Summations Only

Some of our clients recently were personal friends of Michelle Bachmann, talking about what a wonderful candidate she was. I've never found it so hard to keep my opinions to myself in front of clients, and given some of the oddities we've had that's saying something. I was helped that they assumed I'd never heard of her, so it was easier to play along than express an opinion. Given that the average Bachman supporter is unlikely to have heard of Europe, let alone any of its politicians, I suppose the assumption makes sense from their point of view.

This is a silly analogy. We have lots of data on the anti-Jewish nature of the Nazi state, in the form of the legislation it passed and the Jews it murdered. The Nazi State banned Jews from the legal profession and from the civil service. It expelled Jewish officers from the army, forbid Jews to be newspaper editors, and removed all Jewish teachers from public schools. It banned Jews from being vets, auctioneers and arms merchants - it would later ban Jews from owning guns at all. It then confiscated their passports and started seizing their property. This was all before the horrors of the Holocaust really got going.And it wasn't necessary to wait until they got into power and starting enacting these laws to conclude that the party was anti Jewish, since the following appears near the beginning of their 1920 manifesto:

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4. Only a member of the race can be a citizen. A member of the race can only be one who is of German blood, without consideration of creed. Consequently no Jew can be a member of the race.

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which then goes on to exclude non-citizens (including all Jews) from the right to live in the country and equal protection under the law.The two cases are hardly comparable.Edited by caffeine, : No reason given.

The European Parliament probably has more whackos than Congress, since some countries have such low turnout for European elections that this is where every fascist and nutjob too extreme to win in a national election goes to get elected. Their whackadoodle voters will still turn out in enough numbers to get them in.

It's the structure of the American political and electoral system. It's a Presidential system, which means you have an important post that it is dished out on a zero-sum, winner-takes-all basis. Since they don't go in for instant run-off voting or a second round of voting as in some Presidential elections elsewhere, any third party serves primarily to split the vote, encouraging the creation of two broad, unwieldy electoral blocs - the Democrat and Republican parties.This situation is exacerbated by elections to Congress which, for both houses, are done by single member constituencies - meaning more zero-sum contests on a smaller level. Other countries with such an election system manage to support smaller parties - usually ones with a strong regional basis - but all those I know of are Parliamentary systems where the President (or monarch) is a mere figurehead.

Can you explain what 'politically liberal' and 'politically conservative' mean in this context. They're words used in wildly different way, and I'm not sure if I follow in this case.--------------------On the seperate subject of Sean Penn, I believe I can offer some clarification:

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joke
[johk] noun
1.
something said or done to provoke laughter or cause amusement, as a witticism, a short and amusing anecdote, or a prankish act: He tells very funny jokes. She played a joke on him.

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verb (used without object)
6.
to speak or act in a playful or merry way: He was always joking with us.
7.
to say something in fun or teasing rather than in earnest; be facetious: Sean Penn didn't really mean it, he was only joking.

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