Recent Comments

1. over 5 years ago on Tom the Dancing Bug

   Rather than anthropogenic global warming might not exist, I’m sure what you mean to say is, anthropogenic causes might not be a major or the major factor in global warming. Which is true, it’s just extremely likely that it is. So much so that it seems awfully foolish to proceed on the opposite assumption.

2. almost 6 years ago on Tom the Dancing Bug

   Orchid, that isn’t an argument. I don’t understand you. This is what I meant by your partisanship. Are you interested in discussing the matter at hand, or not? You’re not obliged to. I’m a foreigner, you know, I’m not your blood-enemy the Democrats, or whoever.

3. almost 6 years ago on Tom the Dancing Bug

   I don’t get you. Classic case of Poe’s law?

4. almost 6 years ago on Tom the Dancing Bug

   That was also condemned as a political play, IIRC, although in that case by his own party. They were also NG, not active-duty troops, and weren’t accompanied by rhetoric about “lethal force”; it was something of a sop to the opposing party, and there was no threat to actually deploy them to “defend” the border, since that’s a police action not a military one, thus, barring special invocation, illegal – you really shouldn’t wonder that previous deployments haven’t provoked the same reaction. Finally, calling a migrant caravan an “organised military action” is utter nonsense. They are neither military in any sense whatsoever – a word which refers exclusively to the armed forces or to war – nor particularly organised.

5. almost 6 years ago on Tom the Dancing Bug

   I don’t think anyone ever thought the Viacrucis del Migrante were non-political. But… what on Earth does that have to do with sending troops to the border?

6. almost 6 years ago on Tom the Dancing Bug

   Orchid, don’t you feel you’re being ridiculously partisan? I agree with you about the situation with illegal immigrant workers in the USA. But sending military forces to the Mexico border is a publicity play, and we all know it.

7. about 6 years ago on Tom the Dancing Bug

   ’It’s a serious allegation. It should be investigated prior to inducting the accused into a supreme government body.’

   I’m not American. You guys who are, since you’re people who leave comments on political cartoons, probably recognise that means you’re closer to the extreme on both sides than the typical sample.

   The viewpoint for Democrats is easy for me to understand. In my best possible interpretation, they agree with my statement above. In my worst, they consider this an opportunity to defeat their political rivals with any means at their disposal.

   I don’t understand the Republican viewpoint, though. If, given my worst interpretation of your opponents, this is all a smear attack to get rid of a Republican nominee to the Supreme Court, then, given my best interpretation of you, your opposition to a delay and an investigation can only suggest that you think the system will fail to carry justice if you let it play out. If so, isn’t that what you should be talking and worrying about rather than the appointment or not of a single nominee? Presumably, nobody wants an attempted rapist on the Supreme Court. But if you think an investigation is going to fuck you over regardless of innocence or guilt, doesn’t that suggest bigger matters you should be focussing on?

8. over 6 years ago on Tom the Dancing Bug

   Brass Orchid, that’s disingenuous. The word reactionary refers to significant social changes, not whoever won the latest election (unless that person then turns the democracy into an autocracy, or vice versa, or there was otherwise some kind of serious change in the society). I realise Americans imagine Democrats and Republicans to be at opposite ends of a spectrum and bicker violently over every election, and I realise you may not be a reactionary at all, but if someone believes you to be then simply redefining the word in ridiculous terms which therefore don’t apply to you is not responding in good faith.