A bunch of useless crap
Published on February 22, 2009 By MasonM In Blogging

I spent last night at a truck stop in Hubbard, OH. As I was sitting around talking with some fellow drivers the conversation naturally turned to the economy and how slow business has been.

That's when this young driver from CT spoke up and said with a great deal of vitriol "Yeah, Bush destroyed the economy!"

We all just kind of stopped and looked at the kid. I asked him what, specifically, George Bush did to cause a world-wide economic recession. His reply? "He lied about WMDs."

Huh?

The other drivers and I just kind of looked at each other for a moment, trying hard to figure out the connection. I finally asked the kid to explain exactly how that in any way could be responsible for the world-wide economic recession and the destabilization of many of the world's largest banks. He simply launched into a rant about Bush being a war criminal and should be in prison, yada yada yada, without ever actually answering the question put to him or explaining his point (I think the only one he really had was on the top of his head).

He finally, as all good loons do, made the mistake of hurling personal insults at me and the other drivers who obviously had a different view of things than he (I don't think he's seen reality in a very long time).

Almost as one we all stood up and started towards him. At that point some small measure of sanity returned to his little pea brain as he realized he was about to get one royal ass kicking for insulting a group of men who don't take kindly to such things. He started apologizing his ass off, saying he was just speaking his mind.

I told him "Boy, words have consequences, and when you start throwing around insults the consequence is usually getting your ass kicked."

It was obvious the kid was scared shitless and had that deer in the headlights look. I told the other drivers "This little piece of shit isn't worth the trouble, he apologized so maybe we ought to just let him tuck his tail and get out of here."

The other drivers just kind of chuckled and sat back down while the kid high-tailed it out of there as quickly as he could.

Speaking your piece is one thing, I do it all the time, but hurling insults at people can get you hurt. I think the nit-wit just might have learned that last night.

I finally got to meet a real life dyed in the wool Loon. They're just as crazy in person as they are on the web. LOL


Comments
on Feb 22, 2009

hahahaha 

This reminds me of why I wrote "Liberals Make My Head Hurt."  They just don't make any sense. Every single time you call them on anything they start the attack on the person.  Sounds here like he lost his argument pretty quickly. 

Sounds like you guys schooled this youngster.  Hopefully, it won't go to waste.....that is if he stops for a moment and thinks about what just happened.  I wouldn't hold my breath but I do believe in miracles....LOL. 

Oh....and there are lots and lots of loons in the Northeast. 

on Feb 23, 2009

KFC Kickin For Christ
hahahaha 

This reminds me of why I wrote "Liberals Make My Head Hurt."  They just don't make any sense. Every single time you call them on anything they start the attack on the person.  Sounds here like he lost his argument pretty quickly. 

Sounds like you guys schooled this youngster.  Hopefully, it won't go to waste.....that is if he stops for a moment and thinks about what just happened.  I wouldn't hold my breath but I do believe in miracles....LOL. 

Oh....and there are lots and lots of loons in the Northeast. 

Yeah I, nor any of the other drivers, could understand what point the kid was trying to make about the economy because he never actually said anything that even remotely pertained to it. It was pretty obvious that he was just repeating what he had heard without even understanding any of it.

I was disappointed that he had to go and start with the insults as I was hoping to have a bit of fun with him.

I hope he learned a lesson, but I kind of doubt it. He'll eventually get his ass kicked somewhere before he learns anything.

on Feb 23, 2009

Sounds like you stumbled across a true believer. He had the far left talking points down pat. It won't be long and you'll see plenty of them along the road gulping air like a fish out of water, when the blame can't be laid on Bush's feet any longer. They are a hateful bunch.

on Feb 23, 2009

I try my best to explain why I belive in what I beliveve in in a language they can understand when ever I come across someone who sees things thru the "I'm in love with Obama" eyes. I usually make them think about ir think I am crazy but have not come across someone who would insult me yet. But I guess when you confuse them, it kinda helps stop them from forming what to them is a smart remark but could normally get their butts kicked.

on Feb 23, 2009

1) You were right to put the youngun' in his place... there's no place for personal insults when discussing politics. With that said, I'm regularly accused of being godless liberal terrist' loving scum the moment I question why the U.S needs to maintain more than 700 military bases outside of it's own borders!

2)  I would not go so far as to blame Bush for the current debacle.... in my opinion it has much more to do with the fact that the U.S went off the gold standard to hide the fact that Vietnam had broken the bank in 71. This was not theoretical.... in 1970 the British Ambassador showed up at gold window in the U.S and wanted to pull out 3 billion dollars in exchange (a LOT of money back then), which caused several central bankers to spew their morning coffee. The fact has been, since the fun in Vietnam the U.S had no choice BUT to go to fiat currency, which has worked so long as said currency remained the reserve currency of the world (used exclusively to buy and sell oil and held as IOU's for trade imbalances)

The problem with this system is that the REAL value of the currency vs it's actual value has been a topic of much debate and saddly a show of smoke and mirrors as the real economy... manufacturing, production, new products and services through R&D... has progressively shrunk to be replaced with the financialized economy over the last 40 years. Consequently, much of the financialized economy has been based on the fueling of bubbles, from technology to real estate, for which we can thank several U.S administrations on both sides of the aisle.

To offset the fall in actual production and wages vs inflation we married credit with the financialized economy so much of the supposed GDP is actually based on giant IOU's that will probably never be repaid.

Okay, so that's a mouthful that can be argued in many ways. What has Bush got to do with it?

While he didn't cause the problem, he exacerbated it heavily through some very reckless policies-

In short, he increased spending while decreasing his taxable revenues.....

He pushed through a 1.2 trillion tax cut. If that's all that he did, things wouldn't be so bad, and to be fair the tax cut did help to get us out of the post dot com bubble that burst in early 2000 and 2001.

But, he then turned around and spent a ridiculously massive sum of money on a couple of overseas wars which have had almost no benefit to the United States (they never did get the guy who was ultimately responsible for 9/11 and his organization is still intact and around today) To make matters worse, he didn't actually pay for the wars....since he couldn't because he decreased his revenues.... so he paid for them entirely on credit. In 2008 alone, his last year in office, total defence related spending reached just around 1 trillion dollars, with the total cost of the Iraq war reaching a projected 2-3 trillion once all is said and done. And all of that went on the biggest VISA bill in modern history (now over 10 trillion dollars)

The counter-argument has been that the percentage of military spending vs GDP was in line with past figures but that isn't true due to the fact that much of the GDP is again, based entirely on debt and credit, cue the smoke and mirrors show again.

So to sum it up, Bush started his 8 years with a not half-bad surplus environment, cut taxes massively then increased defence spending massively. furthermore, the Pentagon under his appointees (like Rumsfeld) pursued several weapons programs which have cost taxpayers ridiculous amounts of money but have very little operational value....other than enriching private defence contractors.... The missile shield is still mostly a dream- they can hit a missile travelling on a straight course most of the time yet the Russians already have missiles that can easily defeat this. The F-22 and F-35 strike fighter programs, for instance, are examples of weapons development programs based more on political cronyism and gaining points with contractors and Generals who like fancy tech than anything of actual value on today's battlefield.

In fact, of the ridiculous multi-billions spent on cutting edge defence technology in the last decade very few of the big ticket items that cost the most have had any practical impact, other than the UAV program and some of the innovations borne out of necessity, like automated radar guided counter battery fire when bases get shelled and so forth.

My apologies for going off on a tangent. In summary, Bush is not solely responsible for the economic problems of today but he did heavily exacerbate the situation through reckless economic policy based more on political ideology than the reality on the ground.

At a time when he should have been reducing defence spending on unnecessary programs of very little practical value, and at a time when he should have been heavily scrutinizing the gouging carried out by private defence contractors at every level of the food chain, he gladly put it all on credit while decreasing his actual revenue. If the U.S wants to instantly reduce some of it's expenditures and free up a little more cash? Perhaps closing some of the 767 military installations outside of U.S borders would be a start!

on Feb 23, 2009

With that said, I'm regularly accused of being godless liberal terrist' loving scum the moment I question why the U.S needs to maintain more than 700 military bases outside of it's own borders!

If I may Artysim, the accusations usually come after a back and forth disagreement and not necessarily right off the back as you make it seem. Besides, there are times your comments warrant an insult once in a while. Your comments tend to come off as insulting from time to time.

on Feb 23, 2009

Hmm, maybe he was just a lost ijit looking for a village?

on Feb 23, 2009

Nitro Cruiser
Sounds like you stumbled across a true believer. He had the far left talking points down pat.

Yeah he had them down pat but didn't actually understand anything that he or anyone else said. True loon.

on Feb 23, 2009

CharlesCS
I try my best to explain why I belive in what I beliveve in in a language they can understand when ever I come across someone who sees things thru the "I'm in love with Obama" eyes. I usually make them think about ir think I am crazy but have not come across someone who would insult me yet. But I guess when you confuse them, it kinda helps stop them from forming what to them is a smart remark but could normally get their butts kicked.

If one is going to discuss a serious subject one should at least have some slight understanding of that subject and not go off on a tangent and make statements that have nothing at all to do with the subject and then claim that they do.

on Feb 23, 2009

Artysim
1) You were right to put the youngun' in his place... there's no place for personal insults when discussing politics. With that said, I'm regularly accused of being godless liberal terrist' loving scum the moment I question why the U.S needs to maintain more than 700 military bases outside of it's own borders!

He was fine with me (just laughing at him) until he started hurling insults. That's what nearly got his ass kicked.

[/quote]

 

As for all the rest, while the previous administration didn't do anything to avert the current recession, they certainly didn't cause it.. The insane lending of money to unqualified borrowers and then the trading of these aubsyrdly bad loans has led to this situation and began long before Bush took over.

Frankly I blame Congress. Past and present. A lot of people tend to want to blame the Prez for what should actually be dropped upon the pack of bastards in the House and Senate. If I stub my toe I blame them. LOL

on Feb 23, 2009

Adventure-Dude
Hmm, maybe he was just a lost ijit looking for a village?

I suspect the village evicted him LOL

on Feb 23, 2009

When people "speak their mind" with not much brain behind it, it quickly turns to insults.  Insults are the lazy or stupid way of getting out of backing up your opinion.  I wish I could say I've only met one true loon! 

on Feb 23, 2009

JillUser
When people "speak their mind" with not much brain behind it, it quickly turns to insults.  Insults are the lazy or stupid way of getting out of backing up your opinion.  I wish I could say I've only met one true loon! 

I have to say that this is the first one I've actually met in person.

on Feb 24, 2009

I have to say that this is the first one I've actually met in person.

wow.....you need to get out more