And a willingness to return fire with the same or a bigger caliber round, of course.

What's amusing about your my DD link is how quickly some commenters degenerate into kindergarten "teacher, he hit me first!" quality of discourse. And FWIW, I think the idea of "troll-rating" comments ow whatever the hee they are talking about is cretinous.

I think Trickster decided to spend his limited amount of blogging time in a more pro-Clinton environment, so he went to MyDD.

Probably worth mentioning that Trickster is now of the opinion that MyDD has gone to hell because "It's no longer possible to politely express an opinion without getting troll-rated and personally insulted." AFAIK Harley doesn't even post there!

Always tricky to speculate about why people take the actions they do online. Not that I disagree with your sentiment in general, just wondering whether Harley is really all that influential =P

But I can't pretend that the whole flag pin thing isn't, I dunno, stoopid. As I mentioned previously, while i wouldn't be a huge fan of it, asking someone about their position on the flag burning amendment at least has the advantage of being a moderately honest question about governance, trivial governance, but governance nonetheless. The Flag Pin crap is just that, and a now overly familiar way for some folks to play the patriotism card. Frankly? I'm sick and tired of the slur and the motives behind it. So yeah, that may have come out in my reaction. But I find the implication inherent in the formulation -- Why Aren't You Sufficiently Patriotic? -- far more unpleasant than the criticism it warrants.

so if you question their version of the CW on this, you're not just disagreeing with them; you are evil incarnated, and likely a bitter, gun-loving, Bible-thumping, anti-immigrant racist, too. IOW, exactly the kind of person who would ask a stupid, poorly conceived question like the one Harley objectively pointed out above.

Your penance: become an expert on constitutional law, which automatically makes you patriotic (see below).

Why should I care if a politician wears a silly pen all the time.. The flag itself is not silly but the gotcha faux patriot/ anti-patriot meme is beneath any poster here IMHO...

In my view it is anti-American to question any ones patriotism. It strikes as modern day McCarthyism IMHO.. The flag pen is cheap and easy patriotism.. Their is nothing wrong with it except again it is to easy almost demeaning.. If you want to fly the flag and under lit it or take it down everyday or put up a yellow Ribbon in front of your house or organize fundraisers for families of servicemen etc.

Is very different than simple car decals or Lapel pins.. Patriotism should not be easy it should take effort.

And compensation in the form of health insurance premiums has declined steeply in value since 2000.

If the cost of what you receive in health care benefits increases, but the value to you does not, you are not better off. Health care premiums have nearly doubled since 2000, and Medicare expenses have risen too. I would guess that they are responsible for the entirety in the rise of so-called "comprehensive" income. And contrary to Engram's simply false assertion, pre- and after-tax has little to do with it. (The difference in effective tax rates between 2000 and 2005 is just 0.2% for the middle quintile.)

If anyone is being selective it's you and Engram.

people.

is that like being put out to stud?

The reliable, vanilla data shows a fall in average income. As I've said above, it's the people that tell you incomes are going up that use the statistical trickery.

Actually, the story is worse than the numbers show for (at least) two reasons. Median wage is a better measure, since the over-performance of the super-rich does not affect the average guy, even though it's counted in the mean. And two, demographic factors. The population is getting older, and as you get older you usually start earning more. When you compare the wages of today's workers of a defined age with the wages of their counterparts years ago, we have gone backwards, especially if you're a man.

Now to be fair, much of this has been going on since the 60s and is due to social factors that are beyond any administration's control -- but a big reason why income has gone down since 2000 is because health care has eaten up all the employee's portion of economic growth. The Republicans have made no serious effort to address this.