Advodad

Fact Check: Writing In All Caps Doesn’t Make Something True

upworthy:

Here is Romney for President, Inc.’s attempt at visually compelling election material: 

But there’s a problem. 

And by the way…

‘Cause they’re missing the point with an all-text animated gif. A truly effective gif requires movement. Kinda like this one. 

When Obama endorsed same-sex marriage…

whenobamaendorsed:

… Joe, Hillary and Michelle were all ORANGE MOCHA FRAPUCCINOS???

Why did Obama criticize personal ambition in his State of the Union speech?

Sometimes the questions from Quora can be downright strange. The quote the asker is referring to:

“These achievements are a testament to the courage, selflessness, and teamwork of America’s Armed Forces. At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations. They’re not consumed with personal ambition. They don’t obsess over their differences. They focus on the mission at hand. They work together.”

This one’s easy. When you are trying to indoctrinate people into becoming part of the socialist proletariat, you have to be careful with your words? Oh wait, Ayn Rand called and wants her insane philosophy back.


If I say you are consumed with eating pie, that does not mean I’m anti-pie, it means you are eating too much pie. It means you are hurting your health and ignoring your family for the glory of Banana Cream. Gluttony in any form is bad for you, no matter how delicious it is.

Personal ambition, like all good things, must be used in moderation. 

See There Will Be Blood or 1997-2006 United States Housing Bubble or Napoleon Bonaparte or McCarthyism or Watergate to realize why all consuming personal ambition can be a detriment.  

Also look at Martin Luther King, Jr. or Mahatma Gandhi or Winston Churchill or Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or Entrepreneurship or Conscious Capitalism or Free Marketsto see how it can be a good thing. 

(Not that any of those people or concepts could or should be compared to each other individually, other than to say they all were outcomes of great personal ambition.)

He wasn’t criticizing personal ambition, he was simply stating that one of the things that makes America great is our ability to work together to make things better. This isn’t some subtle promotion of socialism, it’s a way of talking about how awesome things can be accomplished when people team up for a greater purpose. (See Amish barns, Community Service, The Moon Landing, WWII, Democracy, Etc…)

No man is an island. If anything, it was a subtle dig at the banking industry who put self interest ahead of the entire economy. That’s a stretch though.

Personal ambition is great, and you can get really far with it, but $20 says no matter how far you go on your own, there were people along the way who helped.

He wasn’t busting out his communist flag.

He was praising the shared sacrifice of our men and women in uniform.

He’s not a cartoon villain out to destroy America, and the sooner you get that, the more reasonable the discourse can be.

Could Newt Beat Obama?

Sure. Hypothetically, say Obama hires some burglars to break into GOP HQ and steal some things, then covers it up, has an affair in the Oval Office, and then eats a baby on live television. Newt then has a shot against an incumbent president who is a proven monster campaigner.



However, barring that, too many people really, really hate Newt. He’s great for the base, but he’ll get murdered in the general, where he’s a household name, and a name that a majority of Americans have already made a decision about. Check out this fun chart from Talking Points Memo.


OVER HALF THE COUNTRY has negative feelings about him.

He has nowhere to go but down. While he and his PACs can assist in making more of America dislike Obama, Newt can’t make them stop not liking him. If Obama is under the 50% positive threshold, it only works if America hasn’t already made up their mind about the other candidate.

Newt has a laundry list of things that make him vulnerable.

• Newt left two wives when they were REALLY ill, to be with his mistresses. 
• Newt received massive amounts of money lobbying for institutions he attacks on a daily basis.
• Newt has a $500,000 credit account at Tiffany’s.
• Newt is a angry, angry man.
• Newt is out of touch with Independent voters, pushing hard right on issues that they don’t like. They just want results and jobs, something he has no real solutions for.
• Newt says he’s an outsider, but he used to be the ultimate insider. The 527s, PACs, Obama will have a field day with his history of insider baseball.
• Most importantly, Newt didn’t kill Osama Bin Laden.

Who would you trust if you were an independent? The guy who left 2 wives at the for worse part of their vows? Or the guy who killed Osama Bin Laden, who has a lovely family and has been married to the same person forever?

He is my favorite candidate for all those reasons. Mitt Romney is somewhat inoffensive and harmless, the GOP John Kerry, so he doesn’t nurture the pure unadulterated visceral disdain and hate that Newt will bring to the table.

Newt, you complete me. Keep on truckin in Florida!

If Newt Gingrich wins the GOP primary, can he beat President Obama in the general election?

Should Ron Paul be President?

Let’s presume he had some sort of epiphany in the mid 2000s that made him stop being a xenophobic, homophobic, anti-government, conspiracy theorist who may or may not think black people are inferior.

Presuming he’s reformed, lets look at his current stances on issues, looking mostly at his own website for information. The links in italics are his campaign website.

• Government Oversight: He believes in ELIMINATING five government agencies:Energy[1], HUD[2], Commerce[3], Interior[4], and Education[5]. Those agencies do a few things. 
• Abortion: His libertarian streak dies when it comes to women. He believes life begins at conception, so you could be charged with murder for a zygote miscarriage. He believes in repealing Roe V Wade and passing an amendment to the constitution disallowing the Supreme Court to act on such cases. Which, ya know, is unconstitutional.
• Taxes: He wants to eliminate taxes altogether and the IRS entirely. Which would make balancing the budget slightly challenging.
• Social Services: He wants to eliminate them all and kick immigrants out immediately, even if they are born here to immigrant parents.
• Environment: He wants to eliminate the EPA and just have people sue companies in court. So rather than stop kids from getting poisoned before it happens, or the nuclear meltdown from giving you cancer, you can just make the company pay for doing it, if you can get the paperwork in before you die. Weeee!
• Civil Rights Act: He’s against the Civil Rights Act. There’s really nothing more to say about that.
• Disaster Relief: He believes in every man for himself and that the Federal Government shouldn’t come to the aid of disaster victims.
• Gay Bathrooms: He’s afraid of gay men’s home bathrooms. Allegedly.
• Conspiracy Theories: He believes that Mexico and Canada and America will become a one world order thanks to a highway.

What the government agencies Ron Paul wants to eliminate waste their money on:

1. Department of Energy - Design and management of Nuclear Weapons, Research (the most of any agency) and oversight of nuclear power, radioactive waste disposal, and energy production. Nothing of importance.
2. Department of Housing and Urban Development - Stops housing discrimination, evicts drug dealers, helps provide loans for housing, supports the homeless population (including lots of veterans), blah blah blah.
3. Department of Commerce - protects and nutures economic growth, protects our oceans with the NOAA, patent and copyright management, regulation of telecommunications, performs scientific research, is the central repository for data and scientific research for the federal government, tracks weather, and makes me fall asleep with the sheer volume of things it does. Snore.
4. Department of the Interior - Administration of public lands, our national parks, manages our water supply, mine safety, protects fish and wildlife, and the USGS, which tests our water, tracks earthquakes, and other irrelevant things.
5. Department of Education - Attempts to help kids learn stuff, and protects their civil rights. Boooring.

So if that sounds good to you, then yes, he should totally be president.

I’m on the fence though.

Should Ron Paul be President?