Well it seems official, Ted Kennedy is still dead. Apparently they are having a public viewing so I’m assuming they didn’t even need to drive a stake through his heart to keep him down. That’s a little surprising for me. Maybe somebody who is going to the funeral should do that just to be sure though.
Good riddance you bastard. Getting away with murder just because of the family you hail from shouldn’t be legal in this country, but he proved it is. Then again I guess it’s not murder when you drive your car into a body of water and swim away while leaving the other passenger to her death. Nope that’s not murder that’s cowardice and being an accessory to murder.
I hope you get into Heaven just so Mary Jo Kopechne has her chance to kick your ass.
I agree. What ever good he may have done will always be overshadowed by Mary’s death. He didn’t even call 911 first. He called his lawyer. Just proves money can buy anything. Even freedom from justice.
You are a fucking imbecile, you hypocritical retardlican. Your jackass ‘president’ bush glibly dragged this country into a war against a make-believe threat just for kicks, as though it were nothing but a Sunday afternoon fox-hunt. How many lives has that cost, wise guy? Many, many thousands. But did bush risk anything? Of course not. Just like his cowardly Vietnam draft-dodging. Did you risk anything? Of course not. You’re just another pasty, weak La-Z-Boy Napoleon. What happened to Kopechne was a tragedy, but you and other radical extremist right-wingers don’t know the details, so you only show your amazing stupidity when you open your big mouths. And if Ted Kennedy was in the wrong, at least he spent the rest of his life trying to help people less fortunate than himself. Meanwhile, you and your fellow retardlicans have never done anything but oppress and destroy.
This ladies and gentlemen is somebody who has NOT read this blog. If this gentleman had read this blog he would know I’m not a Republican but in fact a Libertarian.
Bush was an asshole to say the least. I hated the guy. But of course I hate any politician who stands against freedom such as Ted Kennedy. Look at his voting record. He’s about as anti-gun as you get. Of course since you have neglected to read anything on this page I’m sure you also failed to notice the links on the side to join the NRA or Gun Owners of America. But those should indicated that the owner of this blog (That would be me.) is very pro-gun. In fact being a Libertarian I’m very pro-rights in general.
Hell this guy voted for reauthorizing the PATRIOT act, that’s a very Bush-like policy.
Thank you for stopping by and adding to the conversation. I greatly appreciate your input however rude, ignorant, and incorrect it may be. Hopefully you look through some other articles and continue providing those here with such colorful incites such as accusing me of being a Bush supporter.
Be seeing you.
I assume there are libertarians out there who are just naive idealists and do not share your extreme bad taste and classlessness. “Good riddance you bastard”? What if that was your grandfather, you jerk? Kennedy probably did vote for many things you oppose – since libertarians seem to oppose almost every effort to improve the lives of individuals by acting on a large scale. But he probably believed he was living in a complex, modern society with a population of 300 million rather than an agrarian society with a couple of million people. I’m sure you would prefer the latter, and maybe even believe the same techniques of governance are appropriate to both situations. Kennedy obviously did not share your ideas, and so thought things like large-scale polio vaccination, the FDA (if you’d ever seen the inside of a huge meat-packing operation, you’d appreciate this), and a collectively supported defense force were good ideas. Now, you may be strongly opposed to polio vaccination – it’s your right to be a nutcase – but you are dead wrong if you think such policies are designed as assaults on individual liberty. They are intended to help as many individuals as possible while harming as few as possible. The modern world is complex, buddy. Until you and your libertarian comrades can run a CDC, raise an army (not a scruffy little militia) or build an interstate highway system, your ideas about government will be nothing but quaint, anachronistic pipe-dreams. Hopefully by then you will have learned how not to be such a tasteless wanker.
“What if that was your grandfather, you jerk?”
Considering my grand father never put a car with a passenger into peril, ran from the scene of the accident, and called a lawyer instead of the police I don’t really think the comparison is relevant. Had my grand father done such an act I would think just as low of him as well and say the same thing.
I didn’t call him a bastard because of his political view points (I call him an ignorant fool for that). I call him a bastard because he has no human decency, worrying more about his political career than the life of another human being. That’s what I call the lowest of the low.
I do appreciate the strong opinion you have on government programs, it’s good to have strong opinions. Here is my policy, and I think you’ll find it matches well with the opinions of our founding fathers. Individual liberty always trumps social welfare.
This country was founded on the concept of individual liberty since our founding fathers had just removed an oppressive regime from their land. They realize government control only leads to one thing, more government control. This is very apparent if you look at Britain (do a search of by blog of Britain, England, and Oceania to get a little view there). Yes something like a public education system has huge benefits, everybody should be educated. But when government intervenes it turns into a propaganda device, not an education device (look at the required curriculums for public schools). You mention the highway system, nice idea I’m sure many states would have implemented such a thing without the federal government. But now that the highway system is in place the federal government uses highway funds to make the states bend to their will. For instance every states has to have the minimum drinking age set to 21 otherwise they don’t get federal highway funds.
You also mention raising an army, and apparently a militia doesn’t count. Well I have bad news for you. America was never supposed to have a large standing army. The idea was to have militias that would be trained to fight and if a foreign invader came to our country the militia would fight and the federal government would then raise the standing army. This system was in place because it was felt by many of our founding fathers (the Antifederalists) that a standing army would become a vector a tyranny. We were never supposed to head over seas and police other nations such as Korea, Vietnam, or Afghanistan. The affairs of foreign nations were supposed to be just that, the affairs of foreign nations.
Yes not everybody gets taken care of in a society based on liberty but you have liberty. Liberty is far more important than any other Earthly ideal since it allows you as an individual to make your own way in the world. If you want government control over everything in your life feel free to head over to Europe. Yes you’ll have universal health care but you’ll not have your right to bear arms, be secure in your household from illegal search and seizure, or in many cases have a right to criticize the government.
The difference between the Libertarian ideal and the idea government must do everything for us is the Libertarian idea makes you take responsibility for your life but you are free to make whatever you wish of your life.
Let us take the case of polio vaccines. You might be surprised to hear this but I’m not against vaccines. I’m against mandatory vaccines though. If you wish to vaccinate yourself or your children that is your right, if you chose not to that is also your right. Mandating vaccinations is akin to letting the government tell you what to do with your body. Once you open the floodgates a little you can never close them again and they will continue opening. If the government becomes responsible for your well being they will take whatever actions needed to reduce the cost to themselves. In other words stupid shit such as passing laws saying you can’t use specific substances (and no I’m not a drug users nor would I ever be but the government has no right to say what you can and can not put into your body), eat certain foods, watch television, drive a car faster than 30 mph, etc. These are extreme cases of course but very possible.
Try looking at the other side of the coin. You obviously feel the social welfare is more important than individual liberties. Just remember that because of individual liberties you have the right to say that, in many more strongly controlled societies you would not.
You don’t know what happened at Chappaquiddick. That’s a fact that you need to internalize. Maybe Mary Jo would have drowned no matter what. I do think Teddy (as well as his friends Gargan and Markham) acted extremely stupidly by not calling the authorities immediately. But it’s clear that they all made many attempts to save her themselves, diving repeatedly into the water. They were trying to take personal responsibility, in the best of the libertarian tradition. I’m just a little bit hesitant to sit here on the couch critiquing the way people behave in extreme crisis situations, though, especially when I can’t possibly have all of the facts. Apparently you are more comfortable doing so. Regarding some of your other points: why would you allow the ‘founding fathers’ to do your thinking for you? They were smart guys, but they had no conception of the modern world. Would you let an Amish guy perform triple-bypass surgery on you? What about fly you, on a Boeing 767, from New York to Chicago? People living today are not absolved of responsibility for governing themselves just because the ‘founding fathers’ created an excellent constitution. Next, I don’t think the calculus that I learned in a public high school was propaganda. Maybe Newton or Leibniz would disagree. Your point about public education may contain a grain of truth, but it’s a tiny grain. A militia is great, but not at all adequate. If everybody thought like you, we’d be having this conversation in Russian right now. Or Chinese. Nothing against Chinese, I just prefer English. However, I do agree with you about military debacles like Korea, Vietnam, El Salvador/Guatemala, Iraq. America should not be engaged in such astounding foolishness. I also agree with you about drug-laws. They are a complete waste of time a resources, in addition to being an abridgement of people’s right to govern their own bodies. Obviously, driving under the influence is another matter entirely. Your central argument that individual liberty trumps collective liberty is very dubious. Maybe that can work in the mountains of Wyoming, but it would be a recipe for disaster on the lower east side of Manhattan. Now I have a question for you. This is not intended as a big analogy, just a question to be taken completely literally. Suppose you were forced to live in a small house with 2 other people, one of whom was a fellow libertarian and one of whom had TB and refused to treat it with antibiotics, preferring to pray about it. Would you 2 libertarians be willing to infringe on the personal liberties of the TB patient (by means of a syringe, or, if you prefer, a colt 45) in order to safeguard your own personal liberty? Or do you not view Mr. TB’s wilfully exposing you to TB as an infringement of your rights?
First the whole Chappaquiddick. No I wasn’t there but we know two important things. First of all Ted Kennedy did not call police at any point. Second he contacted his lawyer straight away. This indicates two things. First he didn’t want authorities there and he felt he did something that warranted needed his lawyer ready to go. That to me indicates pretty clearly he did something illegal and he’d rather somebody else die than have police and an ambulance crew there.
On the remarks of the founding fathers doing my thinking, they aren’t. But I’m a smart enough man to know when there are smart people with experience. The founding fathers fought a war against tyranny and setup a great system of government. They saw fit to ensure they founded a country based on individual rights and liberties. They put as many barriers in place that they could reasonably do to ensure government power never trumped civilian power.
Their experience mixed with their intelligence put in my mind that they knew what they were doing and considering the country has survived over two centuries they did a bloody fine job. Further I’m taking their advice on the subject they were experience in, government. No I would not ask an Amish man to fly a plane for me, nor would I ask a computer technician how to sword fight. The point of using advice and experience of other people is to use the stuff they are experts at in the fields where they are experts. When you have a medical issue you go to a doctor since they have the training and experience in medical issues.
The public school system is rife with propaganda. You just have to take classes where propaganda can be injected. You really can’t do that with a math class, you can do that with a history class. Look at what most public schools teach in history. According to most curriculums the civil war was about freeing the slaves. That has little to do with Lincoln’s ambitions as he said, “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in States where it exists I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”
Likewise history classes already teach the reason we entered World War I was because the German’s unlawfully sank one of our ships, the Lusitania. They never mention how the Lusitania was carrying 4,200,000 rounds of rifle ammunition and other potential war supplies for the British. This of course was occurring while we claimed neutrality and hence shouldn’t have been giving war supplies to either side. Take an economics class and they will tell you how great our economic system based on a fiat currency is without even mentioning there are other systems that we in fact did once use until a few decades after the turn to the 20th century.
You point on the militia not being strong enough to stomp foreign invaders is not correct either. Look at Vietnam for an example. A bunch of poor malnourished farmers with AK-47s and surplus Russian equipment broke our will to fight even though we had the strongest military force on the planet. This isn’t an unarmed country, a huge number of people in this fine land are armed. Those people would be trained had we kept with the militia mentality meaning it would have been a large number of trained and armed civilians against an invading force. We tossed the British out on their asses when they tried to invade our newborn country to reclaim it using such tactics. Switzerland has the same setup and haven’t been successfully invaded yet (and yes their neutrality helps but we would have the same neutrality if we kept with the founding fathers idea of non-interventionism).
Now to your question. No I would not force that person to take medicine if they did not want to. Likewise I would also exercise my right not to get near them. If that meant I had to go camping for a couple weeks I certainly would. I can’t speak for what another person would do but if they truly upheld the freedoms of another person to govern their own lives they to would not force the infected person to take medicine. Likewise I’d have antibiotics at hand should the infected person change their mine or should I become infected. It’s a non-violent mechanism of keeping everybody’s freedoms intact, which is what I’m all about.