Chris Matthews is obsessed with Michele Bachmann. Fixating upon the Minnesota Congresswoman in his broadcasts last week, the MSNBC yakker took Bachmann to task for inflating the role the Founding Fathers had in ending slavery. Fair enough, but in highlighting Bachmann's errors, as I write in my column @ Human Events, Matthews made several of his own. Ridicule Michele Bachmann? Okay. Mock the Founding Fathers? No thanks.

One of the best ways to honor the founders and the founding philosophies is to honor the standard of economic justice and the rule of law they fought and died for, including civil liberties. Thomas Paine donated 100% of the proceeds of his books advocating for war to revolutionary soldiers and was left penniless with no job at its conclusion. George Washington had to lobby congress to implement one of the first welfare programs for our father who lived in penury. Within months Paine received a welfare check of some pounds every month and government subsidized housing, a small log cabin.

Imagine if Glenn Beckerhead, Jonah Goldbungler, Sean Vanity, and fatass Limbaugh gave 100% of their book proceeds to the families of fallen soldiers instead of going to fashionable celebrity fundraisers that donate a meager percentage or in some cases straight up take food, clothing, shelter, and education from the mouths of soldiers and their families in overhead expenses. I know it's important for Sean Vanity to slobber over Ruth's Chris steaks, but the line should be drawn somewhere.

Just watched "The Lives of Others" last night - finally as I'd been meaning to see it for quite some time. I seems to me that the primary theme of the movie was "despair" - how one gets to that point, how one reacts to it, and the Government's role - and specifically the Communist State's role - in creating and even encouraging it in people as a means of control.

With that taste in my mouth, ideas about wealth and property seizure for the good of the State strike me as either painfully naive, or, if suggested by an educated person, cruel.

...neither should surprise me, as modern-day Communists fancy themselves to be so clever at name-calling and insults.

The level of Freudian projection and lack of awareness of the pot-kettle conservative bungler is astounding. While bemoaning the fact that those who oppose their destructive, hate-filled, selfish, anti-Christ ideology get the better of them, they resort to idiotic, childish name-calling, falsely denoting the righteous opposition as "Com'niss" or "Stalinist" or "liberal fascist" as Jonah Goldbungler does.

I will never cry or bleat or squeal if someone calls me a communist. They're dead wrong, but if they want to behave like idiots and pigeon-hole because they can't think outside the box or stand up for righteousness, that's their problem. I'll continue to call strikes and balls as a civil libertarian who cares about the poor and exploited.

If you've got the better argument, bring it.

"Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy." -Proverbs 31:9, KJV

I apologize for my name-calling.

If all you got from Das Leben Der Anderen was that conservative scum should be able to exploit poor workers at all costs, then you missed the point. The movie was about authoritarian control and censorship, not individual neo-liberal Reaganite economy and middle-class destroying wealth maximization. Of course, you conservatives who love the USA Patriot Act, Dept. of H.S., and other constitution shredding and civil liberty asswiping activities and government institutions just don't understand that it wasn't only authoritarian communism that crushed freedom and prosperity throughout history.

Have you studied any ancient or medieval western history? Have you ever studied any history before 1700? Do you remember the administration of Bush 43? Do you remember anything relevant to our constitution and the philosophies of the founders?

Nah, keep watching Beckerhead and live your life as a useful peasant. It's more comfortable that way.

Wow, you speak German?

So, basically, PMA is saying that Thomas Paine’s altruistic experiment in socialism reduced his individual liberty and made him a slave to the state (after all, he became dependent on their altruism in the form of his welfare payments) and also created a burden for that same state.

Woohoo! Way to go Socialism!

It is interesting to note that the lesser point of your argument (that those of the right are misers) is so blatantly partisan. I took a quick look at charitable contributions, and once again, you neglect to be bi-partisan in your scorn.

I’ll grant that I’m being “nitpicky” as Dan would say, but let’s take a look at some figures:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2083034/posts

Rush Limbaugh: #10 on the list of most generous celebrities in 2008. 4.2 million dollars. So, only $ 4, 199,631 more than the future vice president, who averaged $369 dollars a year over THE DECADE.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-09-12-biden-financial_N.htm

Joe Biden? 0.7% of his income donated to charity in 2008. Obama, 6.5% At least Obama made an effort. Granted, it must be a generational thing. Neither Al Gore nor Dick Cheney comes off well with regards to their charitable donations. Nicely bipartisan in their miserly ways.

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2009/04/obama-and-biden-release-tax-returns.html

Good ol’ Joe did a little better in 2009:

“Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his wife, Jill, earned $333,000 in 2009, and gave $4,820 — 1.44 percent — of that to charity in cash or in-kind donations, according to their newly released tax forms.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/apr/15/obamas-earned-55-million-2009b/

And this last article, by the notoriously right wing Huffington Post, doesn’t exactly paint the picture of progressive altruism.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/25/obama-tax-returns-low-on-_n_93353.html

As for you Homer, you need not apologize for name calling. PMA did it throughout his posts, and we’ll never hear an apology for that. PMA, your kettle is black. So is your pot.

If you’re going to come up with cutesy names though, try a little harder. Sandy “Burglar” was a personal favourite of mine because it had the added cache of being true.

Although, to compare Jonah Goldberg to the rest of that crowd is akin to comparing Keith Duranty/Olbermann to Edward R. Murrow.

Some on this site have name calling down to a science. And it isn't Herr Fong. In fact I thought he put it very well.

Speech writer for Carter? How do you follow that failed act. Maybe by trying and failing bigger this time by attempting to prop up another incompetent liberal fraud.

And finally, we're back on topic. Anyone ever notice that PMA invariably manages to derail the topic Dan chooses and then blather on an entirely unrelated topic?

Although I guess the causal link could be the fact that Dan wrote the words, "founding fathers." Tenuous link at best.

Let's get a bit off topic, shall we?....

"In one of the largest sums ever donated to charity by a U.S. public official, Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife Lynne gave away nearly $7 million last year to help the poor and to medical research.

According to income tax information released by the White House on Friday, the Cheneys' adjusted gross income in 2005 was $8,819,006.

The sum was largely the result of Mr. Cheney's stock options from Halliburton and royalties from three books written by Mrs. Cheney.

The Cheneys gave more than three-quarters of their income - $6,869,655 - to several charities, including George Washington University's Cardiothoracic Institute and a charity for low-income high school students in the Washington, D.C. area, Capital Partners for Education.

The Cheneys' charitable generosity stands in marked contrast to that of their predecessors, whose sometimes stingy donations became a national embarassment.

In 1997 for instance, Al and Tipper Gore contributed just $353 to charity, a sum that raised eyebrows even in friendly media circles.

The Los Angeles Times noted, for instance, that the Gores' slender donation "caused some bewilderment in philanthropic circles because of the vice president's 'good guy' image as an advocate for public service and social causes."

The same year the Gores gave $353 to charity, they reported $197,729 in adjusted gross income"

And Clinton, that paragon of Liberals, who had no problem spending everybody else's money while taking tax write offs for his old used and bundled underwear.

There's much more. But y'all get the point.

Homer, that wasn't directed only at you, btw, but at conservatives in general. Sorry if that seemed a bit harsh or pointed. I was having a terrible horrible no good very bad day.

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PMA...sorry to hear that. We can disagree on a whole host of subjects, but in the end we're just a bunch of dudes ( and dudettes, whatever the case may be ) with all the same moments of frustration.

Hope today was a better day!

NR,

Thanks, man. =)