to be “unable to afford a home in the first place”. But a recent NYT article lays that allegation to rest as well:
“Whether it is their residence, a second home or a house bought as an investment, the rich have stopped paying the mortgage at a rate that greatly exceeds the rest of the population.
More than one in seven homeowners with loans in excess of a million dollars is seriously delinquent, according to data compiled for The New York Times by the real estate analytics firm CoreLogic.
By contrast, homeowners with less lavish housing are much more likely to keep writing checks to their lender. About one in 12 mortgages below the million-dollar mark is delinquent.
Though it is hard to prove, the CoreLogic data suggest that many of the well-to-do are purposely dumping their financially draining properties, just as they would any sour investment.
Source: Biggest Defaulters on Mortgages are the Rich:
wealthy simply see loss of home as one bad investment and walk away
Which also lays to rest the claim that the wealthy desearve to be rich because they are smarter, more moral, more responsible, and more prudent than the rest of us.
# 36: Yep. The Republicans know that their biggest obsticale to gaining ground in House and Senate races in 2010 is an improving economy during the summer and early fall. In contrast, if the economy dips down again, they will proclaim that it proves that the “Obama-plan” has failed, and that the Republicans should be put back in charge.
It appears that they are certainly willing to sacrifice the economy and the well-being of a substantional number of American citizens simply to regain power.
Why is this not treason?
Ironically, during the 2008 elections the wingnuts (including a few trolls posting here) proclaimed that Democrates were “hoping”, if not actively working for, the economy to fail in the late summer/early fall of 2008. This was nonsense, of course, as the Democratic house voted for the Bush administration’s TARP bill even though they had strong concerns against it, and knew it would be used against them in future elections. But facing a potential replay of the Great Depression, they put America’s interests over partison politics. Now, of course, Republicans are attempting to use it against them, just as was predicted in the fall of 2008.
Lee
seems as if you are taking malapropism lessons from me?
rhp
I attended a Move-On meeting devoted to just this topic last night.
What worries me is the clear difference in how each party (small p) approaches politics.
On the left there is a terrible dose of “me, me, me.” The recent efforts to legalize MJ are a good example. Good people stand on both sides of the mj issue, but Lee and his community were bitter that progressive groups did not want to link THEIR causes to his.
Move-On has some of the same problem. Their current theme is pretty much the same as this thread. They want to demand that politicians sign an oath to legislate against the corporation=person.
So far so good. Unfortunately, they have places at #1 on this oath a commitment for politicians to support a constitutional amendment over turning the Robert’s court decision.
Obviously I would agree with that, BUT a constitutional adornment needs to be written carefully … else the consequences can be dire. The amendment they propose is sloppy and I would have no respect for any cnadidate wllling to sign such a thing.
Worse, the organization seems to me to be disconnected from LOCAL Seattle politics. They are planning a big even for Aug 10 but have not yet established contacts with any of the other relevant groups.
The similarity to the tea baggers comes to mind. Move-On is NOT the tea baggers, Moe-On’s stands are usually rational. They do not want to ask God to stop global warming, ask King Canute to stop oil from flowing assure in the Gulf, or set up a magical fence on our Southern border.
Nonetheless the people at this meting seemed to me to be blissfully unaware that we need to elect good progressives and that local politics needs to trump idealistic national causes.
re 42: How is what Lee said a malaprop (the substitution of a word for a word with a similar sound, in which the resulting phrase makes no sense but often creates a comic effect. It is not the same as an eggcorn, which is a similar substitution in which the new phrase makes sense on some level. Occasionally a phrase, rather than a single word, replaces the original word, for example Stan Laurel said “What a terrible cat’s after me!” (i.e., catastrophe)?
What did you mean?
@44
I’m as stumped as you. It might have been grammatically cleaner if I’d switched the words “only” and “hypocritical”, but the meaning should be clear either way.
@36
I’m for extending unemployment, but I’m skeptical about another stimulus. If we’re boosting small farms and urban Ag, fixing up the rail roads, and boosting entrepreneurship, I might go for it.
Everyone thinks the Democrats are going to get their asses handed to them and return control to the Republicans.
While there are many stupid ass voters out there, the majority of the electorate remembers it was Bush and the Republicans who created this Depression 2.0 we’re in.
Sure, nobody is happy with the progress of getting out of the 2nd Depression but they’re not eager to return the reigns of government back to the idiots who caused this mess.
The ONLY thing Republicans stand for is being against Democrats. It makes for compelling viewing on Fox News, but it doesn’t make for a compelling reason in the voting booth.
When the Exxon Valdez ran aground, Bush 41 let the people of Alaska get fucked over. 20 years later they finally got a meager settlement while Exxon went on to make record profits.
President Obama and the Democrats didn’t want to see the citizens of the Gulf States get screwed and is holding BP accountable for their actions. To ensure that the voters in those RED states get fairly compensated now instead of 20 years from now.
And, for that Republicans apologize to the heads of foreign companies?? Independent voters and moderate Republicans will remember who helped them this fall.
Republicans hold up unemployment benefits to millions of people/voters? Independents and moderate Republicans will remember who screwed them this fall while Republicans were on bended knee licking the boots of BP’s CEO.
Republicans call the War in Afghanistan, the War on Terror “Obama’s War.” It’s America’s War you dumb shits. That’s the war Bush and the rest of the Reagan Republicans LOST!!
Healthcare — yeah, seniors are seeing the benefits this summer from HCR. The voting block that turns out the most in mid-terms. Ya think they want to “Repeal and Replace” a sure thing??
Unfunded tax cuts for Bill Gates, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, unfunded war effort, unfunded Medicaid Part D, unfunded everything to the tune of $12 Trillion dollars and NOW the Republicans are Deficit Hawks.
Republicans = al Qeada.
What did you mean?
typos….see “Moe-On’s”, post 43
@48 Proud to be an ass
@44 Mr. Sinical
eggcorns and typos
As Lee says … “It might have been grammatically cleaner if I’d switched the words “only” and “hypocritical”, but the meaning should be clear either way..”
That said “The hypocrite thinks that what he or she usually professes does not somehow apply to him or her.”
Malapropisms, on the other hand are an artifice created by Sheridan for his play, the Rivals and the major character, Mrs, Malaprop .. someone even funnier than Lee!
So, while I am still utterly unsure of what was Lee’s malappropriate intent in using the term “hypocrital,” I am happy to imagine that the founder of the LEGO award is only confused at the level of English grammar.
@49
So, while I am still utterly unsure of what was Lee’s malappropriate intent in using the term “hypocrital,”
Um, I was addressing the accusation of hypocrisy in comment #32. You see, at the beginning of my comment, I wrote “@32”, meaning that I’m responding to comment #32, where Crusader wrote:
That’s why I responded with a comment about being hypocritical.
I am happy to imagine that the founder of the LEGO award is only confused at the level of English grammar.
In your mind, you probably think you’re making sense. And I’ll bet a large sum of money that no one else agrees.
SJ @43, “On the left there is a terrible dose of “me, me, me.” The recent efforts to legalize MJ are a good example.”
Great. Now you denigrate Americans who want to live free as having what, a “terrible dose” of selfishness?
“Lee and his community were bitter that progressive groups did not want to link THEIR causes to his”
I’m not in any group of Lee’s but I can assure you that “bitter” is an inadequate word to describe my response when somebody’s fucking with my or anybody else’s freedom. For you this particular issue of freedom appears to be little more a football to be kicked around in an attempt to score points in this game you play here.
“me, me, me”
Here’s a clue, SJ. Your recent posts are the biggest load of “me, me, me” to show up at HA in a very long time.
@52 Steve, youi think >I< an]m being self centered?
Harumph.
I will admit that I find fencing with Lee a bit of an ego trip. Not sure that says good thinsg about me.
As for my comments on marijuana, I think you know I do favor leglaization and think the current law is inane. FWIW I have similar (though stringer) feeligns about legalization of polygamy, prostitution, suicide, … basically I think the law ought to err on NOT sticking its finger into anyplace where consenting adults do stuff that does not hurt each other.