Linehan is the author of “Father Ted”. He’s a national treasure but he criticized gender ideology, so he got arrested.
Europeans find it easy to mobilize to arrest a comedian but it’s utterly impossible for them to deport actual murderers:
This is so embarrassing to watch that one wants to pretend Europe doesn’t exist.
Clarissa's Blog 
America has plenty of problems but they don’t seem nearly as insurmountable as whatever the hell is going on in the UK
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Totally. We are in a mich better place. And that’s sad because I want Europe to do well.
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I can’t believe it, but it’s true.
Every time you think Britain has reached rock bottom, there is a further, nether layer that it can reach. At this rate, it really is a bottomless pit.
Woke is not dead. Sorry.
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I would like one of our liberal readers to comment. One never knows what they think. Do they support arresting people for tweets? What is their position?
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Ok, I’ll try. I don’t know how “representative” I am in my “libtardality”–we’re a wide-ranging bunch, and the ones on extreme ends can be a little much, I think. But arresting for tweets? No. If he’s so keen on mocking the trans community, we can just troll and boycott him, like we do with J.K. Rowling.
I think I can see why so many people fear the “woke”–my usual stance is, you’re afraid of someone being woke, but you’re okay with electing Satan? Twice? Really? But this is the germ of wokeness taken to a genuinely awful conclusion.
It’s an old, old story, isn’t it?–the road to hell paved with good intentions, and all that.
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No, we are not OK with electing Satan. That’s why we elected Trump instead.
I’m grateful that you spoke out against the arrest. This truly means a lot because it’s scary to coexist with people who have somehow squared in their minds the possibility of arresting people for expressing opinions.
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Also, to shorten the path to truth, if Trump started arresting people for tweeting in support of Russia (to give an example close to home), I’d be against that to the exact same degree that I am against the arrest of the comedian.
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People are being arrested at this very moment in Britain for waving England flags and Union Jacks or for saying “I love bacon” in the face of Muslim demonstrators.
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Yes, that’s the kind of Satan I didn’t want to vote for.
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@Col. Potter
If you think that democratically electing President Trump is equivalent to electing Satan, it becomes difficult to engage in honest debate.
In my Spanish language course this summer, there was an American retired professor who claimed that the US is now a dictatorship. In the same class there was an Iranian man who of course has to be careful when he speaks and a Polish woman who remembered very well what a dictatorship is.
I understand you are using language metaphorically and that your figure of speech is a hyperbole, but this kind of language does not help and you as an academic should know that.
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Avi–you make some good points, as usual. But there’s another reason an honest debate isn’t really possible. Yes, I’ll admit “Satan” is hyperbole, and perhaps misguided hyperbole at that, but there’s the thing: Trump is evil. Kind of a non-debatable point.
Evil.
Not merely “flawed.” Not merely “human.” Not merely “well, he’s a politician, so there’s no sense looking for morality there.” Evil. Wicked. Abhorrent.
I didn’t vote for evil. Self-righteous thing to say? Holier-than-thou? Sure. But the depressing part is, all it took for me to be this self-righteous is to make a simple, slam-dunk moral decision based on readily available facts–a simple moral decision that more than half of my fellow citizens absolutely failed to make. We are a country that is unable to make simple moral distinctions, which is too bad, and kind of depressing.
And yes, I mean the attempted violent overthrow of the American government. I mean the sexual assault that at least one judge called “rape” in layman’s terms (recently upheld by appeals court–it’s a fact, gang). I mean misogyny, fraud, (not an emotional but a legal distinction–one that he’s been caught in multiple times), lies, arbitrary troop takeovers of blue-led cities, arbitrary tariffs… it’s all there. And not just his words, for those who tend to go, “Herp, derp, derp, you can’t pay attention to the words”–actions, too. Evil.
Reader W. said it in an earlier post–you can’t work with wickedness. And even further, you can’t make wickedness work for you. There’s a great deal of, “Yeah, he’s a bad person, but he hates the same things I do, so it’s fine.” Wickedness doesn’t answer to anybody but itself–a lot of American farmers are finding that out.
And false equivalencies concocted by those who won’t admit the evil and by the celebrants of the Church of MAGA Jesus? Buncombe and cockadoodlum. There is absolutely no comparison on another side. Trump is evil–the opponents aren’t. You don’t want to call him a dictator? We lose the Dictator Olympics? Okay. How about kleptocracy or oligarchy? Those might work, but the labels aren’t important. The evil is.
So the left has humanity and righteousness on its side–all because they didn’t vote for evil. Does that matter? Is America permanently an idea in the rear view mirror? Could be. I’ll stay because I’m a stubborn cuss, but even “if you don’t like it, leave” doesn’t mean anything anymore.
Sometimes, a bitch just gets tired. But there may still be some things worth fighting for. I’d like to try and kick evil’s heinie.
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Obama was clean-living. A faithful family man, well-spoken, intelligent, polite. Trump is a foul-mouthed, misogynistic, lying fraudster.
It’s spot-on. 100% true.
But here’s why I see Obama as evil and Trump as not evil. Their personal qualities are nothing to me. I’m not planning to hang out socially with either of them. Their life journeys, speeches, words and promises are a wrapper. They are a wrapper for the outcomes they will visit on our lives.
I believe that neoliberalism, open borders, the undermining of the nation-state, stoking racial tensions, censorship and transing children are evil. If a person of stellar individual qualities puts them into practice, that changes nothing. If a person of terrible personal qualities, cancels them, then that’s all I want.
We need to stop individualizing. We need to leave the terrain of authentic selves and individual choices. We need to re-learn the collective dimension.
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“Obama was clean-living…”
Well, Obama gave the U.S. hope. And, from my perspective at least, he did three beautiful things:
All three, just lovely in their own ways. So I was, and am, happy with the guy. I’ll admit I wasn’t watching for whatever he did to the nation-state.
The other slight advantage I have in all this is that from 2029 on, presidents will fulfill the one qualification I need to see–they won’t be Trump. Even the most scurvy, sycophantic Trumper who suckled as much foul nourishment from Trump’s withered teat as possible won’t be Trump. I’m pretty easy to please.
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I’m glad we found our fundamental difference so easily and peacefully. My mobilizing interest is preserving the nation-state and keeping neoliberalism at bay. This will not be everybody’s mobilizing interest, and that’s fine. Trump is putting a bit of a brake on neoliberalization. I support him because of that. Kamala Harris would have sped it up with extreme velocity, so I’m against her. The personal qualities of Trump and Harris are not of interest to me. My interests are of interest to me, and I support whichever politician who advances them.
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Affordable health care.
Did you ever have to USE the “affordable” healthcare?
Because we, as a family, were living on under $25k/yr in that timeframe, with 2 kids, and when we checked the ACA website, plugged in all our info, they were willing to offer us “insurance” with a $5k deductible, that would cost us… MORE THAN HALF OUR TAKE HOME PAY.
So yeah, we couldn’t afford the “affordable” subsidized insurance provided by the ACA, and still feed our kids. It was that affordable.
F**k that. I have no idea who that program worked for, but it wasn’t low-income working people. AND they tried to mandate that s**t so that if you *didn’t* buy it you’d be fined on your taxes.
Who, exactly, did Obama provide affordable healthcare for?
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–and just in case you missed it, how in seven hells were we supposed to save up $5k to cover expenses up to meeting the deductible, if we were paying more than half our take home pay for insurance, and then struggling to keep food on the table?
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ACA either. But since it’s out there and exists, theoretically it can be improved.
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Oh, something went catywumpus with my reply. I wanted to acknowledge the awfulness of your situation and express apologies. Then I meant to say that since there is an existing program, it could, in theory, be improved.
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What the hell use is a “lovely” program that doesn’t work for ANY of its target helpees, has never worked, and still doesn’t work.
Oh, it’s great, and lovely and s**t because it COULD be improved?
It was, is, and always will be a federal subsidy program for insurance conglomerates. It isn’t, wasn’t, and never will be affordable healthcare for working-class people. It failed at its stated goal, from the beginning, because its stated goal was never its actual goal. That was window-dressing to sell it to a gullible public. It was lobbied for by insurance companies. And boy, did you take the bait– still believe the brochure copy after fifteen years.
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If you remember the original propaganda and public debate that went into the ACA, you might recall the original rationale: that not enough young, healthy, low-risk people were signing up for insurance, and that meant the old, diseased, frail, diabetic people were overloading the system and it was having a hard time making a profit, while still keeping rates low enough that normal people were willing to pay them.
The solution, ACA, that the insurance companies wanted, and got, was: “subsidized insurance” as a PR smokescreen to cover for the part where they actually legislated that private American citizens were being REQUIRED to buy the product of private corporations, whether they wanted it or not, and the government would be enforcing a fine if they didn’t. That part got rolled back a couple years later, because it was seriously dicey from any legal perspective. And then we were left with just the smokescreen. Which never worked because that was never the point. The point was that insurance companies wanted more money, and they used Congress to get it.
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A million times yes. This was all about funneling more money into the coffers of insurance companies. It does not get more neoliberal than that. The government playing on the side of very large business against the population. We later saw the same approach during COVID.
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I had no idea how (or if) ACA worked because I’m not one of the people who uses it. I was far left back then but I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that there was something fishy about ACA. So I started asking people who were in great need of healthcare. And … these are the stories I started hearing. One after another. It was quite terrible.
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Thanks for checking in with people about it. That is seriously the only way to know. MSM has certainly never bothered, and people who thought it sounded good but never needed it… continue to this day to believe the lie that it was great.
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The problem is that the liberal people, who are nice, kind, sincere people for the most part, don’t have to live with the consequences of their voting decisions. They don’t have to actually use ACA. They don’t have to live in crappy neighborhoods and pass a bunch of strung-out junkies on their way to the corner store. They don’t have to ride light rail or try to find a decent rental apartment. So they think it’s all good. They think they are HELPING. And then the objects of their help come out to vote for Trump, and they feel betrayed and confused.
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There’s a running joke in our house about the kids (when they were very young) helping out around the house:
“THE HELPING!!”😬
I mean, they mean well, but you’re totally going to have to re-do all of that after they go to bed.
Liberals are like the way-less-cute version of that, with a side-helping of snobbery and willful ignorance.
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Part of the reason why Bernie failed to gain any ground with black people was whatever he was promising (cheap universal healthcare, education, etc.), they were already getting for free anyway lol.
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Yep. People poorer than us are all on Medicaid anyway. So if it was too expensive for us, I can’t imagine who was using it.
It was never anything but the shiny wrapping paper to sneak the mandate into law.
-ethyl
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“and boy, did you take the bait…”
I guess so. But I’m pretty sure Obama tried to do something magnificent where others either didn’t try or failed. No new plans or improvement since then, and is there anyone out there waiting on our current president’s “concept of a plan”? (Gee, maybe in another year it will become an “idea.” Seriously, f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck Trump.)
If I had known Obama would be the last mensch in the White House for a long, long time, I would have appreciated him more. For what little it’s worth, the man has my respect, and gratitude. And that’s the name of that tune.
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The problem is that Trump also keeps trying to do something magnificent, and when he fails (which is often), those who vote for him say it openly and insistently.
While among Democrats, there’s an utter incapacity even just to say that their magnificent plans have failed.
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You ARE the gullible public. You think Obama didn’t know he was selling the public to the insurance companies?
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Twelve years later: but at least he tried. Anywhere past age 7, one expects people to learn that trying doesn’t count. Only the results do. I had this conversation with my Trump supporter friends throughout his first term.
Not that I think Obama was trying to do anything beyond giving a gift to insurance companies.
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“You think Obama didn’t know he was selling the public to the insurance companies?”
I think it doesn’t remotely MATTER whether or not he knew he was selling the public to the insurance companies. He put out a plan when no one else could or did.
Gullible and didn’t vote for evil. Yeah, you can put that on my tombstone.
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“didn’t vote for evil”
Well, you can’t fix stupid, as they say.
That’s like if you took the candy from the man in the van who said he had puppies in the back, even though another guy on the sidewalk was yelling at you not to do it… and then after getting kidnapped and molested, your response was “well, at least I didn’t listen to that mean man on the sidewalk…”
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” trying doesn’t count”
Geez.
It’s so much worse than that: it’s a stated preference for people who lie to you nicely, over people who tell you a truth you don’t want to hear.
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“The problem is that Trump also keeps trying to do something magnificent…”
I think I can safely say that my experience has been, practically word for word, the polar opposite of your post. Is that what’s going on in MAGA and/or Trumpist world? There is an actual belief that he’s trying to do something magnificent? I find that utterly mind-blowing.
Although, in my limited circle, I am hearing grumbling about Trump from die-hard Trump supporters, so there might be something to that. The assumption about Democrats is kind of sweeping and general, I think.
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Trump is trying to put the brakes on the destruction of the nation-state. That is absolutely the most magnificent thing anybody can do at this time.
No nation-state means no middle class. No social welfare. No public education worthy of the name. No tenure for college professors. No pensions. Normal life only in very wealthy gated communities. Iryna Zarutska’s fate for everybody who is not rich enough to hire a small private army to defend them.
There’s a novel by the Argentinian writer Claudia Piñeiro titled “Thursday Night Widows.” I highly recommend. The author describes the future that we will all experience if Trump fails. It’s the future that would have been so much closer to us had Kamala Harris won last Fall.
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“That’s like if you took the candy from the man in the van who said he had puppies in the back, even though another guy on the sidewalk was yelling at you not to do it… and then after getting kidnapped and molested, your response was ‘well, at least I didn’t listen to that mean man on the sidewalk…'”
Well, no. It’s more like, Trump is evil, and I didn’t vote for him. But you’re right about not being able to fix stupid.
SMDH, as the young folks say.
And who the heck is telling the truth in your scenario? The Father of Lies, Trump?
*headdesk*
*headdesk*
*headdesk*
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Nobody is telling the truth in politics.
Results are the only gauge we have. Refusing to use that gauge in favor of who talks nicer is willful ignorance.
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“Trump is trying to put the brakes on the destruction of the nation-state.”
Yes, in some ways you were given a rather unfortunate binary choice; either be hung or fight the mad dog ;-D
The Democrats were intent upon destroying the USA as a first world country; Trump may be a booster, a boaster, a carnie, and flamboyant, but he is a builder, and he understands that the wealth of the West utterly depends upon economical energy. The left has forgotten that harsh truth; not only in the USA, but all of the West.
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All true.
Trump is wildly imperfect. Dude, is he ever imperfect. I can spend all day reciting every moronic thing he’s done since yesterday because he does them faster than one could speak.
But he’s literally the only thing we’ve got standing between us and becoming Africa.
Constant handwringing about Trump’s imperfections, that seems to be a hobby for some people, solves nothing. We are still staring at the stark reality of getting neoliberalized faster than any of us cares to experience.
So unless people have any specific proposals how to stop the tide sans Trump, I’m kind of not interested in hearing their complaints about Trump.
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Col. Potter
My that is quite a jeremiad; “self-righteous” yes, “simple”, sadly, that appears likely, “moral decision based on readily available facts”, not a bloody chance. And “the left has humanity and righteousness on its side” is likewise empty horseshit and worse, the days of empty feminist yelping “misogyny” are over.
After 50 years of misandric demands for Affirmative Action, quotas, set asides and now DEI cheating, young men have finally left the Democratic tent. And your mindless PTB’s stubbornly refuse to understand why ;-D
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oldcowboy3:
I upvoted you for the Kinison reference–he was a funny guy. Also for the use of “jeremiad.” But, feelings-shmeelings–how I “feel” about Trump isn’t worth a hill of beans in this cockeyed world. And if you don’t see him as evil, then you don’t see him as evil. Sometimes I think there’s only two kinds of communication in the world–preaching to the converted and talking to brick walls.
Nevertheless, it seems odd to me to group Affirmative Action, quotas, set asides, and DEI–all well-intentioned plans that sometimes people execute to great overall advantage, and that sometimes people just botch–under misandry. So all these programs that you don’t like were the product of a group of. . . man-haters?
That reminds me, I have a message for you from Spanky and Alfalfa–the next meeting of the He-Man Woman-Hater’s Club is Saturday at 10 a.m. in the treehouse. Don’t forget the high sign.
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I think I’ve been very polite and open to a dialogue. It’s strange that all this effort would merit me being called a brick wall.
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“I think I’ve been very polite…”
Yes, I think so, too. I meant “brick wall” a bit more generally with regard to political arguments. And just as “sometimes” I feel this way about communication (that is, the converted and the brick walls), “sometimes” I also see that listening and even considering changing one’s mind is possible.
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Col. Potter
I am old, this is not my first rodeo, Rick’s famous quote actually is “… isn’t worth a hill of beans in this crazy world.” As a retired scientist, and male, I am by both instinct and training designed to measure. There is absolutely nothing “odd” about grouping the words and phrases designed to disguise immoral behavior. And there is no “great overall(societal) advantage” to cheating innocent people out of the opportunity that their personal abilities merit and therefore deserve. Rather such immoral behavior clearly harms all of us regardless of race or gender.
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