A friend, who happens to be a Muslim and politically active, sent me this:
Next time one of your RWNJ friends or relatives claims President Obama is a “closet Muslim” who is trying to spread Islamic law throughout the U.S., remind them of this:
In Muslim countries there are certain tendencies. Among them:
- They are anti-abortion.
- They are supportive of the death penalty.
- They are anti-gun control.
- They are anti-separation of church and state.
- They are supportive of teaching religious indoctrination in school.
- They believe women should have less rights than men.
- They oppose “multiculturalism.”
- They believe homosexuality is “evil” and do not allow same-sex marriage.
SO, if President Obama were REALLY trying to spread Islamic law in the U.S., he’d be a REPLUBLICAN!!
Most of the people who complain about Shariah law in the U.S. don’t know what it is, and also don’t know what is in the Republican platforms in the states and national party.
Then, sorta to drill it home, another friend commented:
Please don’t bother me with your bizarre claims that Barack Obama is Muslim. It immediately brands you, in my admittedly jaundiced eye, as one who either cannot tell nonsense from the truth, or one who is intent on spreading mistruths for nefarious, skullduggerous reasons.
[I apologize; the missive that came to me did not bear credit for the photographs; if you know who deserves credit for any or all of them, please tell us in comments.]
Tip of the old scrub brush to Eric and Jim. They know who they are.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
Though I know it is a “hijack” of this post, James’ missive got me thinking about you and him and a constant refrain from you both.
It has to do with your thinking about wealth and the rich.
Bill Gates’s net worth is about $72 billion, having made his money in the market through voluntary exchange. Bill Gates is America’s richest human being, measured in monetary terms. What does this fact mean?
Actually, it’s more useful to begin by asking what this fact does not mean.
– Because Gates created his wealth by making millions of other people better off,* his wealth would not have existed were it not for his own creativity, enterprise, and efforts.** Therefore, this fact does not mean that Gates’s wealth is taken from other people. In other words, this fact does not mean that other people are today poorer because Gates is so rich.
– This fact does not mean that Bill Gates’s relative economic well-being is as large as is his relative monetary wealth. Bill Gates has has about 120,000 times more financial wealth than I have. But Bill Gates does not consume 120,000 times more food or calories than I consume. His food is not 120,000 times tastier than is my food. His children aren’t schooled by teachers who are 120,000 times better than are the mother who school my daughter. Gates will not live 120,000 times longer than me. His house is not 120,000 times larger, or more comfortable, than is my house. He does not travel 120,000 times faster than I travel, or enjoy 120,000 times more days of leisure than I enjoy. Indeed, nothing save Gates’s financial statement is 120,000 times larger or longer or better than anything that I consume.
– This fact, therefore, does not mean that I would be made 120,000 times happier if Bill Gates were to give me every cent of his net wealth. I’d be much richer of course, and (likely) somewhat happier, but nowhere near 120,000 times happier. Ten times happier, maybe. Ten times more “subjective utility,” perhaps. But even this estimate strikes me as outlandishly large.
– This fact does not mean that Gates reveals to an observing, envious populace grandeur 120,000 larger than I reveal to that same public. In fact, surprisingly little about Bill Gates’s existence reveals the size of his financial wealth.
– This fact also does not mean that I could, if I were to somehow get all of Bill Gates’s net wealth, consume 120,000 times more consumer goods and services. (Note that this point is different than the one in the previous paragraph.) I would not buy 120,000 times more goods and services than I buy now. I’d certainly buy more stuff, and higher-quality stuff. But neither the quantity nor the quality of my ‘new’ stuff would come remotely close to being 120,000 times greater than quantity and quality of stuff that I buy and consume today. A hundred times more stuff, perhaps. But even this estimate strikes me as outlandishly large.
– This fact does mean, therefore, that much of Bill Gates’s wealth is likely invested in capital assets*** – R&D training for Microsoft employees; bulldozers; factories; inventories; delivery vans; retail stores. Most of his wealth, in other words, is being used to produce more wealth! More wealth for him, yes, but also for others – for the consumers who will have access to an expanded variety of goods and services, and to goods and services sold at lower prices and of higher qualities.
– And this fact does mean, therefore, that taking money from Gates and giving it to other Americans will – if these Americans spend all or most of this transfer on consumption goods – reduce the productivity of the economy. It will diminish the economy’s capacity to produce material goods and services over time. Over time, it will make all of us less able to consume. (The only way to avoid this outcome is if Americans who receive the money ‘transferred’ from Gates invest these funds as wisely and as prudently as Gates invests these funds. Such an outcome is conceivable, but to the extent that such an outcome is even conceivable, it means that the people who get the transferred funds are not desperately poor; they are not in need of having their consumption augmented.)
…..
* I understand that people can raise legitimate questions about the role that intellectual-property law might have played to enhance Gates’s wealth. Perhaps some of that role is illegitimate. I do not wish here to explore that issue, for it is irrelevant to the point of this post. Unless you believe that Bill Gates’s wealth would today be no more than middlin’, by modern American standards, had intellectual-property law been to your liking, then the substance of my point is unaffected.
** I understand that we can quibble about some hypothetical other people who, in Gates’s absence, might have created consumer products of nearly equal value as those that were created by Gates. So perhaps some portion of Gates’s wealth should be subtracted from his net wealth when calculating the monetary figure that captures the portion of Gates’s net wealth that represents his net addition to human prosperity. But remember: (1) competition ensured that Gates captured only a relatively small portion of his net addition to human prosperity; (2) Gates paid billions of dollars in taxes, and, in addition, has given a great deal of his wealth to charities (thus making his net wealth today lower than it would otherwise be); and (3) the net value of the other stuff that these hypothetical other people produced instead (of producing close substitutes for Microsoft products) should be subtracted from the sum that would otherwise be subtracted from Gates’s net worth.
*** If Gates is literally hoarding the bulk of his fortune in cash, then he’s still not consuming $72
You two, among many, do not really understand wealth very well and thus advocate for stealing it so that you can consume it, ending up over time less wealth for yourselves because you did not equally produce anything to get that wealth
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James Kessler made this about Republicans.
He forfeits.
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Consider:
Government hates cars, airplanes, ships and buses; taxes all of it.
But not walking. So it hates when you increase your mobility. But you can walk to England if you want…
Hates so it taxes when you are healthy, but wants you sick.
Hates so it taxes you when you use a toilet (toilet tax), but its ok to use an outhouse.
Hates so it taxes you when you export and when you import. (import and excise taxes)
Hates when you consume (sales tax)
Really hates cigarettes and booze.
Hates you reading magazines and books
Hates you when you produce, loves you when you don’t.
Loves you when you have no money and need to beg, but hates you if you earn, and don’t need to beg.
Really loves churches and religion, though. Tax FREE!
Loves charity, but after it taxes you earning money for charity.
Loves it when you die, they will bury you for free if you want, but hates your heirs.
You come to realize a lot about the State and government, if you follow the taxes and tax credits.
Law of Incentives!
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James,
All taxes are social engineering, just as taxes
Government taxes what it does not like and tax credits what it does like. The law of incentives – you move from pain (taxes) to pleasure (tax credits).
So government hates people who earn and loves people who are dependent on it.
So it taxes income and tax credits those that do not work. Hence, you get less of the former and more of the latter.
Apply that to corporations.
Government loves corporations, so they get credits.
Government hates you, so you don’t (assuming you ACTUALLY have a real job).
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Already explained.
Corporations – an entity that only exists by the violence of government writ – is a SPAWN of Government.
Government could not exist without corporations.
It is a “deal”
Corporations can askew personal liability.
Government gets a take of the profits.
Both these guys love the deal – why would they change it?
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“If the country is bankrupt then why doesn’t the gop offer to cut the military”
Because both parties depend on the military industrial complex. It will the last thing to go.
“get rid of all that corporate welfare”
Government CREATED corporations, where do you think both parties get their billions to run campaigns? Won’t happen.
“and jettison those tax cuts for the rich?”
Nope. The other way. Jettison taxes.
” If your side”
“My side”? There is no side.
There is Statists like you, and free-loving people like me. You are in the same bed with Bush. You just don’t like the color of his PJ’s, that’s all.
“Hell even the wall street journal admits that spending under Obama has increased by less than five percent.”
5% of really bad (under Bush) is worse than really bad.
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A person making fifty grand a year pays fifty dollars in taxes for food stamps. That same person pays ten thousand dollars in taxes in welfare for the corporations and the rich.
So why does your party, bf and Morgan, refuse to cut any corporate welfare?
In fact when the democrats did try to cut it…your party blocked it.
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Ed, you fool yourself, no one else.
You got the data, but I know it won’t make a difference to your dogma
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If the country is bankrupt then why doesn’t the gop offer to cut the military, get rid of all that corporate welfare and jettison those tax cuts for the rich? If your side wants to make that claim then your party should offer to gore its own oxen first as proof that they’re actually serious.
Hell even the wall street journal admits that spending under Obama has increased by less than five percent.
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Well, no. It was a decoy to lead you on and distract you from your task, which was to find any education budget that was increased.
Worked.
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“The U.S. is not bankrupt in any way.”
Absolutely it is.
Because you cannot understand the difference between YOU going bankrupt, and government-who-has-a-printing-press, you have little understanding of the consequences.
Government must either manufacture vast amounts of fiat currency with the consequence of mass inflation OR default on the debt.
There is magic potion, Ed.
Government does not invest – it steals.
The difference is after WW2, government spending was from from $84 billion in 1945 to under $30 billion in 1946.
With the release of indentured service of millions of men, who instead by destruction turned production – plus the massive cut in government spending, the “miracle” of the 50’s came to be.
This not at all what is happening now.
Government spending massively increasing and is destroying the economy by stealing it from the productive and giving to the unproductive.
Only to the economic illiterate is this a “success”
Your prognosis is utterly refuted by history – government spending increases has ALWAYS led to a destruction of the economy in every case in history.
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“Certain education budgets have increased”
Contradict yourself often, Ed?
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Click to access tbb-0308-16.pdf
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Didn’t appear to leave a mark, except on the willingly-misled Army of Gullibles who think warming is a hoax.
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The U.S. is not bankrupt in any way.
The question is, will we invest in a better America in the future?
When debts were much higher than they are now, after World War II, “the Greatest Generation” doubled and tripled down on borrowing — to rebuild our war-wrecked allies AND enemies, to dramatically increase foreign aid, to create the greatest higher education spending program in history (with wonderful results — think transistors and organ transplants), to dramatically increase home ownership and the number of housing units, to boost employment, to raise the roof on science research, to explore the stars, to build the largest road system in history, to build parks and put swimming pools within reach, to put well-running, well-stocked libraries within a short distance of every American.
And as a result, we got economic success.
I’m sure we could cut all those programs. I am equally sure economic failure will be the result if we do.
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If you have evidence of the budgets of these programs being increased, can you offer it?
Most of these programs are not even keeping up with inflation. Food stamps were increased ONLY because it’s an entitlement program — and now that’s been cut.
Certain education budgets have increased, some to cover increasing expenses of bond interest, electricity, and water — but teacher salaries have been stagnant nationally, and teachers in the biggest states have been fired or had salary cuts to keep the expenses “even” unadjusted for inflation. Pell Grants were cut. Texas took more than 10% off the top of all education spending, cut more than $2.5 billion/year off of student expenditures while taking in a few hundred thousand more students each year.
What programs have been increased? Be specific.
Have those small increases been enough to offset other cuts?
Take the national health care budgets — NIH is down. Total Education spending has been stagnant at best since 2009 (you ever hear of “sequester?”).
I do not believe your claim. Show me.
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Osama bin Laden enters global warming debate, oh, boy, that’s gonna leave a mark.
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PS:
And your claim of “improving life” is totally false and myopic.
By bankrupting the nation, you argue it improves your life. Well, certainly spending yourself into unimaginable debt frivolously will appear to improve your life NOW – but that merely examples your short-sight.
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“Can you show us any GOP state or national platform from the last decade which supported more money for health care, nutrition, education, or anything else that, you know, improves or increases life?”
But the facts, Ed is that they absolutely have increased the budget for these programs.
There is only fringe differences between the parties – Tweedle Dee and Twiddle Dum – nearly interchangeable in almost all matters.
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By the way, Kool-Aid called. They want their good name back, and they’ve asked you to check your facts before making crass generalizations and assumptions that slander good folks. They think every should want to drink Kool-Aid, and that no one should be threatened by it.
Seems some other flavored drink was used by the right-wing fascists in Georgetown, Guyana.
What else have you gotten completely wrong?
I do appreciate your willingness to discuss.
Actually, I’ve studied logic under Mal Sillars and Richard Rieke. If you find problems of logic, feel free to point them out. I think you missed in this case.
Common sense? I have Ph.D. from the Hardknox School at Life University. I’m not sure what constitutes common sense, but I gather you’re complaining about people who study stuff academically. Silly complaint, inaccurate — but I think I qualify on the other score, too.
No logical leaps made, except by you. In the first piece, Eric notes that Muslims traditionally pursue certain policies, and in each case, those who pay attention would notice that Obama’s not pursuing the Muslim position.
Now, we assumed you’d be able to make the connection that someone who opposes Islam’s positions on so many issues is likely not Islamic. It’s not a leap of logic at all, if you know what you’re talking about, if you know Islam (as Eric does), and if you know politics.
Where did you leap incorrectly? What can we help you learn?
Regardless whether those positions are GOP, they are not Muslim. That was the point. Sorry you missed it.
Are they NOT GOP? I rather suspect Eric’s zinger at the end was also accurate.
Can you show us any GOP state or national platform from the last decade which supported more money for health care, nutrition, education, or anything else that, you know, improves or increases life?
When you cut food stamps for starving children and veterans of Iraq, you lose any credibility you might have had for being “pro-life.”
Whose life? Not Americans’ lives, it appears.
2. We as pro life advocates have a great deal of concern with Death penalty advocacy.
Yes, here in Texas the GOP is so ardent about the death penalty that they fought for the right to execute an innocent man.
Sadly, they won. And the man was executed.
In Virginia, the GOP AG and Governor fought to the last to prevent the opening of DNA evidence that could free innocent men on death row.
If you now espouse a different position, let me say simply, I cannot hear you. Your actions drown out your words.
Bullfeathers. Your party has not supported any legislation to prevent criminals and “idiots” form getting all the arms they can stand, not since before the Reagan administration.
Mental health funding? Your party’s position is that mental health funding should be cut, and the recent expansion of health care insurance to cover mental health care should be rolled back.
Actions louder than words, again.
Please.
Except in history, where the GOP fought in Texas to cover up slavery, to claim Thomas Jefferson was not a founder of the U.S., at least not so important as John Calvin; and except in biology, where the GOP has fought against the evolution, the science that fights cancer and congenital defects, last year in 30 states; and except in physics and chemistry, where the official GOP position is that air pollution can’t possibly be contributing to the disastrous rise in the Earth’s average temperature . . .
Do you not read the newspapers, or do you think we don’t?
Except, of course you don’t want a level playing field for women, children, blacks, browns, yellows, reds, nor anyone who doesn’t speak Redneck English; and especially the poor, whose taxes you have increased, and whose opportunities for education and jobs you happily take away.
Seriously?
Unless it’s something other than WASP culture — more than 30 GOP state platforms called for an “English only” law in the state, and federal government. As our Navajo friends say, if you want English so badly, please go back to England.
>
Well, not most churches, except the Catholic Church and the Mormons, both of which recently told their clergy to make sure gays know they are welcome. Not the mainline Christian churches in the U.S., most of whom ordain gays.
Who you callin’ “most churches?”
You didn’t deny a single position Eric noted as Islamic, that Obama doesn’t share. The original point still stands.
Are you aware of how many GOP platforms call for “birth certificate checks,” now? Did you know that more than 40% of Republicans believe, in error, that Obama is Muslim?
How about putting your own house in order?
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Obama is a Fascist – religion don’t matter.
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The Republican Party’s policies are consistently geared towards making abortion illegal, and preventing access to abortion.
Yeah, just like they did with slavery. How frustrating! Won’t they EVER stop interfering.
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> 1. We are not anti abortion but rather pro life.
The Republican Party’s policies are consistently geared towards making abortion illegal, and preventing access to abortion. That is definitionally anti-abortion.
> 2. We as pro life advocates have a great deal of concern with Death penalty advocacy.
The Republican Party tends to see any attempt to weaken the death penalty, or not to use it as often as possible, as being “soft on crime”. The Republican Party applauds when a mentally challenged person is executed for a crime even the prosecutor admits he wasn’t capable of understanding,
> 3. We are in firm support of the 2nd amendment but we don’t believe in placing firearms into the hands of known criminals and idiots.
The Republican Party continually opposes any attempt to keep firearms out of the hands of known criminals and idiots.
> 4. We certainly aren’t anti separation of church and state but rather that the Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
The Republican Party frequently couches its policies in explicitly Christian terms, and has tried to make it illegal for Muslims to build mosques or to gather together in worship.
> 5. We don’t support any kind of indoctrination in public school other than in institutions of higher learning where in the course work is elective and specifically outlines its content and potent.
The Republican Party strongly supports indoctrinating public schoolchildren into a Christian worldview, most notably creationism.
> 6, We support equal Rights for “Everyone” not abridged rights in order to “level the playing field” for those unable to meet equal qualifying criteria. ie: to be included in “This Group” you must be able to reach the top of a 50 ft. vertical rope in 10 seconds in order to be accepted. I don’t care if you are red, white, black, or blue, male, female, transgender, christian, muslim, hindu, buddist, jew, young, old or middle aged, just climb the rope in 10 seconds, and you are in.
The Republican Party opposes equal payment for women, has taken steps to prevent enforcement of domestic violence laws on the grounds that most victims are women, and continually downplays the seriousness of rape as compared to the injustice of a man being falsely accused of rape.
The Republican Party is strongly opposed to immigration, often with nakedly racist rhetoric. Several Republican presidential candidates explicitly claimed that hispanic and black immigrants were less desirable than white immigrants.
The Republican Party freaks out every time a non-Christian group wants to place a religious monument on public property.
—
In short, I’m not sure I believe you when you say you support “most of their platform and agenda”.
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Well, other than those eight problems, it’s a great post.
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It would seem that you need some course work in Logic and common sense. as your argument doesn’t follow your premise. You can’t logically jump from accusations of being a Muslim to what is in the Republican platform. You also need to study your verbiage and content as to what is in most Republican platforms. I am a registered Republican and have typically supported most of their platform and agenda though actually function as an independent and have views more inline with libertarians and this is consistent with most of my friends of whom I have many.
1. We are not anti abortion but rather pro life.
2. We as pro life advocates have a great deal of concern with Death penalty advocacy.
3. We are in firm support of the 2nd amendment but we don’t believe in placing firearms into the hands of known criminals and idiots.
4. We certainly aren’t anti separation of church and state but rather that the Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
5. We don’t support any kind of indoctrination in public school other than in institutions of higher learning where in the course work is elective and specifically outlines its content and potent.
6, We support equal Rights for “Everyone” not abridged rights in order to “level the playing field” for those unable to meet equal qualifying criteria. ie: to be included in “This Group” you must be able to reach the top of a 50 ft. vertical rope in 10 seconds in order to be accepted. I don’t care if you are red, white, black, or blue, male, female, transgender, christian, muslim, hindu, buddist, jew, young, old or middle aged, just climb the rope in 10 seconds, and you are in.
7.We encourage multiculturalism but ask that you assimilate into the fabric of being a US citizen and an American. Being an American isn’t a race it’s a multicultural group.
8. Homo sexuality is an individual choice and our government has no place in deciding what is right or “left” about that but it should be left up to the home the family and the church and until the Government got involved in it, most churches didn’t accept it.
So there is you blanket of Holes. Go back to school , Read and get your self an education instead of sitting around drinking Kool Aid.
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Well, the anti-Obama wingnuts are not famous for their great amount of knowledge they posses. A similar list could be created “what if Obama is really a socialist”.
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