OT: US Pres election

[Trumanator]

Hopefully I won't regret starting this discussion.
I was wondering if any dominions players have opinions about the election that I am watching in my country.
Please try not to trash each other please.

[licker]

I am of the opinion that voting for McCain or Obama is a wasted vote as they both serve the same interest.

Voting for anyone else is the only sane choice.

Otherwise, McCain is going to win, which just goes to show how pathetic the electorate has become, or continues to be, depending on just when you think the electorate moved from misguided to pathetic.

[Trumanator]

Eh?? 1: Who else could you vote for. 2: What interest are they serving?

[DonCorazon]

I tried to sanitize this for the boards but you really need the last word to get the full nuance of the philosophy, which I think sums up U.S. politics beautifully:

"Same crap, different asswhole."

Anyway, I am voting for Obama

[JimMorrison]

Eh?? 1: Who else could you vote for. 2: What interest are they serving?

1) Me.

2) Corporate interests.

:rolleyes:

[Trumanator]

Well, I guess I have more faith in the differences between parties. At any rate, my vote's with McCain. Not that it will help since I live in the socialist republic of Washington state....Well, its not that bad but my vote still won't matter.

[Trumanator]

That C'tis priest king has my vote...What country are you from again?

[JimMorrison]

I find it hard to believe that anyone who is well informed about national+world affairs could possibly vote for McCain. I'm not pushing Obama, but the McCain+Palin ticket just seems like an expensive prostitute with large hands and an adam's apple.

:shock:

[DonCorazon]

Trumanator, lets both agree to not vote since we'd cancel each other out anyway and we can save ourselves a trip to the polls.

[JimMorrison]

Oh I'm an American. And you may soon find my presidential candidate rhetoric to by incredibly ironic. Don't touch that dial. ;)

[DonCorazon]

And here comes Morrison...

[Trumanator]

Well, as far as I'm concerned Obama just doesn't have the qualifications. The whole "world opinion" argument really doesn't hold water with me, since we're not electing a world leader. I think that you elect whoever's best for YOUR country. Sorry, but there's quite a few countries that I don't respect their government that much.

[thejeff]

I do think the differences are pretty stark this cycle. Granted both candidates are more pro-corporate and more pro-American imperialism than I like, but there are still vast gulfs even there.

McCain plans to continue and extend Bush's policies. Sure he talks about being a maverick and shaking things up, but anything specific is right down the same path: win the war, bomb Iran, deregulate the economy, tax breaks for the rich. It's worked so well for the last 8 years, why not continue. And even his Republican colleagues think he's got a nasty temper. So add that to the mix.

Obama's far from perfect, but he's smart as hell and actually appears to take the problems we're facing seriously. And his solutions aren't meaningless pandering like a "gas tax holiday" or massive corporate giveaways. Less experience, but what is experience for if it doesn't give you good judgment.



Regardless, for those in the US who haven't yet: Register to vote. The deadline is coming up in most states.
And then ignore the media, the pundits and the campaign ads. Go and find out what they candidates say they'll do and how it matches what they've done. You have an internet. Use it.
Then go vote.
Don't forget about the local elections either.

[This has been an unpaid political announcement. We now return you to your brewing flame war.]

[quantum_mechani]

Well, as far as I'm concerned Obama just doesn't have the qualifications. It's old hat to say this, but with Palin on the ticket that argument holds a lot less water. I am personally terrified of the idea of of Mcain winning and a heart attack later having Palin in command.

[Jazzepi]

Well, as far as I'm concerned Obama just doesn't have the qualifications. It's old hat to say this, but with Palin on the ticket that argument holds a lot less water. I am personally terrified of the idea of of Mcain winning and a heart attack later having Palin in command.

Exactly.

Palin might start driving the witches out of Washington then :(

Jazzepi

[JimMorrison]

Well, as far as I'm concerned Obama just doesn't have the qualifications. The whole "world opinion" argument really doesn't hold water with me, since we're not electing a world leader. I think that you elect whoever's best for YOUR country. Sorry, but there's quite a few countries that I don't respect their government that much.


Well the problem being that the US has in fact tried to take on the mantle of "world leader". I'm not so much talking about their collective opinions per se (somehow humanity puts more focus on opinion than truth, probably because it's easier to find!), but the fact that the nation is not a self-contained entity, and in fact cannot sustain itself in our current style without very deep relations with many other nations.

So what we are faced with today, is that everyone (especially our leaders, who should not be so) tends to be a bit shortsighted, because the scale of world relations has grown so rapidly over the last few decades, that it is hard to fathom.


It's for this reason that I don't run around screaming about how cool Obama is. Also because of the incestual nature of our political system - but mainly because his concept of change is to do the same things, in different ways. The only actual hope that he gives me, is that he inspires such hopefulness in so many others, that maybe people really will recognize a better way if it is offered to them, and we can finally grow up. Not just as individuals, or as a nation - but as a global entity, because that is what humanity is now, and we can never go back to our childhood.

<3

[thejeff]

I was going to leave it with just my one post. It's much too easy to get sucked in to political debates, but ...

QM, as far as I'm concerned you could end that post with "the idea of Mcain winning."

I'm no more scared of the so-out-of-her-depth-she-can't-be-allowed-to-talk-to-media Palin as president than of a President who's demonstrated as much bad judgment and bad temper as McCain.
Palin was a last minute unvetted pick that did a brilliant job of shoring up his lagging support among the social conservative base and stealing the political spotlight after the Democratic convention. But was there anything beyond the immediate political consideration? Any thought to whether she could actually do the job? That's McCain's judgment right there.
And the idea that she could draw Clinton supporters just because she was a woman? How insulting is that?

[Deadnature]

Well, I think US foreign policy is already preordained in the bigger sense; Slowly withdraw from Iraq, reinforce/help the situation in Afghanistan, confront Russia and Iran in non-violent ways (any talk of war with either is just hooplah)strengthen economic ties with China, improve America's tarnished image etc.

So my vote is going to Obama purely for domestic reasons, I don't like republican policies which give big business a free pass and enrich the already super-wealthy. Also I'm a social liberal, which pretty much means I won't ever vote Republican :)

[Revolution]

John McCain is 72. I wouldn't trust him to drive a car, never mind run the world's superpower.

[Trumanator]

Well no matter how insulting it seems to you, the polls are definitely showing a swing in women votes. TBH you don't pick a VP for anything but political reasons. In that sense, Palin completely changed the race from going through the motions to an actual race. I'm not sure how much Obama was thinking when he picked Biden, the most concrete point about him is that after half a dozen presidential runs he has never gotten more than a sliver of the primary vote. I am fully with you on the educate yourself part though, this season has brought the media out of the closet and into the open as the biased crapshoot it is.
As far as McCain's judgement goes...at least he doesn't count raging pastors, unrepentant terrorists, and socialist radicals among his friends.

PS- I really hope we can avoid personal attacks in this thread, I don't want to get it banned. Not that anyone has yet, but I want to make sure it doesn't happen.

[JimMorrison]

That's why our presidential process is a complete farce to begin with.

This 2 party system is a great competition between "bad" and "worse", that helps keep people distracted from any issue deeper than those that are directly confronted by the 2 candidates themselves.

Meanwhile, it's well proven that about 70% of what any presidential candidate promises, they will never even attempt to follow through on. And the 30% that they do, is all the stuff you were just willing to overlook, because the stuff you wanted to happen, was in the other 70%.

Screw voodoo economics, we have fully graduated to voodoo politics.

[PashaDawg]

Obama for me, baby! Obama!

The Bush Administration has driven the Federal Govt. and the USA into a fetid cesspool of sludge that trickled down from their neocon policies (e.g., trashed the Federal budget, ruined the USA's relations with its allies, snoozed at the helm of regulatory agencies (or simply gutted them), gave tax and other breaks to their business cronies, grabbed unconstitutional powers in the name of fighting terrorism, lied to the people to start a war over oil, etc.), and it's hard to believe that McCain would not bring more of the same. But, alas, I am not one of those middle-ground "independent" voters. (Actually, I think it would be good to tweak the electoral system to break up the duopoly of the 2 major parties.)

I remember when folks mused that there was little difference between Bush and Gore. Some voted for Nader, which helped Bush win. I dare say that the USA would have been in much different (better) circumstances if we were coming to end of an 8-year Gore Administration. There is such a thing as good government (e.g. FDR Admin.), and I think history will eventually show that the Bush Administration has been one of the worst.

Thus ends my rant. Whew! :)

Pasha

[Rytek]

I think McCains choice to research up the conjuration tree and summoning Palin put him back in the game. His lack of paths is hurting him though and he will regret his choice of going thaughtmaturgy instead of construction. Obama is putting his sacreds to good use and is skillfully using his lead in Enchantment to race to the end game. If he is able to pull off an Arcane Nexus the gem income will be too much for McCain, even with a fully equipped Palin running around...

[PashaDawg]

I think McCains choice to research up the conjuration tree and summoning Palin put him back in the game. His lack of paths is hurting him though and he will regret his choice of going thaughtmaturgy instead of construction. Obama is putting his sacreds to good use and is skillfully using his lead in Enchantment to race to the end game. If he is able to pull off an Arcane Nexus the gem income will be too much for McCain, even with a fully equipped Palin running around...

:D:D:D

[JimMorrison]

I think McCains choice to research up the conjuration tree and summoning Palin put him back in the game. His lack of paths is hurting him though and he will regret his choice of going thaughtmaturgy instead of construction. Obama is putting his sacreds to good use and is skillfully using his lead in Enchantment to race to the end game. If he is able to pull off an Arcane Nexus the gem income will be too much for McCain, even with a fully equipped Palin running around...

Remember that Palin's Awe simply doesn't do much against the sort of troops that Obama is producing. And she doesn't mesh much with the mostly undead strategy that McCain has inherited. But, he should have Tartarians soon, so Obama's neglect of his priests (even if they are heretics) could hurt him badly.

[Trumanator]

^very nice :laugh:

I find it intriguing how people can revile Bush as an idiot and yet at the same time believe that he had the guile to bamboozle 3/4 of the fairly even Congress. As for deregulation leading to the current financial crisis, thats actually backwards. So much pressure and regulations were brought to bear on lenders to provide loans to people who were not going to be able to pay them that the mortage meltdown was almost guarenteed. As for an 8 year Gore admin... I wouldn't be surprised if we had gone through half a dozen attacks. Unless 9/11 was a conspiracy too...

[Trumanator]

Not to mention Obama's high position lamashta

[Bwaha]

:soap: Well, I won't say whom I will vote for. I feel it is a private matter and no business of others. I will say that the liberal people that I'm associated with feel its okay to hate people that differ from what they consider PC... Yes I live on the left coast and its full of haters. I agree that you should do as much research as possible and make a vote for your children and their children. Don't be filled with anger or fear. Use your brains, not your feelings. In closing I say vote all the bums out, they are all corrupt. all corrupt thru and thru. How else did they get the money and the machine to get elected. Sorry about my rant but the abject theft of money, property, and liberty is quite visible from my perspective. I live in a land that is going the way of the Weimar Republic. I fear that our people have been told its okay to hate and fear people that don't view the world the way they do. Be rational and hold on to the truth. :rant:

[licker]

Vote 3rd party, any party it doesn't matter.

Continuing to vote for more of the same is just retarded. And don't kid yourselves into thinking that Obama is going to change anything. He's beholden to the PACs to the DNC, to the lobbyists the same as any other democrat or republican.

The issues don't matter, they are just a smoke screen to hide the truth. The truth that the democrats and republicans only care about promoting and prolonging their power. Campaign promises mean nothing, rhetoric means nothing, the only thing that matters is the continued existence of 2 party rule.

[AdmiralZhao]

I think McCains choice to research up the conjuration tree and summoning Palin put him back in the game. His lack of paths is hurting him though and he will regret his choice of going thaughtmaturgy instead of construction. Obama is putting his sacreds to good use and is skillfully using his lead in Enchantment to race to the end game. If he is able to pull off an Arcane Nexus the gem income will be too much for McCain, even with a fully equipped Palin running around...

Remember that Palin's Awe simply doesn't do much against the sort of troops that Obama is producing. And she doesn't mesh much with the mostly undead strategy that McCain has inherited. But, he should have Tartarians soon, so Obama's neglect of his priests (even if they are heretics) could hurt him badly.

Ha, Dominions has been the only way that I've been able to understand the US's position on global warming. I think it is like casting Burden of Time when you have young mages and a good gem income; it hurts you, but it hurts you relatively less than it does other nations who are relying on older mages and high gold-provinces.

Oh, and I'm voting for Nader again. You fools go ahead and throw your votes away on Obama.

[PashaDawg]

^very nice :laugh:

I find it intriguing how people can revile Bush as an idiot and yet at the same time believe that he had the guile to bamboozle 3/4 of the fairly even Congress. As for deregulation leading to the current financial crisis, thats actually backwards. So much pressure and regulations were brought to bear on lenders to provide loans to people who were not going to be able to pay them that the mortage meltdown was almost guarenteed. As for an 8 year Gore admin... I wouldn't be surprised if we had gone through half a dozen attacks. Unless 9/11 was a conspiracy too...

Sounds like you're a dedicated member of the Republican Party. I didn't accuse Bush as being an idiot. I actually think he and his administration are smart people who knew exactly what they wanted.

With all due respect, it sounds like you misapprehend the whole dynamic of mortgage backed securities. In the late 1990's and through 2006 (maybe even 2007), there was a dramatic shift in lending practices once the whole mortgage-backed securities concept was developed. The entities that were initiating the mortgage loans did not intend to keep the loans. They were to be sold to Wall Street, and then sold to more investors. So, the initial lenders had little worry about whether the borrower could afford the loan or was trustworthy. (Compare this to the more traditional arrangement of a bank lending money to a home buyer and retaining a mortgage for the life of the loan.)

As these loans became more and more profitable (because there was *a lot* of money to be made), there was increased pressure from the free market to find more borrowers. After the sources of responsible, reliable borrowers were tapped out, the mortgage industry needed to lower their standards for qualifying borrowers for loans (e.g., shifting from documentary proof of income to no such requirement). Again, there was no concern for the loan originator, because they planned to sell the loan to Wall Street. They just wanted to collect their initial financing fees, which were substantial.

To keep the customers coming, the industry devised inventive types of loans to get less loan-worthy borrowers into higher priced homes (e.g., adjustable rate mortgages and interest-only mortgages) that eventually trapped borrowers who bought homes that they probably should never have purchased. For example, the adjustable rate mortgage would have a 2-year teaser rate that was more affordable, and when the rate eventually adjusted after 2 years, the monthly payments would jump up substantially. (I think it is a two way problem. The home borrower was not paying attention to what he/she could afford, and the loan originator was pushing to lend as much as possible (to get higher fees) while disregarding the likely ability of the borrower to repay.)

In the end, we're now facing a crisis of millions of defaulted loans that are the basis of huge Wall Street investments. The problem was exacerbated by the runaway housing market and the difficulty in fully understanding and keeping tabs on the investments, because numerous parties would have fractional shares in the bundled up mortgage backed securities. Again, the pressure was from the free market. It was *not* from any regulators forcing Wall Street investment banks into buying mortgage loans.

Thus ends my second rant.

Pasha

[Trumanator]

considering that the arctic ice cap GAINED mass over the last year I think that the US position on GW might end up the most prudent.

[Omnirizon]

I think the problem is exactly as you've stated, and exists at an institutional level in America. We have a system focused on shareholders, not stakeholders; so there is an incentive ONLY to make profit, regardless of the results. That is the reason we have crisis after crisis after crisis.

[Omnirizon]

considering that the arctic ice cap GAINED mass over the last year I think that the US position on GW might end up the most prudent.

what? we don't really know what's going on? so let's just keep plugging away? maybe we can think of some sham stuff to keep people distracted long enough for us to rape the earth a little more? who cares about the future, we're rich and getting richer, so our grandkids don't have to worry about the place getting trashed. family values... for our family, not yours.

I think even those who held out the 'ice caps' growing stuff realized it was a complete fallacy to the actual situation; a simple distraction. ice caps growing because the warmer seas create increased moisture and increased snowfall on the icecaps.

[AdmiralZhao]

considering that the arctic ice cap GAINED mass over the last year I think that the US position on GW might end up the most prudent.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the Northwest Passage open up this year? Like, the Northwest Passage through the arctic that we've never been able to pass before without using giant ice breakers?

Ah, here we go. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/08/31/eaarctic131.xml

Again, please do correct me if I'm wrong about this, I've only spent a couple of minutes looking at this particular issue.

[AdmiralZhao]

Hmm, ok, a few minutes more yields this:
http://www.dailytech.com/Arctic+Sees+Massive+Gain+in+Ice+Coverage/article12851.htm

which is more ambivalent in its findings.

[Trumanator]

what? we don't really know what's going on? so let's just keep plugging away? maybe we can think of some sham stuff to keep people distracted long enough for us to rape the earth a little more? who cares about the future, we're rich and getting richer, so our grandkids don't have to worry about the place getting trashed. family values... for our family, not yours.

I think even those who held out the 'ice caps' growing stuff realized it was a complete fallacy to the actual situation; a simple distraction. ice caps growing because the warmer seas create increased moisture and increased snowfall on the icecaps.

We can't predict the weather a week in advance accurately. Yet we're expected to believe the "projections" that are months or years in the future. I'm all for alternative energy and such, but more because of foreign oil dependence than the global warming hysteria. Besides, if you look at history, warming trends show up all the time, and have often lead to great prosperity. It really doesn't help that those who are always telling people how to treat their land DON'T ACTUALLY LIVE ON IT!! Some Berkely professor (no offense intended) thinks he's a better steward of the land than the farmer who actually lives on it.

Aside: Sorry Pasha for making assumptions about you.

[TheMenacer]

Who am I going to vote for? Simple: Cobra Commander. The problem with America isn't that the leaders we elect are too evil, it's that they're not any good at being evil. The man could stamp out terrorism forever via a network of satellite-mounted mind-control lasers, protect American foreign interests with robot snakes that shoot knockout gas from their mouths, and he's got vast amounts of experience commanding actual armed forces, as well as several brief tenures as overlord of various island nations and sections of the US.

[Edi]

considering that the arctic ice cap GAINED mass over the last year I think that the US position on GW might end up the most prudent.
I don't know where you got this from, but it's outright false. The Arctic sea ice has been consistently losing overall mass, even if there has been some localized increase in isolated places. The Greenland glaciers are receding at an alarming pace.


As far as the US elections go, a vote for McCain can most charitably be characterized as utter irresponsibility. His campaign promises aside, a closer look at his actual platform has made it clear that he intends to continue the same policies Bush and Cheney used for the past 8 years to drive the US to the ground. He has run a campaign of outright lies and character assassination while avoiding giving any kind of factual positions on issues. He is old and in poor health and stands to leave Palin as president if he croaks. Palin's record as the mayor of Wasilla and later as governor of Alaska is a record of division, mismanagement and cronyism cast from exactly the same mold as the Bush administration. She just happens to be a hockey-mom and to possess the "just like us" factor, which is going to sway more gullible voters.

The problem with the "just like us" factor is that ideally the leaders of a country shouldn't be like Joe/Jane Sixpack, but more intelligent, more educated and more aware of the world around them.

The recent financial crisis is just one more mark against the neocon and Invisible Hand of the Free Market risk socialists who have been at the helm for the last 8 years. The Republicans pushed complete deregulation of the financial industry through in 1999 and now that all of the profits of the last few years have been privatized while they built up the current mess, they seek to socialize all of the losses on the taxpayers. They even had the audacity to put it in the draft that the Treasury Secretary (aka Paulson, a former investment banker) would have sole authoirty to act as he saw fit (mostly in the interests of his Wall Street buddies) and that anything he did would not be subject to ANY judicial review.

There is also one factor to the "world leader" and international relations aspect of this election: The US touts itself as the leader of the free world and assumes that it is regarded as such. The current administration's idea of international relations has been "We expect unquestioning obedience and you will do as we say or else!", which has not gone over very well with the rest of the world. Electing McCain would be seen as a deliberate decision to continue Bush policies.

Up until now the rest of the world has made a pretty marked distinction between regarding the current US administration as a bunch of corrupt, venal screwups but not extending that same assessment to the American people. Americans are considered good guys oerall, but with a bad government. Elect McCain and the international opinion will start shifting in the direction that all of the negative perceptions of the current American government will be largely transferred on the American people as a whole. That would mean that Americans would be assumed to be navel-gazing, warmongering, belligerent morons by default and only once an individual American had proved himself to be otherwise would they be extended the benefit of the doubt. That's how bad perception of the US currently is, even among the populations of many allied nations. The governments of those allied nations will never say this out loud, of course, but private citizens do not need to hold their tongues the same way.

These are just some of the reasons I would like to see Obama win the elections. He has shown competence and he would go a long way toward mending the strained and torn relations between the US and the rest of the world. He also has a substantive platform on the issues that is not geared toward benefiting the rich at the expense of the poor and the middle class (which is pretty much an endangered subspecies of the population due to Bush's policies).

This is one view from abroad, though I daresay that I am fairly well informed on what goes on in American politics.

[K]

Well no matter how insulting it seems to you, the polls are definitely showing a swing in women votes. TBH you don't pick a VP for anything but political reasons. In that sense, Palin completely changed the race from going through the motions to an actual race. I'm not sure how much Obama was thinking when he picked Biden, the most concrete point about him is that after half a dozen presidential runs he has never gotten more than a sliver of the primary vote. I am fully with you on the educate yourself part though, this season has brought the media out of the closet and into the open as the biased crapshoot it is.

The media goes for the throat whenever they they find weakness in either Party. The media frenzy over Palin is simply because you can put her in an interview and embarrass her with almost no effort (for example, when tossed the softball question "what do you think of the Bush Doctrine" and she didn't even know what it was... that was comedy gold, even after she is on record stating "I don't know what a Vice President does" just a month before her nomination).

The fact that the Republican Party tries to demonize the press as the "biased liberal media" every time the press catches them doing something embarrassing ... well, it is very sad that this kind of rhetoric works on the American people.


As far as McCain's judgement goes...at least he doesn't count raging pastors, unrepentant terrorists, and socialist radicals among his friends.


Feel free to Google "mccain pastor", "mccain terrorists", and "mccain socialist". There are some choice links to articles on the first pages of each of those searches.

---------------

In case you didn't notice, I prefer Obama. He believes in the rule of law and is not trying to take away my civil rights (like Palin's confessed desire to reverse Row v. Wade).

[HoneyBadger]

I'm voting for Obama, for the simple reason that he's the most intelligent candidate. That's all I care about-that the President's brain be of the highest caliber possible. Everything else really doesn't matter.

As far as Bush being an idiot-he was and is. Don't kid yourself that he isn't-he can't string a sentence together, on a consistent basis, even if it's being fed to him-but he is an idiot surrounded by corrupt people, and corrupt himself, and the son of an intelligent, powerful, and knowledgeable father-also corrupt. I personally would prefer the term "malicious idiot", but "idiot" suffices, and is more easily proved.

Just because he's an idiot, though, doesn't mean he can't do harm, or allow harm to occur when it's done at the hands of his supporters.

And Gore would have been a better choice. Don't kid yourself there, either. Bush didn't do a damn thing to protect us from terrorists. He didn't even know how to respond to a terrorist attack, and Hurricane Katrina was proof enough for anyone how ineffective the Bush administration has been at responding to threats to this country. And that was just bad weather.

Bush's response to terrorism was to ensure the safety of his Saudi Arabian friends (and the country of Saudi Arabia, because that's where all his Saudi Arabian friends keep their stuff), to concentrate his efforts on grabbing and holding on to as much oil and money as possible, panic everyone as much as possible, and erode our constitutional laws.

To put it more plainly: he made bad choices for this country, and good choices for himself.

If we accept that Gore was a mediochre, vanilla, average choice, we can then suppose (purely for purposes of speculation) that he would have made mediochre, vanilla, average choices based on what was obvious, straightforward, and needful in the short-term.

I put to you the argument that *none* of what Bush did was intuitive, or obvious, or what a reasonable person would have done in his place. He made choices that fit the agenda of himself and his party-*not* choices, even bad ones, that fit the needs-either short term or long term-of the United States. He acted, from internal motivation. He did not react.

So saying that Gore would have, or should have, been *worse* than Bush, when he's otherwise untested, is illogical. It has no basis in fact, and no reasonability to the argument.

Saying that Gore would have in some way, in the role of President, spurred additional terrorist attacks, is again a fallacious argument, with no basis in fact. Bush's family is an oil family, with close friends in the middle east. His father is the ex-director of the CIA. If you *entirely* discount, erase, and don't draw a single conclusion from George W Bush's Presidency, you're still left with atleast those three *major* motivational ties to the Middle East.

Terrorists didn't attack when Gore was vice President, they attacked when Bush was President.
That gives Gore 4 years of experience serving as second-in-command in an administration that operated under as close as possible, the same political environment as Bush was dealing with. 4 years of learning what to do, what not to do-and what does *not* result in terrorist action against this country.

Gore-as we know-has an interest (however self-aggrandizing you may decide that interest to be) in global warming. And a key to helping stop global warming, scientists seem to agree, is to reduce our dependency on oil (whether it be foreign, domestic, or somehow otherwise). The less oil we need, the less reason we need to involve ourselves, atleast directly as an economical force, in the Middle East. The less directly we involve ourselves in the Middle East, the less motivation for Middle East terrorists to target us, when they can more easily and cheaply target closer and less powerful enemies.

Gore-as we know-served as the Vice-President under Clinton. One of the things Clinton was best known for, was being a supporter of the Black community (and a Jazz musician, for that matter). Hurricane Katrina was a disaster that most affected the poorest citizens of New Orleans-who were mostly Black. This gives atleast some amount of indication that if Gore had been President, he would have had more interest-and more motivation-to aid the citizens of New Orleans (aside from any and all other considerations, one of the centers of Jazz music.).

So there exist publically known, personal motivations for Gore to have functioned-if not better, atleast with stronger conviction-during both the terrorist crisis, and during Hurricane Katrina. Maybe not the strongest ones, but ones that relate to those events.

Ofcourse, the final proof is that Bush *did* act badly when put into a position of power-whereas Gore, as Vice President, did not, in any noticeable way. They otherwise both served as governors, and both had powerful Presidential role-models-Bush, in the form of his father, and Gore, in the form of Clinton.

And my personal feeling is that Bush coming into office was a motivation for 9/11. That it occurred for the same reason that we removed Noriega from office when the Panama Canal was about to change hands-just as we foresaw a harmful administration, and an enemy of the U.S. coming into a position of greatest power in a country important to us, so too did the terrorists foresee a harmful administration, and an enemy of their interests, coming into the position of greatest power, in the U.S.

As annoying as Gore might be (and his wife, even more so), I seriously doubt that he'd have confounded and enraged a bunch of Middle Eastern fanatics to the same degree as the son of the most powerful oil/political/intelligence dynasties in the entire United States (who-did I mention? are close friends with the Saudi Arabian royal family.), especially considering that he and his family have been leading the war effort *in* the Middle East, since atleast 1990.

[Ballbarian]

Not speaking as a Moderator, but rather as a Dominions forum junky:

Thanks for bringing the political debate to our friendly game forum. Let's just say that my views on the subject would not be popular, but I have no problem with others stating theirs. I just wish that this discussion would have been started in the Intel Forum Bar & Grill (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/forumdisplay.php?f=70).

I get my fill of politics from many other sources and would have likely participated had it been located elsewhere. Now, that said, I will move on and not look back. No hard feelings. You know I love you good folks! (Even you evil undead folks!) :)

[Trumanator]

I did not say that Gore would provoke more attacks, I meant that he probably would have been content for it to be a "domestic" issue. Personally I would much rather have the terrorists get slaughtered in Iraq than have the probably more even casualty ratio that we would have here. As for Bush being an idiot, refer to my above post. Him doing what he and his party believed was best would probably have something to do with them being the majority party= more Americans support them than the other guys.

The argument that the most intelligent man makes the best president would make sense...except that Richard Nixon was a very smart man. So was James Buchanan, so was Jimmy Carter, and they didn't exactly lead to great success abroad did they?

[Trumanator]

This is so fun.


I will concede that my info about the ice caps was in passing, I probably shouldn't have stated it as fact. However, the reason the US is the presumed world leader has a lot more to do with the realities of economics and world peacekeeping than arrogance. The US is still the worlds largest economy I think, and provides the vast majority of forces to any kind of peacekeeping operation that the UN orchestrates. I don't know what you think but as far as my limited knowledge of other governments goes I think that you could describe the current French, Italian, and German governments as somewhat "pro-american" to use the media phrase. Not to mention that I have yet to see a useful idea come from the international community as far as terrorism goes. The main idea seems to be capitulate and hope they leave us alone.

The "Bush Doctrine" question was crap. Charlie Gibson himself got it wrong. The very inventor of the phrase has explained how there have been FOUR different versions, and that the current iteration is the "spread democracy" philosophy.

[quantum_mechani]

Personally I would much rather have the terrorists get slaughtered in Iraq than have the probably more even casualty ratio that we would have here. This attitude is so baffling to me. I mean, the vanishingly small percentage of people willing to cross continents to commit acts of terrorism (not to mention with the means to do so), compared to those willing to - as they perceive it - fight to liberate their occupied country is just extreme. I'd also note that at the Iraq war passed 9/11 in American casualties some time ago. That's completely apart from the even very conservatively hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead... it's hard to believe most of those were militants.

And even if you assume those fighting in Iraq have the will or the means to commit such acts in the US, the amount of security you could buy with the cost of the iraq war is mind-boggling.

[Trumanator]

Uh, the majority of the militants in Iraq were actually foreigners, and after the Sunni Awakening it became even more drastically so. As to the civilian casualties, nearly all of them were killed by militants, not US troops. Another point is that while here in the US the people dying would be innocents, the soldiers in Iraq volunteered to be part of the military. Iraq has almost finished Al Quaeda. Afghanistan might have hurt them, but the losses they took in Iraq to no discernable result killed most of their support and destroyed a large portion of their leadership. If we can convince the Pakistani's to help us take care of them in the tribal regions, they really will be finished.

[quantum_mechani]

Uh, the majority of the militants in Iraq were actually foreigners, and after the Sunni Awakening it became even more drastically so. As to the civilian casualties, nearly all of them were killed by militants, not US troops. Another point is that while here in the US the people dying would be innocents, the soldiers in Iraq volunteered to be part of the military. Iraq has almost finished Al Quaeda. Afghanistan might have hurt them, but the losses they took in Iraq to no discernable result killed most of their support and destroyed a large portion of their leadership. If we can convince the Pakistani's to help us take care of them in the tribal regions, they really will be finished.So you are saying that most (or at least a significant percentage) of the people fighting in Iraq would be actively attempting to stream into the US to commit acts of terrorism? I find that extremely hard to believe- that many people don't become terrorists out of nowhere, if US wasn't under siege by them before 9/11 they weren't all going to suddenly come to the US afterwards.

And aside from that, I find it a little chilling how easily nationalism clouds the way casualty figures are read. I mean, regardless of if the war is an ultimately a 'success', hundreds of thousands of died. It is difficult to imagine that _not_ having the Iraq war would have had even vaguely comparable numbers in total human deaths. I realize the inevitable comeback here is 'But saddam killed people', but it is exceedingly doubtful he would have wracked up even close to the death count by being in power the last few years.

And this is really getting on a tangent here but it's my rant and so be it ;) : It really bothers me in general people's horror at suffering in their own country as opposed to the rest of the world. The epitome of this to me is charities... the idea of giving to charity to help some kids softball team instead of starving people is almost unimaginable, yet it's a choice people make on a daily basis.

Bottom line, even assuming not invading Iraq would have caused more terrorist attacks (which I have a hard time believing), I don't think I could say that the Iraqi dead are worth any less than those theoretical American victims.

[Edi]

I moved this to the Intel Forum Bar & Grill because it really does belong here. There is a redirect at the Dom3 forum that will expire in one month.

[HoneyBadger]

It's not intentional, Quantum Mechani, it's instinctual. Human brains are just not designed in such a way for us to automatically care very much about more than the people in our immediate surroundings. We're not hardwired to properly process pain and tragedy on a global scale. Any additional compassion we may feel towards people in other countries is supplimental and beyond the normal human scope of interest.

It's a bit like reading a book in a foreign language-it's obvious that a book ought to be read in the language of it's author, but it's not automatic that we do so, if it's not a language that we read. Even if we find a copy in our language, something probably gets lost in the translation.

You can probably name somewhere around 150 people (or less) who's funeral you would attend. I doubt you could name 15,000. And there's upwards of 7,000,000,000 people on the planet. It's a little hard not to generalize, when it comes to the sheer scale of humanity as a whole.

[Sombre]

I don't vote, never have and never will. It is an exercise in futility when all the parties are essentially the same, you don't believe in the system and beyond that don't even care who is in power, because they are unable to change anything anyway.

I just completely ignore them. It's quite common in the UK. When they say nearly 40% of people aren't voting, they mean 40% of people who actually registered to vote. Most apathetic people like myself don't bother to register.

[HoneyBadger]

I vote so I can complain about who gets elected. If you don't (or if your candidate wins), then you've no right to--and I can hardly pass up a chance at righteous indignation. :p

[quantum_mechani]

It's not intentional, Quantum Mechani, it's instinctual. Human brains are just not designed in such a way for us to automatically care very much about more than the people in our immediate surroundings. We're not hardwired to properly process pain and tragedy on a global scale. Any additional compassion we may feel towards people in other countries is supplimental and beyond the normal human scope of interest.

That's understandable- I don't think it's avoidable or even necessarily desirable that the suffering of a stranger mean as much as the suffering of anyone you know personally. But this is an entirely different matter, sorting people by their nationality/race/culture. To many Americans (and probably similarly for other nationalities) the suffering of an American they don't know means a lot more than just a person in general they do not know... and that's something in my opinion far less excusable.

[Micah]

I did some research into this a couple of weeks ago, one of the facts I picked up was that if we got our healthcare system up to the standards of the top countries in the world we would save 100,000 American lives each year. That's 33 times the death toll of 9/11, and that's PER YEAR, so just over 230 times as many people over the remainder of the Bush presidency. I'm pretty sure the Iraq war funding could have been better spent saving American lives by fixing our broken-*** healthcare system instead of using it to kill people, including plenty of innocents. I'm sure there are plenty of other things we could be doing instead, but I like this one for an example.

Also, WRT global warming, I can't see how anyone can look at this: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo.html and not at least wonder what effect that might have on things.

Oh, and Palin installed a sheriff in Wasilla that forced women who had been raped to pay for their own forensic test kits, just in case they hadn't been traumatized enough.

Obama sure as hell isn't as shiny as a lot of his supporters make him out to be, but in this case I must say that "bad" is a whole lot better than "worse." Sure, I'd love to see pretty much the whole US political system razed to the ground and rebuilt, but unless that's gonna happen in the next month and a half I'll stick with voting for the best choice I can for now.

[JimMorrison]

As these loans became more and more profitable (because there was *a lot* of money to be made), there was increased pressure from the free market to find more borrowers. After the sources of responsible, reliable borrowers were tapped out, the mortgage industry needed to lower their standards for qualifying borrowers for loans (e.g., shifting from documentary proof of income to no such requirement). Again, there was no concern for the loan originator, because they planned to sell the loan to Wall Street. They just wanted to collect their initial financing fees, which were substantial.

To keep the customers coming, the industry devised inventive types of loans to get less loan-worthy borrowers into higher priced homes (e.g., adjustable rate mortgages and interest-only mortgages) that eventually trapped borrowers who bought homes that they probably should never have purchased. For example, the adjustable rate mortgage would have a 2-year teaser rate that was more affordable, and when the rate eventually adjusted after 2 years, the monthly payments would jump up substantially. (I think it is a two way problem. The home borrower was not paying attention to what he/she could afford, and the loan originator was pushing to lend as much as possible (to get higher fees) while disregarding the likely ability of the borrower to repay.)


I actually purchased a home based on "stated income". Both my brother and I were doing a lot of work as a private business, without documentation to prove that income. We jumped into the middle of the housing'mortgage boom with no problems, and great expectations.

2 years later, things were looking alright, and we wanted to consolidate outside debts into the mortgage, and at the same time refinance at a lower rate. We got duped into an ARM after a lot of talk that was getting us nowhere, and we were assured that our rate would likely go down slightly in 2 more years, or if it went up, that it couldn't go up enough to really matter.

2 years later, the ARM matured, and we saw a significant increase in mortgage payment. 6 months later, and they bumped it again. Total increase to our mortgage? 30%. I'm sorry, we were not irresponsible, nor were we unable to pay the mortgage that we signed. However, we were not able to pay a mortgage 30% larger than we signed - especially not as my health declined, and budgets tightened.

This was purely predatory economic behavior, and is indicative of the focal problem with free market capitalism. Those who have the money and power are largely incentivized to do -anything- in their power to maximize profits. The profit is all that matters at the end of their day, because it is a measure of the growth of their personal power.


If you don't believe that the current administration has been all about the pursuit of wealth and power, then I can only encourage to look more closely at the issues. To stop, and actually do some hunting around on the internet to see what is currently going on, and who is scratching whose back. You may find yourself extremely surprised. Oh and for the record, Bush is an absolute moron, who is likely becoming senile. He didn't dupe anyone, he very poorly and clumsily repeated lies that were fed to him by much more intelligent and cunning players in the game - he was just a puppet, or a muppet, if you will. ;)

[llamabeast]

When people suggest global warming doesn't exist, or even may not exist, it makes me want to cry.

There are few scientific theories so well supported by evidence, I believe. If it was in people's interests to believe it, everyone would have thirty years ago.

As a scientist who studied a lot of atmospheric chemistry in my undergrad, seriously it's a no-brainer.

The trouble with all these things is that in a world with so many facts, you can always find a few to support any argument. So the anti-GW people can put together a very convincing argument, backed up by real facts. If you're not willing to spend a lot of time on it, it's hard to distinguish it from, say, a pro-GW argument which is backed up by like a hundred times as many facts. Because they can't fit that many facts into a coherent argument.

/End of distressed rant

[lch]

When people suggest global warming doesn't exist, or even may not exist, it makes me want to cry.

There are few scientific theories so well supported by evidence, I believe. If it was in people's interests to believe it, everyone would have thirty years ago.
Actually, I believe that evolution is even more backed up by evidence, but there are still some people who opt not to believe that. ;) Hard to fathom for me how you can accept genetics for solving crimes and making cosmetics but don't accept it when comparing genetic material of creatures, or how you don't see the strong hints during the evolution of the human fetus.

The global warming one still perplexes me. Twenty years ago, when I was a kid, it was presented to me as a fact, there were even doomsday scenarios about an unstoppable end of the world where mankind would inevitably maneuver itself into, one way or the other. Back then, you vowed to change this, you didn't want to hurt your environment after all. In the meantime, you accepted that it isn't easy to solve and tried to always look for "greener" ways to do things. Now suddenly the US begins to see the big honking unmistakeable evidence, as if they found it hiding under a rock or behind a bush twenty years later, and even get a big political campaign around it, with former vice presidents writing bestseller books about it. Duh, slow on the uptake much? Guess it was the media difference.

About the presidential election: That Bush was voted once was a mistake, that he was voted twice made me lose faith in the voters. It seems that people are influenced a lot more by the political campaigns than I'd like, in which the republicans have more success by appealing to the voters' emotions and offering simple solutions which are easy to understand and believe in, even if they might be useless. The democrats only seem to be able to convince intellectuals and do-gooders, while the republicans win by having the ordinary people on their side, the mass of the voters. As much as I'd like them to, I don't see the democrats winning the election.

[lch]

We can't predict the weather a week in advance accurately. Yet we're expected to believe the "projections" that are months or years in the future.
Actually we're a lot better about predicting the weather than we were 20 years ago. Back then, whatever they told you in the news about tomorrow's weather, in 70% of cases they were wrong. Now the forecast for tomorrow usually is true, and the three-day forecast is going to be true most of the time, too. I expect that this is because of the increased computing power over the years, and because more measurements have been done to better predict what might or might not happen next. Weather is a chaotic process, you can't just calculate the outcome with all the imperfect inputs from measures. Still, you can make predictions based on what you have seen before.

Your statement that nothing can be forseen without failure, therefore no predictions about the future hold any meaning are too religious that I'm going to argue much more about it. Seems like you really are more interested in keeping the status quo and getting distracted while waiting for Godot.

[lch]

More revelations ahead. I'm responding to this stuff as I read it.

However, the reason the US is the presumed world leader has a lot more to do with the realities of economics and world peacekeeping than arrogance.
To be true, as stated before by others like Edi, the US isn't seen much like peacekeeping anymore, more like warmongering. Preferably in other places of the world, not just on their own territory. Hey, it worked for 50 years and kept everybody distracted, why change it?

The US is still the worlds largest economy I think, and provides the vast majority of forces to any kind of peacekeeping operation that the UN orchestrates.
The US has the biggest army in the world and spends the most money on it every year, yes. I just checked that and had it confirmed pretty well here: http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending

About the world's largest economy, I've been reading my newspapers on the weekend when they were analyzing the Lehman Brothers collapse, and what they wrote about the US economy was that it was based on credits, with the credit card being a consistent part of the pocket, and that the US Americans basically have been living above their financial circumstances for years and economists have been warning since a long time that a radical change of course has to happen sooner or later if this continues. So far, with the US being a big consumer like that it was a win-win for everybody because they imported a lot more than they exported, but it can't be expected to continue like this forever, the Dollar is going to decline in value.

I don't know what you think but as far as my limited knowledge of other governments goes I think that you could describe the current French, Italian, and German governments as somewhat "pro-american" to use the media phrase.
As Edi pointed out, the US is of course an important and powerful ally. You can't simply ignore it. But the way that the US has been handling international politics under Bush has caused dismay, especially among the people. It's hard to stomach that the UN is being seen as "ineffectual and useless" by lots of US citizens instead of considering themselves a part of it, just because they think it's okay to go by whatever serves US American interests the most. "Pro-American" was once, to be true the people have now been leaning more towards "Anti-American" lately, especially because of the Iraq war which caused a lot of bad blood. We won't be parading around and burn USA flags, of course. But we're doubting that the USA really has "world peace" in mind and the trust is gone.

Not to mention that I have yet to see a useful idea come from the international community as far as terrorism goes. The main idea seems to be capitulate and hope they leave us alone.
The US wasn't the only target for terroristic attacks. You might have overheard about those in the UK. In Germany, there were some terroristic attacks which fortunately didn't succeed and/or were prevented in time. Diplomacy isn't capitulation, no, it isn't waving guns around either.

[capnq]

Eh?? 1: Who else could you vote for.You could vote for whichever of the fourteen "third-party" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_third_party_presidential_candidates) candidates have managed to get on the ballot in your state.

I've considered myself a Republican since I was old enough to understand the concept of political parties, but the neoconservatives who've controlled the party for the last decade or so have proven themselves so incapable of governing that I don't think the second coming of Abraham Lincoln could win on the Republican ticket this year. I'm actually hoping that we Republicans suffer such an embarrassing defeat at all levels of government that it will shake most of the deadwood out of the party leadership. That will give the Democrats four to eight years to demonstrate that they're equally incompetent at running the country, hopefully leading to a similar purge on their side of the aisle.

[lch]

Iraq has almost finished Al Quaeda. Afghanistan might have hurt them, but the losses they took in Iraq to no discernable result killed most of their support and destroyed a large portion of their leadership.
Oh please. Do you really believe that? The Iraq war was an invasion of the country by the USA army. I don't expect the people there will forget that. What would you do if your country would have been invaded by a vastly superior military force and thrown into chaos for years to come? Would you attempt to understand the ulterior motives of the attacker? Doesn't seem so given the 9/11 reaction.

And aside from that, I find it a little chilling how easily nationalism clouds the way casualty figures are read. I mean, regardless of if the war is an ultimately a 'success', hundreds of thousands of died. It is difficult to imagine that _not_ having the Iraq war would have had even vaguely comparable numbers in total human deaths. I realize the inevitable comeback here is 'But saddam killed people', but it is exceedingly doubtful he would have wracked up even close to the death count by being in power the last few years.
I am stumped by that everytime, too. The CNN calculated that the 9/11 attack killed 2,973 non-terrorists. That's a tragedy, for sure, but as a number it really isn't that much. Compare that to the death toll of war - among citizens, not soldiers, again. Or to the death toll from natural catastrophes. How are those three thousand lives any more valuable than other human lives? The 9/11 attack came as a shock, of course, but the reaction it caused was largely hysterical. It's not like Al Quaeda or anybody else would be able to start a real war or even fight on US American grounds then or at any time in the future. Judging by what they can do, almost everybody is safe from terrorists.

[lch]

Iraq has almost finished Al Quaeda. Afghanistan might have hurt them, but the losses they took in Iraq to no discernable result killed most of their support and destroyed a large portion of their leadership.
Oh please. Do you really believe that? The Iraq war was an invasion of the country by the USA army. I don't expect the people there will forget that. What would you do if your country would have been invaded by a vastly superior military force and thrown into chaos for years to come? Would you attempt to understand the ulterior motives of the attacker? Doesn't seem so given the 9/11 reaction.
Since I can't edit my own post anymore:

Al Quaeda isn't that much of a threat, anyway. It won't be able to triumph over the Juggernaut that is the USA. It didn't even manage to make it backpedal or slow down a little, like they might have hoped by attacking its supposed "financial heart". It merely gave it a pretense to fight a war with support of its citizens, help the president in charge keep his place, pass some unpopular laws and manage to put drastic public surveillance into use.

[JimMorrison]

And aside from that, I find it a little chilling how easily nationalism clouds the way casualty figures are read. I mean, regardless of if the war is an ultimately a 'success', hundreds of thousands of died. It is difficult to imagine that _not_ having the Iraq war would have had even vaguely comparable numbers in total human deaths. I realize the inevitable comeback here is 'But saddam killed people', but it is exceedingly doubtful he would have wracked up even close to the death count by being in power the last few years.
I am stumped by that everytime, too. The CNN calculated that the 9/11 attack killed 2,973 non-terrorists. That's a tragedy, for sure, but as a number it really isn't that much. Compare that to the death toll of war - among citizens, not soldiers, again. Or to the death toll from natural catastrophes. How are those three thousand lives any more valuable than other human lives? The 9/11 attack came as a shock, of course, but the reaction it caused was largely hysterical. It's not like Al Quaeda or anybody else would be able to start a real war or even fight on US American grounds then or at any time in the future. Judging by what they can do, almost everybody is safe from terrorists.


Why, you make it sound as if we're more likely to win the lottery, get struck by lightning, die in a train wreck, or give birth to triplets - than to die in a terrorist attack! I mean, ummm, wait.....

O.o

Not to downplay what US led/hired forces have directly caused by way of loss of innocent life in Iraq, it makes me wonder how many people our presence has indirectly caused, by increased strife and sectarian violence in the nation. It has to be far more than died in 9/11. People who also were just trying to live their lives, killed by terrorists because of our military actions. Yet those numbers are not only almost invisible in the media, but when people even see them, or are made aware of the reality - they want to wave it away, and dismiss it.

I think it's important to note that most of those people did not support, nor take pride in the single noteworthy terrorist attack on human soil, much as most Americans did not support, nor take pride in our wanton invasion of a largely innocent nation. Even if we all somehow manage to agree that Saddam himself was SO vile, so despicable that he simply had to be forcibly removed - it's highly unlikely that the current state of affairs, in Iraq, or globally as relates to world view of America would have actually been any worse than they are now, had we simply evacuated from the country to let THEM pick up the pieces from the damage that Saddam caused. Right now many of them are probably wishing we had just left Saddam in power, because they would have largely been safer and more comfortable than they have been these last several years.

They often go without running water or electricity - and they conduct their daily lives with the everpresent threat of somthing just randomly exploding - how is that freedom?

[Agema]

I was faintly interested by a comment earlier by Trumanator stating that the Americans were there to elect a leader for themselves and the rest of world didn't matter. This is true. It's an American election for Americans. However, Americans should consider world opinion, because the USA's ability to express its power depends on the rest of the world.

George W. Bush has managed to alienate not just traditional enemies of the USA, but even its friends. Confidence in the USA in Europe is probably lower now than ever before. It's not just belligerence over Iraq, Iran, Georgia and so on. It's the contempt for international organisations and treaties; denial of climate change; advocating backward social practices (abstinence to stop AIDS, anti-abortion, Creationism etc.). McCain-Palin looks like much of the same to the world.

US power, in relative terms, is declining. It's not just economic and military might, but political power due the loss of international prestige and credibility as above. For instance, whilst the British supported the USA over Iraq years ago, I do not think it's people would do so now if a similar position arose. I know lots of Republicans have contempt for the rest of the world, even fairly friendly nations. But the USA's allies grease the wheels of its power by supporting them militarily, diplomatically, and in many other ways. It's possible they would not cooperate more and more in future if there is continued GWB-style leadership. That will leave the USA increasingly diminished by isolation.

[quantum_mechani]

Eh?? 1: Who else could you vote for.You could vote for whichever of the fourteen "third-party" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_third_party_presidential_candidates) candidates have managed to get on the ballot in your state.
I'm actually hoping that we Republicans suffer such an embarrassing defeat at all levels of government that it will shake most of the deadwood out of the party leadership. That will give the Democrats four to eight years to demonstrate that they're equally incompetent at running the country, hopefully leading to a similar purge on their side of the aisle.Well, don't bet on it, I for one am fully expecting a Mcain victory. However, I suggest you go out and vote democratic if you would really rather Obama wins. ;)

[thejeff]

Yeah, I really don't get the couple of comments saying some variation on:
I don't vote or vote third party but I hope X wins.
Someone early one said voting for either was a waste, but McCain winning would prove how pathetic American voters are. Huh? How does that make sense?
If you want someone to win, vote for them.

And if you really do despise them both, look at your more local elections. You've got more influence there, since there are fewer other voters and those will often have at least as much influence on your life.

[Trumanator]

George W. Bush has managed to alienate not just traditional enemies of the USA, but even its friends. Confidence in the USA in Europe is probably lower now than ever before. It's not just belligerence over Iraq, Iran, Georgia and so on. It's the contempt for international organisations and treaties; denial of climate change; advocating backward social practices (abstinence to stop AIDS, anti-abortion, Creationism etc.). McCain-Palin looks like much of the same to the world.


I'm not entirely certain which treaties you're talking about, but go ahead and fill me in. I continue to stand by my opinion that the climate change issue is mostly hysteria. Calling abstinence and anti-abortionism backward social practices is just wrong though. The simple truth is that abstinence is the only 100% sure way NOT to get AIDS. Yes, condoms and such can help, but they don't always work and aren't always available. You guys are talking a lot about the cost of the Iraq war, but over 3,000 people die every day in the US because of abortions. Don't give the whole "when life begins" argument either, its simple biology, the real question is when do human beings get basic human rights.

PS- that bullsh-- about Wasilla police charging rape victims has been thoroughly debunked. There is absolutely no record of the police doing that. It is possible that the private hospital's did so, but that is the hospital's fault, not the mayor's.

[licker]

Yeah, I really don't get the couple of comments saying some variation on:
I don't vote or vote third party but I hope X wins.
Someone early one said voting for either was a waste, but McCain winning would prove how pathetic American voters are. Huh? How does that make sense?
If you want someone to win, vote for them.

And if you really do despise them both, look at your more local elections. You've got more influence there, since there are fewer other voters and those will often have at least as much influence on your life.

Well if you were referring to me I didn't say that I hoped McCain will win, I said I think he is going to win.

I want someone to win, but I don't want that person to be either McCain or Obama, so I won't be voting for either one. The pathetic electorate will vote for them though, and one of them will win. Even though there is essentially no difference between the two of them in as far as having actual meaningful changes occur in washington.

And I agree, vote local first, which I do, but the topic of this thread is US Pres election afterall...

[thejeff]

You did say McCain winning would "show how pathetic the electorate has become", which implied to me that Obama winning would not.

[thejeff]

We are going deep towards flame-war territory here, but I'll risk another post.
True: abstinence is the only 100% sure way NOT to get AIDS.
Surprisingly, telling people not to have sex has remarkably little effect on their sex lives. Abstinence works. Abstinence only sex education doesn't. This is seen in the US with teen pregnancy rates rising again after 8 years of gutting actual sex education and pushing abstinence. Teaching it doesn't work.
I'm not touching the abortion issue at all.

Oddly the climate change hysteria seems to be strongest among climate scientists and weakest among oil company executives. Though even they are starting to come around. The biggest problem is that the effects seem to be happening even faster than the hysterical claims predicted. The unprecedented melting of both Arctic and Antarctic ice caps is just the most blatant evidence.

As for your PS- I've seen no such debunking. If you're going to call BS, I want a link. And to something at least as reputable as the major papers that have carried the story.

[SlipperyJim]

I'm not entirely certain which treaties you're talking about, but go ahead and fill me in. I continue to stand by my opinion that the climate change issue is mostly hysteria.
Y'all know that McCain is a global warming true-believer, right? His proposals to "fight" global warming aren't as radical as Obama's proposals, but he does want to do something about it. Voting against McCain because you're a global-warmist doesn't make sense ... he agrees with global warming.

George will made a great point (http://ff.org/centers/csspp/library/co2weekly/20070222/20070222_08.html) about global warming back in 2007:
The consensus catechism about global warming has six tenets:
1. Global warming is happening. 2. It is our (humanity's, but especially America's) fault. 3. It will continue unless we mend our ways. 4. If it continues we are in grave danger. 5. We know how to slow or even reverse the warming. 6. The benefits from doing that will far exceed the costs.
For the record, I agree with Point #1. So I suppose you could say that I believe in global warming. However, I'm very far from convinced on the other five points, and you need to agree to all six points in order to agree with the current hysteria.

For an alternative to the hysteria, check out We Get It! (http://www.we-get-it.org/)

Calling abstinence and anti-abortionism backward social practices is just wrong though. The simple truth is that abstinence is the only 100% sure way NOT to get AIDS. Yes, condoms and such can help, but they don't always work and aren't always available. You guys are talking a lot about the cost of the Iraq war, but over 3,000 people die every day in the US because of abortions. Don't give the whole "when life begins" argument either, its simple biology, the real question is when do human beings get basic human rights.
Thank you for saying that. If condoning the deaths of thousands of innocent children every day is "forward-thinking," then I'll be happy to move backward.

On the original topic: I'm voting for McCain. No pro-choice politician will ever get my vote, especially not someone whose position is as extreme (http://www.bornalivetruth.org/) as Barack Obama. The other factors -- experience, strong defense, conservatism -- are important to me, but they're side issues. I simply won't vote for abortion.

[licker]

You did say McCain winning would "show how pathetic the electorate has become", which implied to me that Obama winning would not.

Indeed, but I made no real distinction between Obama and McCain. That statement was based on the democrats attacks on McCain as him being a pure continuation of the Bush administration.

As to global warming...

Well its out of the news now, and I'll give you one guess why (and it has nothing to do with the election).

[Edi]

You guys want a thread on abortion, fine, we can have one. The "abortion is murder" argument straight up without qualifiers is idiocy of the highest order. As Trumanator said before, it is a matter of when the fetus starts gaining human rights and when those rights are weighty enough to overshadow the mother's right to make medical decisions about her own body.

But don't expect this to stay on topic if you keep making claims without any argumentation to back it up. Failure to pay the topic detailed attention and making pithy statements as if they were fact are one of the easiest guaranteed ways to get me to take the gloves off and bring out the brass knuckles.

Normally I'd bring a flamethrower, but gratuitous arson is generally frowned upon here. ;)

[Trumanator]

Okay Edi, I'll try and keep the heat down :wink:

@SlipperyJim- I guess I should clarify that what bothers me about GW are the calls that we have to fix it now!now!now!, forget how much economic damage it will do. Its nice to know I'm not alone against the hordes though. (no offense intended to "the hordes", just saying I'm outnumbered.)

I didn't say abstinence only education was the one and only way to do things. Contraceptives don't work though if the teenagers want kids. I'll see if I can find the article, plus the one about the bogus rape kit story...

rape kit story: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ODA1YWM5ZjM2ZTU5ODliZTY2NTczMGUwZWYwNTVlMTQ= and before you impugn the source remember that the main stream media also reported the bull about Palin covering for her daughter's pregnancy.

contraceptives only work sometimes: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NDkyN2JmZDI5MjQzNTFlOWEzOTI0ZWFjN2I5ZDk4Zjk=

National Review is a reputable magazine. You might disagree with its politics, but the stories are grounded in fact.

[Agema]

I'm not entirely certain which treaties you're talking about, but go ahead and fill me in. I continue to stand by my opinion that the climate change issue is mostly hysteria. Calling abstinence and anti-abortionism backward social practices is just wrong though. The simple truth is that abstinence is the only 100% sure way NOT to get AIDS. Yes, condoms and such can help, but they don't always work and aren't always available. You guys are talking a lot about the cost of the Iraq war, but over 3,000 people die every day in the US because of abortions. Don't give the whole "when life begins" argument either, its simple biology, the real question is when do human beings get basic human rights.


"Treaties" is sloppy wording on my account, apologies - I would refer more to breaches of international conventions, unilateral actions, refusal to sign up to international courts and so on. Had the nuclear bunker-buster funding been pushed through, that would I believe have breached non-proliferation treaties.

I wouldn't call abstinence a backward social practice per se. It was in the name preventing HIV/AIDS because it caused successful tactics that were being used to reduce infection rates to be ditched. Abstinence failed to work as was widely expected by research and expert opinion - stopping people having sex is a bit like stopping people drinking alcohol, and we know how prohibition worked out. Therefore it meant many were condemned to HIV in the name of blind ideology.

[JimMorrison]

I wouldn't call abstinence a backward social practice per se. It was in the name preventing HIV/AIDS because it caused successful tactics that were being used to reduce infection rates to be ditched. Abstinence failed to work as was widely expected by research and expert opinion - stopping people having sex is a bit like stopping people drinking alcohol, and we know how prohibition worked out. Therefore it meant many were condemned to HIV in the name of blind ideology.


Actually, to clarify a bit - teaching abstinence is a bit like treating heroin addicts by telling them "not to do it".

I find it awfully funny when people argue that you "can" "potentially" get pregnant while using contraceptives. Well, this is entirely true. You can also be killed in a car accident while wearing a seatbelt. We wear seatbelts AND condoms not because they are 100% guarantees of anything - but because we're not going to stop driving and copulating.


Tell your own children not to have sex - see how well that works out for you. But when you interfere with other people taking saner and more effective approaches to the problem, then YOU are causing more unwanted pregnancies with your enacting of policy. If you want to see less abortions, then DO something about it - by allowing people to make meaningful steps to avoid unwanted pregnancies to begin with.

This is a prime example of why our founding fathers wanted all religious doctrine kept out of government. Religious freedom relies on no one particular faith imposing their own doctrine on the non-or-differently-believing citizens of the nation. If religious extremists keep voting along doctrine lines, and trying to force their belief systems on others, sooner or later the collective masses of those who disagree are going to start sanctioning that particularly overbearing religion. Then what? Will you all resort to terrorism when everyone else makes perfectly clear that they are tired of hearing about it.....? Hmmmm.

[Tifone]

I just would like to point out that Palin is also strongly opposed by Batman

http://imgboot.com/images/Tifone/jokerpalin.jpg

Sorry, lil' joke :D Oh, wait, doesn't matter, someone is still gonna call it "liberal hatred" :rolleyes:

Really enjoying the discussion here. I see really valid points from many of you guys (I took the freedom to "thank" the most worthy, they will be useful for me in future debates probably here overseas ;) )

[Trumanator]

Actually, to clarify a bit - teaching abstinence is a bit like treating heroin addicts by telling them "not to do it".

I find it awfully funny when people argue that you "can" "potentially" get pregnant while using contraceptives. Well, this is entirely true. You can also be killed in a car accident while wearing a seatbelt. We wear seatbelts AND condoms not because they are 100% guarantees of anything - but because we're not going to stop driving and copulating.

Tell your own children not to have sex - see how well that works out for you. But when you interfere with other people taking saner and more effective approaches to the problem, then YOU are causing more unwanted pregnancies with your enacting of policy. If you want to see less abortions, then DO something about it - by allowing people to make meaningful steps to avoid unwanted pregnancies to begin with.

This is a prime example of why our founding fathers wanted all religious doctrine kept out of government...

1: Heroin addicts are addicted to a chemical substance, so thats a bad analogy.
2: At no point did I say that you should never ever teach contraceptives, or if I sounded like it that wasn't my intent.
3: The "they'll do it anyway" argument is part of the problem, as all it accomplishes is to cut parents out of the equation and make them the enemy.
4: The seperation of church and state was to protect the church, not the state, and you would be hard pressed to find major elements of the constitution that weren't influenced by Judeo-Christian religion. I will also repeat, I am not a religious person, I am an agnostic.

[JimMorrison]

1: Heroin addicts are addicted to a chemical substance, so thats a bad analogy.
2: At no point did I say that you should never ever teach contraceptives, or if I sounded like it that wasn't my intent.
3: The "they'll do it anyway" argument is part of the problem, as all it accomplishes is to cut parents out of the equation and make them the enemy.
4: The seperation of church and state was to protect the church, not the state, and you would be hard pressed to find major elements of the constitution that weren't influenced by Judeo-Christian religion. I will also repeat, I am not a religious person, I am an agnostic.


1) In fact, it's a perfect analogy. Our bodies and our brains secrete hormones, which are chemicals, which create urges to perform natural acts, such as engage in sexual intercourse. This further causes the release of pheremones, which are habit forming.

2) Well I'm glad that you are reasonable on this particular subject. However the majority of the people who preach abstinence are also 100% against contraception. Also, the point is that it doesn't matter what study you find that shows x% of people using contraception become pregnant. This will always be irrelevant in the face of the numbers that simply show that looking at the population as a whole, teaching the use of contraception is significantly more effective at reducing the rate of teen and unwanted pregnancies, than abstinence alone.

3) Parents are not "an" enemy, and young people "will" have sex. When adults are forbidden to have sex (read: priests, monks, etc), we find that many of them do anyways. In fact, there is a growing body of evidence that repressing sexual desires leads to perversion and illicit practices, while embracing sexual desires tends mostly to lead to great pleasure. ;)

4) This is a cyclical argument actually, and so it is quite arguable that the separation of church and state was intended to protect both. Besides, the second part of what I stated was that if religious extremists push through enough doctrine into law, then the backlash will ultimately be somewhat harsh. This implies that protecting the state from interference from the church, is the only way to insure that the church is free from interference from the state. The problem being that evangelical Christians supposedly make up ~30% of the US population. They form the backbone of the Republican party, and they use that power to put a lot of pressure on Washington. The current atmosphere in America, among the other 70% of the population ranges from "agreement on some points", to "outright disgust and derision", and the situation is degrading rapidly. It is only a matter of time before it is deemed that the government must take steps to reduce the ability of the church to affect the efficient and effective governance of the people.



And seriously - with all of the vastly more pressing issues in our country today, you would let your vote be determined by such a ridiculously miniscule social issue? As if the "to condom, or not condom" argument is just so much more important than foreign affairs, our crumbling economy, our distressed energy policy, our predatory corporate regime, or corruption of our elected officials?

That's the beauty of the current 2 party smokescreen - to get you more concerned about petty personal differences, than you are about the real problems and issues facing this nation, and this world.

[Gandalf Parker]

Personally voting is fairly easy for me. I dont consider either party to be right ENOUGH to make too many changes. So I consider myself a "Toggle Party" member. Whoever has been making the laws for awhile, I vote the other direction. Give things a chance to balance out in the middle. :)

[quantum_mechani]

I just would like to point out that Palin is also strongly opposed by Batman

Wow, that pic is astoundingly creepy.

[Trumanator]

Yeah, the pic is crazy...and definitely an awesome photoshop job :up: The funny thing is if you google Dark Knight or Batman politics you end up with some very interesting stuff from way fringe left websites about how much a product of the corporate and bourgeouis (spl?) conspiracy it is.

@JimMorrison- While I agree with you in essence regarding priests and such, I maintain that it is quite possible for parents to prevent their kids from having sex when they (the kids) aren't ready. I've managed to control myself, so has my bro, so have plenty of other kids. I'm mainly talking about high school here. Teaching contraceptives might be useful, but as the article I linked to explains, that doesn't work if the kids aren't being taught about how/when to be a parent. I will agree though that some of the insanely restrictive parents/organizations/whatevers only drive kids away.

You might be worried about the "religous right", but I think that there are fewer of them than their press and such would make you think. Despite this, I think you are starting to sound like hyperbole when you talk about how they will turn religous doctrine into law. Looking at Britain though, I am worried. When the head of the british church starts talking about instituting Sharia...you have a major assimilation problem, not to mention the effect on culture, or law and order.

[JimMorrison]

@JimMorrison- While I agree with you in essence regarding priests and such, I maintain that it is quite possible for parents to prevent their kids from having sex when they (the kids) aren't ready. I've managed to control myself, so has my bro, so have plenty of other kids. I'm mainly talking about high school here. Teaching contraceptives might be useful, but as the article I linked to explains, that doesn't work if the kids aren't being taught about how/when to be a parent. I will agree though that some of the insanely restrictive parents/organizations/whatevers only drive kids away.


Oh it's true. It always pleases me, with my designated leftist views, when I can find some sort of middle ground with someone much further towards the right. :happy: And I completely agree with your point - I feel that young people should be taught in great detail about the world, and their choices. I see no reason whatsoever not to try to stress the idea of abstinence, but I simply find it foolish not to cover all of the bases. Education is not a concept to be approached lightly - not in any way, especially when it involves people's livelihood, and lifestyle choices. To be perfectly clear, I do also believe that if sex (and post sex) education were thorough enough, more people would wait a bit longer before diving into the pool. When I was poking around, the thing that stood out was the very sharp division in pregnancy rates between teens who became sexually active before the age of 15, and those who did so at 15 or older. So in essence, delaying what is often "the inevitable" is certainly a step in the right direction. Beyond that..... well, I've said for many years that our current systems of corporate servitude and nuclear families are contributing greatly to the decline in sensibility in Americans.

Imagine when you have extended families and more communal living situations, that only a few people in the collected group need to be outstandingly sensible and wise. The point is to rely on those few to impress enough of their understanding on the others, that they become stable, well adjusted individuals. When you remove that influence by compartmentalizing all nucleic familial units (I may have just invented that term), you remove that influence from the vast majority of the population. Thus, you wind up with the same rate of extremely calm and wise people - but the average level of those same attributes declines in the population at large. Children are very fast, and very keen to pick and choose what they can from those around them - I very much feel that we need to find ways to allow more children to be influenced by more varied figures in their lives, and the benefit will compound over time.

So that said, I don't believe the Republican party knows, or does the slightest bit of good for family values. They figure if they brand "anti gay marriage", and "anti choice" as "family values", that it will win them votes. Obviously the sad comment there, is that it does.

[HoneyBadger]

I understand that we're talking about kids having sex before they're ready. I don't have kids of my own, so I'm not quite fit to preach about when they'll be ready, but what I can and *will* preach about is sex vs. violence, because that's a real mess, and it's caused a great many of the problems that we're debating here, and it should be addressed.

In my lifetime I have personally witnessed a grave inbalance between what level of public sexual expression is permitted in our society, and what level of public violent expression is permitted--and it always bothers me when people start throwing around the 'abstinence' argument, because it's like arguing that people should abstain from ever eating fish because they might choke on a bone.

I'd just like to point out, after years of having sex, trying to have sex, doing without sex, thinking about sex, learning about sex, teaching others about sex, promoting sex, and generally appreciating the hell out of my body's sex drive, that sex is actually a really good thing!

Sex is not wrong, or evil, or the Devil. Sex is not your enemy. Sex will not murder your children or burn your churches to the ground, or rob you, or destroy your livelihood. Those things require violence-even if it's the violence done by STDs.

Don't pretend that I'm saying that violence is automatically wrong. Anyone capable of reading this post and understanding it knows the kinds of violence I'm talking about-and that I'm not talking about a backyard game of football where somebody twisted their ankle, or going deer hunting, or self defense, martial arts, or even certain acts of war. I'm talking about rape, torture, arson, assault, disfigurement, devastation, murder.

I'm talking about choosing to bring destruction and harm to another human being, for your own motives and agenda. And I'm talking about the fact that those things are used for purposes of popular entertainment in our society, while sex is treated like a grotesque underground addiction.

And I'm not here to talk *against* violence, I'm just saying that the balance between acceptible sex and acceptible violence is way, way, way off.

To give you an example: I bought a copy of 'Diablo 2' at Walmart. If you haven't played it, it's a fairly violent game. They refuse to sell *any* game with even simple nudity in it, let alone sex.

These three things are undeniable facts: Sex causes life. Lack of sex ensures extinction. Violence, taken to extremes, can cause death and pain and fear and horror.

Yes I know, that's an astonishing and utterly disturbing view for an American to have, especially a middle-aged, white, married American, raised Christian and living in a generally Right-winged state.

But honestly--sex is awesome! It's good clean fun, too. I've never caught or spread a disease, I've never gotten anybody pregnant, I've never raped anyone or had anyone rape me. No children were involved.

It's even good for you. It's healthy, both physically and psychologically. It helps develope emotional intimacy with someone you care about and respect. It builds confidence and self-esteem. I'm a better person for having had sex, and I'm going to continue to have sex for as long as physically possible--and recent studies show that the more sex a man has, the longer he's likely to live, so I'll probably be having sex for a long, long time.

Sex hasn't caused me to develope alchoholism, a drug dependency, a gambling problem, or a history of violence. As a home owner, a tax payer, a registered voter, and a full time employee, sex helps me deal with the stress of my busy schedule and hectic work-week. Although I enjoy sex on a regular basis, I have never woken up in a gutter after having sex. I've never skipped a meal or failed to take my daily vitamins because of sex. I've never held up a convenience store in order to pay for sex-nor have I ever paid for sex. Sex has not alienated me from my friends and family, nor has it caused me to isolate myself from the outside world.

Sex has not caused me to turn my back on spirituality, or denied me a relationship with God. I do not use sex, or lack of sex, as an excuse for my failings. I do not profess that sex is the answer to my problems, nor do I attempt to convert the chaste to my way of thinking. I have never had sex with a virgin.

I understand that the act of consentual sex has caused deaths, but I have never heard anyone complain that those deaths were a bad way to die. It is my further understanding that sex has led to far more life than death. I do not consider a life filled with sex to be bleak or empty. I do not consider sex to be disgusting or wrong. I do not consider sex to be what's wrong with the world, or what's wrong with people. Many of the best people I know and admire have had sex-and I would rather have sex with someone I knew and admired than with a stranger, or with someone I disliked or pitied. I consider sex to be a beautiful gift, wonderful entertainment, and stimulating exercise.

Sex has not interfered with my education, or prevented me from graduating highschool. My parents had sex, and I still love, cherish, and respect them. If I ever have kids, and they have sex, I will still love and cherish and respect them, I promise you. I won't tell them not to have sex, or that sex is a bad thing. I will educate any children that I have to the utmost limit of my ability, and beyond, about the world they are entering, and every single facet of it, and I will not lie to them about it, because I wouldn't want them to remain children forever, nor would I want them entering that world while operating under untruths, non-facts, or false beliefs.

I recognise that the world can be a dangerous place, and that I have made it less dangerous for myself by educating myself-I would want them to be educated, too. I would expect them to use the education I give them, and my support, to make their lives as rich and full as possible. I would want grandchildren someday, and if I never have them, I will feel the loss.

I will not blame someone, or call someone a murderer, for having an abortion. I will not do these things because I hold that being a parent is a sacred responsibility, and if someone chooses to have an abortion, it is a clear and obvious sign that that person is not ready at that time to be a parent, and therefore should not be. There may be better ways to express that than having an abortion, but there are better ways to do many things which we as a species do by violence. I would not recommend abortion to anyone, but I also would not advocate killing them in order that they not abort. I would not advocate killing a medical doctor because that doctor has performed an abortion, or many abortions, because I just don't believe an unknown factor can outweigh a lifetime of experience.

I am neither pro choice nor am I pro life. I am pro birth control, and pro education, and pro love, and pro acceptance. I don't believe that you can do any good in this world by hating someone. I also believe that the more righteous you feel about doing something you'd objectively consider to be a wrong thing, the more likely you are to, infact, be wrong.

I don't believe that I'm qualified to make choices about a woman's body, or about anyone else's body, for that matter. I don't even trust my own doctor all that far.

I do believe that violence is an answer, and sometimes it is the only answer, and that it is still the wrong answer more often than it is the right one. I also believe that sex is *much* more family-oriented than violence. Without sex, there would be no families, and without violence, there were be a lot more of them, and stronger, and better.

I think violence should be X-rated. I think you should have to go downtown in a major city, and sit in a seedy little theater in a trenchcoat and sunglasses in order to witness extreme, graphic, irresponsible forms of violence, and that you should have to be atleast 25 years of age to get in. I think when you leave that theater, you should feel dirty, and ashamed.

I've had nightmares because of violent acts which I have witnessed, or committed. I've never had a nightmare about sex. Ever.

I'm proud of having had sex with people that I loved, and I'm ashamed of having committed violence against people that I loved.

But I am not a pacifist, and I do not reject violence. I do fear it though, and respect it, and I urge you to do the same. And while I do very much respect sex, I do not fear it, and I urge you not to. It's where you came from. If you also came from violence, then I appologise for the world we live in. I do not appologise for sex, however, unless it wasn't very good...

I believe that sex should only be between two consenting sentient, reasonably educated adults-of any species, race, creed, religion, color, gender, political view, or other designation you care to come up with.

I further believe that sex between two consenting sentient, reasonably educated adults-of any species, race, creed, religion, color, gender, political view, or other designation you care to come up with-is not only right, it's awesome!

It is my most firmly held belief that abstinence makes the heart grow bitter. It is also my belief and experience that life is much better and worthier, much more sacred and right and good and precious, if you don't spend it denying yourself or others happiness, pleasure, sensuality, compassion, or acceptance.

And if everybody abstains, if nobody's having sex, the human race will cease to be.
Off the top of my head, I can't think of a single other popular piece of advice to guide young people through their difficult lives-other than abstinence-that will, if every one of those young people follows it, result in the extinction of the human race itself.

I mean, even if they all jumped off a bridge together, a few of them will probably survive the fall...

I accept that any god or gods concerning themselves with this post know whether I am right or wrong in my beliefs, but that anyone else reading it is *not* God, and thus not fit to judge me, or anyone else, while I'm still alive.

[Trumanator]

Wow, I didn't expect that kind of feeling and such out of this thread. Kudos to HoneyBadger. That said, I think we are in some agreement. I do occasionally play violent games like Diablo 2, but not very often, and I don't know if I presently own any. I do think that some violence in games is okay, but I agree that some take it entirely too far. I also dislike movies with a lot of violence, but no greater point (300). I do though like movies such as Saving Private Ryan or We Were Soldiers, as they have an actual message to tell. I'm tired of the sex argument but on the whole am with you except for abortion. I wouldn't advocate killing people over it though.

[JimMorrison]

Actually, the movie '300' was about the indomitable human spirit. It was a message about overcoming great obstacles through self discipline and pride in one's self.

Granted, it attempted to bring those messages to the lowest common denominator, but hey - at least the protagonists of the film were not the senselessly violent ones, they were defending their people and way of life. ;)

[HoneyBadger]

And 300 was very sexual, too, a balance was achieved between the two, and the sex was portrayed as part of the continuation of the society, every bit as much as the violence was-and I respect that it didn't shy away from suggesting that a homosexual relationship was possible between two very strong, confident, and *masculine* male protagonists. You don't see a whole lot of heroic gay people in our media, and when you do, they're usually in drag. That's fine if a character likes to dress in drag, but not when it becomes a steriotype for all gays, everywhere.

[Aapeli]

What Ive noticed down (or up, its all relative) here in Finland is that somehow donald duck seems to win every presidential election. Now I never voted for him nor did any of my friends but it just suprises me how many bother to cast a vote for him. They wrote an article to magasine about this weird phenomenom of the huge amounts of votes to fictional characters including superman and batman too.

[HoneyBadger]

Well, Donald's got a military backgound in the Navy, and a firm thumb on the issues-and he's a lot more coherant than George W. Not as Daffy though...

[Agema]

300 is not really about anything.

There's nothing in it more complex than Commando, Rocky 4, or Independence Day. Like Frank Miller's other work Sin City, 300 is essentially just a very stylishly presented fantasy targetted for the mindset of adolescent males. Although at least it's less misogynistic than Sin City.

[Tifone]

300 is not really about anything.

There's nothing in it more complex than Commando, Rocky 4, or Independence Day. Like Frank Miller's other work Sin City, 300 is essentially just a very stylishly presented fantasy targetted for the mindset of adolescent males. Although at least it's less misogynistic than Sin City.

IMHO, totally wrong.

300 depicts the nationalist ideals. It depicts them in a very fascinating way: we all know they are dangerous, but looking at the movie we understand how they have charmed (I'd say, infected) many minds in recent times.
The Heroes of the Native Land are handsome, strong, fearless heroes, which women are beautiful and corageous.
Politicians are a) corrupted slugs or b) useless and incapable of doing anything. It requires the Dux/Fuhrer (Leonidas), the Man of Action to achieve anything.
Traitors are deformed beings.
The foreigner has wicked and sinful costumes and way of lives, the melting pot of cultures doesn't enrich him but make him just weird.
Etc...

This is what the film shows and says. I much appreciated it - I fear and dislike nationalism, but the movie depicts it very well. - Together with the great and strong visual art of gore and fighting scenes with rock music in them ;)

PS: Rocky 4 is a somewhat ****y movie, but taken has "historical document" is very interesting. It shows a low-level occidental heroic propaganda which, even being quite humorous with today's eyes, was of great effect in these times of Cold War.

Best wishes ;)

[HoneyBadger]

I think 300 has a lot to say about how we view ourselves, and that it says it with irony, and satire.

You'll note one part where the Spartans jeer the "boy-loving" Athenians, and yet they, as a society, were even more guilty than the Athenians were. If you take the whole movie like that, yes in a sense it's nationalist propaganda, but on another level, it questions that nationalism-even going so far as to make the one surviving member of the '300' lose an eye. With only one eye, he symbolizes only one outlook, one side to the story. And taken symbolically as a cyclops (which is valid, since these are Greeks), he becomes larger than life, a drunkard, and an 'eater of men'.

I realize it's somewhat of a stretch to suggest that's what's meant, but who's to say it's not what Frank Miller had in mind?

[Tifone]

Ok, we went far off topic, today's polls said 47% obama, 43 % "potatoes" maccain iirc ;) (10% obviously undecided or third party)

[JimMorrison]

Ok, we went far off topic, today's polls said 47% obama, 43 % "potatoes" maccain iirc ;) (10% obviously undecided or third party)

That is far too close. It makes half the nation appear completely insane. That is, if we gave them the benefit of the doubt 4 years ago, and didn't declare them insane for putting the Bushman back in. o.O

[HoneyBadger]

Jim, you fail to see that potatoes are nutritious and delicious, full of healthy vitamins, fiber, and powerful anti-oxidants. They've been proven time and again, in a million recipes, as *the* candidate capable of carrying a meal, and our nation, through the hardest of circumstances. They're versatile and handy-a potato makes removing a broken lightbulb a snap-and they're a friend to the working-man: potatoes are the primary ingredient in vodka and fries, popular at any blue-collar sporting event. Potatoes are patriots, featuring in both "freedom fries", and the American Indian invention, potato chips. Unlike Mccain, they were born right here in America-albeit South America.

Potatoes are both earthy and worldly, a boost to both foreign relations and our domestic GNP.
Potatoes are the candidate with the most substance. While McCain may be full of fiber and calorie-rich, he's hardly delicious, and probably tough-requiring an extended cooking time to achieve tenderness and proper succulence, and Obama-delicious and chock full of anti-oxidants though he may be, is clearly too lean and stringy to satisfy all our cravings.

[Ballbarian]

I will be voting for McCain. Am I going to try to convince others to do otherwise? No. Am I going to go into a long tirade as to why? No. Am I insane? Maybe, but I am also quite sure of my opinions and views. In the past, I was a Clinton supporter (Mr, not Mrs), but the Iraq War is the primary basis for my choice in the current election.

I am one of those people that asks to be removed from the list when a poll worker calls with a survey. I have never worked to campaign for anyone and likely never will. I have very little faith in the media and even less in the internet media, and I consider polls to be a joke. From my own little speck on the world map, it looks more like a 50/50 split and I would never be so arrogant as to accuse my neighbor of being an idiot or insane because his views on this election differed from my own.

Feel free to discuss and express your own views and opinions, but please be respectful of the views and opinions of others in the process.

[JimMorrison]

Jim, you fail to see that potatoes are nutritious and delicious, full of healthy vitamins, fiber, and powerful anti-oxidants. They've been proven time and again, in a million recipes, as *the* candidate capable of carrying a meal, and our nation, through the hardest of circumstances. They're versatile and handy-a potato makes removing a broken lightbulb a snap-and they're a friend to the working-man: potatoes are the primary ingredient in vodka and fries, popular at any blue-collar sporting event. Potatoes are patriots, featuring in both "freedom fries", and the American Indian invention, potato chips. Unlike Mccain, they were born right here in America-albeit South America.

I'm allergic to potatoes.



And Ballbarian, with all due respect, you are portraying what is in fact wrong with the current paradigm. You lead an insular, purposefully shortsighted (as regards politics) life. I am sure you do so to save yourself undue distress over all of the argument and confusion. However, at the end of the day, you still consider yourself qualified - and deserving of your vote, as it affects many millions, if not billions of people.

Forgive me for the implications here, but when someone expects the right to cast a vote on such enormously important issues, but intentionally reduces their exposure to the facts and realities surrounding those issues - is in some way insane.

Are we all insane? Actually, yes I believe we are, all of us, in our own individual ways. It doesn't make anyone in particular a bad person, that is a product of how we handle our insanity, and how responsible we are in gathering information, and acting upon that information. It just seems wildly irresponsible to me that anyone who is well informed about the state of the union (and the world at large) could consider GW Bush, or McCain to be in any shape or form beneficial in office.


As a student of the world, I find both parties to engage in many shameful acts, and to be gravely lacking in many attributes that are necessary for this nation to progress in meaningful ways, towards a responsible and sustainable future. However, if you placed an arbitrary center point between McCain and Obama, plotting a line would leave McCain as regressive, and Obama as progressive.

Again, the main problems are not the candidates, but the system itself. But McCain loves the system, and wants to encourage corporate feudalism. Obama at least pretends otherwise. But I do not believe either of them are what we really need to survive and flourish.

So, do I think that you are a bad person, Ballbarian? Absolutely not. But neither do I think that you should in conscience vote for president, either.

<3

[Agema]

I just watched Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric, and the idea of Palin being near power scares me. That she clearly knows nothing about foreign affairs isn't a surprise, as she's been plucked from nowhere to be VP candidate. But I was at least expecting her to be able to bull**** fluently to cover her ignorance, and she didn't even manage that.

[lch]

Ok, we went far off topic
Hey, now! :D

What was 300 again? That movie with the excessive use of blue tint? With the slow-mo camera effect and focus whenever a spear pierces through a chest? Where they construct a wall out of human corpses from their slain enemies? That movie?

[Azselendor]

I find it hard to believe that anyone who is well informed about national+world affairs could possibly vote for McCain. I'm not pushing Obama, but the McCain+Palin ticket just seems like an expensive prostitute with large hands and an adam's apple.

:shock:


My concerns with McCain is that this man has over 1000 pages in his medical file that has not been released -- and we know he's had all 4 types of skin cancer, a foul temper, and half a dozen other medical ailments. If he relapses on cancer, he would be incapacitated outright and for the handful of times Palin did open her mouth, she underscores her inexperience.

The next thing is McCain's military record. Only 17 pages out of at least 630 have been released. The rest needs to be released as his fiction of turning down an admiral's promotion after 2 years as captain needs to be set straight.

His economic adviser, Phil Gramm, despite resigning still advises mccain on economic issues and his part in the current economic collapse cannot be ignored.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Gramm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm-Leach-Bliley_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass-Steagall_Act

As for Mccain being an enviromentalist, looka t his voting record on it. It makes Al Gore stay up at night in his swimming floating wings.

then finally, we have troubling news about Mt. McCain and that he may be getting close to eruption.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1rZBmk0DYU

While I don't care for obama's resume (and mostly lack thereof), McCain was a horrible presidential nomination.

[Ballbarian]

*snip*
However, at the end of the day, you still consider yourself qualified - and deserving of your vote, as it affects many millions, if not billions of people.

Forgive me for the implications here, but when someone expects the right to cast a vote on such enormously important issues, but intentionally reduces their exposure to the facts and realities surrounding those issues - is in some way insane.
*snip*
But neither do I think that you should in conscience vote for president, either.


You have misread my post if you believe that I am uninformed or otherwise close minded. Or perhaps it is just that I must be uninformed if my views do not coincide with yours? I wonder if I am misreading your post. Are you actually saying that I should not have a right to cast a vote because you disagree with me? Ever heard of democracy and universal suffrage Mr. Stalin?

Ok, forget the Mr. Stalin crack. I don't think you are a bad person either Jim. But I do think that you missed the point of my previous post. If I had to highlight one thought to get across the point I was trying to make, it would be:

"Feel free to discuss and express your own views and opinions, but please be respectful of the views and opinions of others in the process."

I take my right to vote very seriously and any insinuation that I do not deserve to exercise that right because of my views just flabbergasts me.

[JimMorrison]

I'm going to chalk it up as reading too much into certain statements regarding how you felt about the media. ;) I've been straining at my leash the last few days, and am maybe a bit too trigger happy.

And I do believe in dissidence - for without it we never get clarity. Your left eye will never agree exactly with your right eye, but you just need to make sure they both are seeing the same thing. ;)

[HoneyBadger]

The Republicans remind me a bit of the Dahomey. The Dahomey got an enormous amount of money by selling their fellow countrymen to Europeans as slaves-an unfortunate business that the US was involved in. They then turned around and used that money to buy cheap guns (which did help them secure their position in the short-term), and cheap liquor (which had all the benefits on society that cheap liquor traditionally imparts), and they kept on down that garden path of joy until the nations around them rose up, united in disgust and hatred and outrage, and thus ended the Dahomey Empire.

I, unlike many, have never been as bothered by the arrogance, insensitivity, and immorality displayed by the current regime, as I have been extremely bothered by their incompetence, short-sightedness, and unwillingness to give the American people a reason *not* to vote them out of power. If you're going to take advantage of power, then I can accept that-I even have learned to expect it. But do it in a way that atleast inspires *some* level of confidence-It's not that they're evil, it's that they can't handle power-Nixon could handle power, and J Edgar Hoover, to give you an example. Not what most people would call saints, but definitely competent and in control. Ultimately, they ended their careers ignominiously, but they were admirable power-keepers. The current regine is just sloppy and clumsy, and like the Dahomey, they're making of themselves a target, for no really good reason, because they can't handle being in charge.

The American people-honestly, we don't need our leaders to be heroes, or moral-look at the presidential careers of Ulysses S. Grant and Jimmi Carter-we just need them to give the *impression* that they are, publically, and to keep the trains running on time. If they happen to *be* heroes, or good looking, or both, we'll worship them (JFK)-but we still need to know that the country's in strong hands, sure hands, if not always *good* hands-and George W, and Cheney don't even compete in the looks department, and they're laughable as heroes, so their incompetence and shoddy handling of disasters-that they honestly might have taken steps to prevent before they happened, just cannot be excused away.

[thejeff]

OK, that attitude scares me.

Competent evil would be just fine?

If they were just good at keeping the major disasters down to a minimum you wouldn't care about the corruption, or the destruction we've wrought in far away countries?

[HoneyBadger]

Ofcourse not!-and that's not what I said. Please read what I've posted in it's entirety, before you reply to it-especially before you reply to it in such a hostile, antagonistic, irresponsible way.

Well, since you probably won't, and since I don't want everyone else who doesn't bother to think I'm some kind of satanistic evil-monger just because of your reply, what I actually *said* was that it didn't bother me *AS MUCH*.

What I mean by that is that having someone in power who's *capable* of looking out for their own interests-and if they're President of the United States, the majority of their interests certainly lie *with* the U.S., if not entirely within it-is more valuable than having someone who's not capable of doing so. The degree of goodness in their hearts notwithstanding, the main thing is that what needs to be done, gets done, and that the country be run well, and with pride. Compare that to our current regime, who've acted like a bunch of greedy stooges for the past 8 years.

It'd be great if Ghandi run for Presidency, but unfortunately, he's dead. So's Jesus and Buddha and Mother Theresa. All the saints and patriarchs? Dead, dead, dead. And God the Righteous and the Just has refused to run, so we're stuck with mere fallible humans to lead the country, and I'd rather have someone who could play the part of President convincingly, then be ashamed every time I turn on CNN.

And I didn't say just me, I said the American people (which does include me). Compare Clinton to Bush, with the full realization that Clinton was nearly impeached for something that had absolutely no effect on his ability to run the country-except possibly in a positive way, as a reducer of stress.

I'm tired of being embarrassed to be an American. I love my country, I love the ideals that it stands for, and the different people and ways of life it encompasses, and I'm tired of hearing from these little countries that our people had to *escape* from, in order just to live their lives, how we're all a bunch of screw-ups.

I want somebody in there who's basically a good person, ofcourse I do, but I also want somebody who's smart, who's a survivor, and who's got a real interest in being President.

Right now we don't *have* someone who's capable of keeping major disasters down to a minimum, so corruption here, and destruction in other countries, is secondary to that. I'm sorry if you don't feel the same way, but when my own house is on fire, I'm a little distracted by the fire-fighter who's saving my house, from his buddy who's stealing my tv--and I'm not paying close attention to the flood across town.

Sad to say, but I'd much rather have Nixon in office, than Bush.

When we have somebody in office who we don't have to worry so much about, then we'll be free to worry about other things.

[thejeff]

I reread your first post and it still reads that way to me, possibly because my opinion of our current administration is of corruption first and the stupidity and incompetence a distant second.

Most of the apparent stupidity seems to me to be more arrogance and the belief they're above the law. The kind of thing we see on display in the current banking crisis. We see CEOs running their financial empires into the ground and ask how could they have been so dumb not to see this coming, but they got their millions in bonuses in the good years and now they walk away from the ruin with more millions in severance. Who's dumb here?
Bush and Cheney have run the country into the ground and probably gotten away with it. They're started wars, funneled billions to their friends and saddled the country with the largest debts in history. If their interests lie with the US, that sounds stupid, but I've come to the conclusion that they don't. The Bush family has their new estates in Paraguay. Cheney'll be off to Halliburton's new headquarters in Dubai. What do they care?


I am glad it was a misinterpretation, though. I'd still rather have someone well-meaning, but out of their depth, than a competent crook. The competent crook can do far more damage.

[Skirmisher]

We are almost there.

[HoneyBadger]

yes it won't be long until...MY HAPPY NEKKID DANCE OF JOY!

[Gandalf Parker]

KNOCK ON VIRTUAL WOOD
I wouldnt tempt fate. He can still do some lasting things in his last days of office. Just look at the change he made to the Endangered Species Act. Now the branch in charge of dams will decide if a dam is harmful to the environment, the branch in charge of building military bases will decide if there is harmful impacts from it, etc.

[thejeff]

Of course, he will. For the moment he can still hurt McCain's chances. After the election, it'll be a free for all. No consequences for any last minute looting. And pardons all around if there's the slightest chance they'll be necessary.

[Skirmisher]

For the moment he can still hurt McCain's chances.

I think America knows that McCain is not the answer.:cool:
In any event we are going to find out real soon.


"If you don't vote, democracy doesn't work."

-Frank Zappa

[Gandalf Parker]

I wouldnt bet on what "America knows".
It might seem one way amoung a person and his peers,
but the polls show it to be an amazingly close race so far.

[Skirmisher]

I wouldnt bet on what "America knows".
It might seem one way amoung a person and his peers,
but the polls show it to be an amazingly close race so far.

I don't trust polls, they are used to mold public opinion. They just want to make the race seem close. McCain thinks what the current president is doing is just wonderful, the public does not.

[thejeff]

Yeah, but Obama's black.

That still counts a lot more than it should.

[Ballbarian]

I tend not to trust polls either (as I stated previously). They can be manipulated too easily by the crafter of the questions. In my own community it looks to be a close race.

I work in a county government office and you can bet that I get to hear a lot from the community about their political views. My primary function is as Deputy Treasurer / System Administrator (small county!) and I often work the elections just to help the County Clerk's Office when they are shorthanded so I get a fair amount of exposure to the public. In my state the governor is a Democrat but the tendency has been to elect Republicans. I for one tended to vote Democrat during the Clinton years, but have always prided myself on my independence (little 'i' as in not affiliated with any party). I find myself tempted over the last eight years of "Bush bashing" to vote a party line where a "D" next to your name guarantees that my vote goes to the other guy. I am sure that I won't go that route, but you might get a sense of my disgust with partisan politics in general. Both parties are guilty of it, but the constant undermining of the currently elected president (be he Democrat or Republican) pisses me off and tempts a retributive vote.

All that said, those who know me, know that I usually keep my political and religious views pretty close to the vest. I just find the silence of folks who share my point of view deafening (because I suspect that many don't frequent these boards) and I would hate for anyone reading this thread to think that everyone hated President Bush, wouldn't vote for John McCain, and disagreed with the decision to finish what was started in Iraq.

Will that make me the most popular fella on the forums? Probably not. But please know that I respect the views of all of the previous posters and even consider many of you friends. :)

(Oh, and for what it is worth, I don't give a rat's butt what color any of the candidates are.)

[Skirmisher]

What was started in Iraq should never have been started, it's a complete waste of human life and money. Now to say we have to stay the course and keep spending an incredible amount of money. Thats just dumb.
I can't agree with that line of thinking.
Current events indicate that Afghanistan isn't going so good. Iraq was the
administrations prime blunder. Surely Pakistan, a country that actually has nuclear weapons (and a whole lot of extremists) should have been considered first, no?

I don't see alot of people that are getting hit on the chin by this economy rushing out to vote for the old guy who believes this was all sound judgement. George W Bush's approval is at an all time low, and McCain will pay for that.
We needed this regime change 4 years ago.

Anyways I'd just like to say I respect everybodies right to an opinion.

[HoneyBadger]

I didn't think the war in Iraq was a blunder-a mess yes, but not a stupid mistake on the part of the Bush administration. War is never a mistake, when it comes to political favor. Even the Vietnam War didn't usher Nixon out of office.

And as far as Bush-bashing goes, the American people, as a whole, were *behind* Bush when 9/11 happened. The Iraq war sounded like a good idea then-we were going to get rid of Saddam, and the weapons of mass delusion, and then take out the terrorists, using Iraq as a staging ground.

My dad, for instance-an extremely bright and talented man, who's also quite reactionary and a lot more right-winged than I'm entirely comfortable with-loved and praised and defended Bush to me when he first entered office. For the several months in office, he was a "savior" and "the best man for the office", because he was going to whip the terrorists Texas-fashion (single-handed and bare-fisted, if need be), restore the country's pride in the whitehouse, and then lift our economy to unforseen new heights.

Now my dad hates him. Can't stand Bush. Misses Clinton-which at the time he couldn't stand.

Bush and his cabinet screwed the pooch. Plain and simple. If he and his followers had made better choices, people wouldn't *be* bashing him. It wasn't the war on terrorism that unmade Bush, it was Hurricane Katrina, and the gas prices, and the fact that even isolationist America doesn't like being spit on by other countries-and we really don't like it when the other countries have good reasons to spit on us.

Bush is a joke, because he's made of himself a laughing-stock. Not because he's Republican, or rich, or war-mongering, or any of those things. It's because he's a goofy bastard that can't do the job-and consistently rubs our faces in the fact that he can't do the job. The fact that Cheney managed to shoot his best friend in the face, while in office, didn't help things either.

Bashing Clinton because he had sex with an intern is lame, irrelevant, and sensationalist. Bashing Bush because his cronies let a bunch of Americans die unnecessarily, and made the world hate us, and are systematically destroying American businesses, the environment, and the Constitution, is just being sensible and patriotic.

I do know exactly what you mean, Ballbarian-I've lived under the same system you have, for over 30 years, and I'm open to your way of thinking. I don't like how irresponsible and irreverent-to-the-point-of-blasphemy-and-disgrace the media is, either, but there's a time and a place for questioning our leadership, as free citizens who are also responsible for the freedoms we have--and this is it.

And I'm hoping that the black thing will even itself out, actually--there are lots and lots of traditionally conservative states that also have large Black and Hispanic populations, and Utah's one of them. It might actually work in Obama's favor. I can see lots of people not wanting to vote for Obama, but I can't see that many people actually bothering to vote for Mccain.

[Agema]

I thought I'd also flag up two articles:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/business/31view.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

http://www.slate.com/id/2199810/


Both examine similar statistical measures. It's fascinating to see that apparently, the Democrats have historically done a better job of running the economy. Not only that, but the Republicans have also massively benefitted the wealthier compared to the poorer.

[capnq]

George W Bush's approval is at an all time lowAnd Congress' approval rating is even lower, yet an incumbent losing is rare enough to be major news.

Part of the problem is that a majority of voters in each district think their Congressmen are doing a good job, and it's all the idiots that the other districts keep electing to office that are screwing things up.

I've voted in every election since '82, yet I've never voted for either my current House Representative, or his predecessor.

[capnq]

Even the Vietnam War didn't usher Nixon out of office.But it did force Johnson not to run for re-election.

[Agema]

Sorry for the double post but...

We all know now that two of the most prominent reasons to invade Iraq (WMD, Saddam supporting terrorism) were a load of utter rubbish, and we were sold a pack of lies where contradictory evidence was removed and the evidence supporting it inflated. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are now dead (although things wouldn't have been much better under Saddam), thousands of servicemen from various countries are dead. It's incited terrorism against the West, and the country was heavily infested by Al-Qaida, which before it had no support there. It's still in near civil-war. And then there's the stuff like Abu Ghraib.

Iraq is not just a mess. It is a blunder. A vast, overwhelming blunder, which made the USA/UK look aggressive, hypocritical, and stupid. It has devastated our international respect and political power, and also shown the limitations of our military. The cost has been enormous as well.

Ballbarian stated "the constant undermining of the currently elected president (be he Democrat or Republican) pisses me off and tempts a retributive vote". Leaders are always undermined because that's just the way it is: they will have opponents and critics. But I'll tell you why this president is being particularly undermined. He has been awful, and his sub-30% approval ratings prove the point. Criticism is the stick that encourages good performance. If presidents (or anyone in any task) don't perform well, it's entirely right and proper people beat them with that stick.

[Azselendor]

One of this things this country needs is a law, preferably an amendment that states no elected office can be held for more than a certain amount of terms and none of them can be consecutive terms. America suffers amid stagnation of the political body

[lch]

Sorry for the double post but...

We all know now that two of the most prominent reasons to invade Iraq (WMD, Saddam supporting terrorism) were a load of utter rubbish, and we were sold a pack of lies where contradictory evidence was removed and the evidence supporting it inflated.
I will probably offend others and make me look like a lunatic, but I knew even before the fighting began that Saddam was a scapegoat and there were other interests at work. Rumsfeld's slip of the tongue on television where he mistook Saddam for bin Laden was a farce, and I thought "nobody is going to fall for that, right? right?" but evidently that thought was wrong. As bad as the Iraq leadership was, and as much as Saddam has openly threatened Israel, the Iraq was a sovereign country, and I don't accept the self-righteous act of overriding an U.N. decision by the U.S. government just because it differed with their opinion and because they can. It was a war of aggression from the U.S. and seeing how easily they ignored any other aspects instead of listening to reason with that tunnel vision made me fear who else would be safe from an overzealous attitude like that.

When 9/11 happened it was already clear, at least to some, that there was going to be a war. It wasn't possible that that terroristic act would go without a reaction. The way things jumped and gone head over heels didn't portray the U.S. in a good light, though. Rather like the school bully, if I wanted to express it in the least negative way. Let's hope the future leadership learns from that.

[HoneyBadger]

I completely and totally agree, Ich. Declairing war on Iraq as an act of aggression was one of the worst, most shameful things we've ever done as a country. Whatever the provocation may have been, it's something we've never done, and we could be proud of that.

[Gandalf Parker]

We all know now that two of the most prominent reasons to invade Iraq (WMD, Saddam supporting terrorism) were a load of utter rubbish, and we were sold a pack of lies where contradictory evidence was removed and the evidence supporting it inflated. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are now dead (although things wouldn't have been much better under Saddam), thousands of servicemen from various countries are dead. It's incited terrorism against the West, and the country was heavily infested by Al-Qaida, which before it had no support there. It's still in near civil-war. And then there's the stuff like Abu Ghraib.

I think that you are stepping into a land mine here.
I do agree with you (even more so since I feel there is never a good reason for one country to invade another country and taking out their leader even if it all had been true).

But you need to look closely at the arguments that have been given. When someone says it was not a mistake and then points at the polls, he is trying to say that it was apparently not a political error for that politician to do it. At the same calling it a blunder means he is agreeing that the reasons given for the action turned out to be false.

As much as it irritates me, I would have to agree with those. We as americans in general did not get nearly as ticked off at Bush about it as I wish we had.

Gandalf Parker
--
Its easy to understand.
Under the Democrats we will be the Federation.
Under the Republicans we will be the Ferrengi.

[Skirmisher]

[QUOTE=Agema;641417]
We as americans in general did not get nearly as ticked off at Bush about it as I wish we had.


Very good point here. Richard M Nixon was impeached for far less. George W Bush may be the worst US president ever.
He took a robust ecomony left by Bill Clinton and utterly ruined it. Now he's trying to ruin it more by passing that 700 billion dollar bail out. Why should ordinary people have to foot the bill for stupid decisions made by financial firms?
I'm glad they didn't pass it. :up:

[Azselendor]

This bailout is not some gesture to save the economy. It's a ploy to rule from the grave. By spending $700b out of the treasury, Bush will cripple any plans the next president or two plans to do. Doesn't matter if McCain or Obama wins as both would be limited to only what exists in the current budget.


Why is this a bad idea: David Corn summarizes the left's case against the bailout in this article (http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/davidcorn/2008/09/slowing-down-the-bailout.html). His main points are:


The taxpayers will not only bail out U.S. companies, but also foreign ones
Million-dollar-a-month CEO salaries will continue
The five-member oversight board will include three Bush appointees
Few home owners will be saved from foreclosure
There are no guarantees that the treasury will get warrants commensurate with its investment
There is no regulatory reform in the bill

[Edratman]

I am voting for Obama both with my checkbook and ballot.

Does he impress me as the absolute ideal candidate? No. But he is very intelligent and we have spent eight years with a president who is not intelligent. As for McCain, he strikes me as a man of mediocre intelligence who has skated through life using charisma, a broad smile, money and bluster.

Palin is not even worthy of standing in Hillary's shadow.

But my big question is, FDR where are you now that we need you again?

[Skirmisher]

George W Bush has been using fear on the american people ever since 9/11.

If you carefully look at all the evidence suurounding 9/11 ,it makes you wonder if it was really a terrorist attack. Those buildings seemed to come down in a controlled fashion. Like they were demolished along the main support beams.

Now he's using fear of economic collapse to attempt to pick our pockets.

[Azselendor]

Oh no, not this.

In a city full of sky scrapers, you don't want buildings tip over like dominoes. Builders have known this for over a century. All modern skyscrapers (I'd say mid-60's and on) are designed collapse in upon themselves in case of catastrophic structural collapse and fall in on their own supports instead of outwards. Ask any engineer who's designed a skyscraper.

[Skirmisher]

The jet fuel that was supposed to have caused the failure all went up in a big fireball upon impact. So how could it have caused that to happen?

[Azselendor]

First off you have heat from the fires which weakened the steel enough to allow the weight above the area of damage to push down enough to bend the remaining supports. Once the damaged steel gave an inch, gravity took the rest.

The next thing is that the plane didn't need to take out the supports, merely damage them enough to let gravity do the rest.

And this was damage caused by the sudden and quick halt of a jet liner slamming into a fix, immobile building.



We are a spoiled people, seeing so many big budget special effect films thrust upon us, we forget that the energy needed to destroy something is often far less then hollywood makes us think.

[Tifone]

Actually, I think if the big CIA wanted us to think that 9/11 was a terrorist attack to cover their "terror for 8 years plan", they would have made it much more hardly spottable that a simple "jet fuel wasn't hot enough to make the skyscrapers collapse". Just my opinion of course. Or maybe they did so, so now I think they wouldn't have... oh, never mind.

[Skirmisher]

I object to the contrived state of war we are in where there are no clear goals. And therefore no real way to win said war.

[Azselendor]

There is a way to win this war, but the way we are doing it isn't working. Bush's strategy is keep throwing wave after wave "surges" of men at the problem until its fixed.

The way we need to win this war is by establishing power grids, running water, basic services and what not. You don't win an occupation by occupying the enemy's territory, you win it by keeping your enemy occupied. We should've organized companies in Iraq to hire iraqis to do the reconstruction and pay them a fair wage instead of outsourcing everything and building what we wanted only and paying 1000% over top-bid.

It goes back to an old saying in the West. Whiskey for drink'n, water for fight'n.

[HoneyBadger]

One of the things I've read about Osama Bin Ladin is that he's spent a great deal of time and money making friends and helping people, to the point where a lot of people in the Middle East view him as something of a Robin Hood figure. He interacts with them, he helps them, he's one of them, and that's a big strength and power-base for him.

How much of that is the U.S. doing? How many of the actions that we've taken in the Middle East since the Gulf War started, that have put us in a really positive light? I'm sure a lot, but I'm worried about the blunt force and heavy handedness that's been employed. How hard are *we* trying to make friends with the "common people" in other countries? How much are we being viewed as "The Terrorist" over there?

I've read about how China is investing huge amounts of money in Africa, because it's one of the few places in the world that America and the European Union don't already have a lot going on in. Why don't we? There's incredible resources, incredible manpower, unstable governments, and we've got an African American running for office-and winning. It seems like something we should be doing, as a country, if only to make it more difficult for China.

The U.S. is real good at blowing stuff up and killing people in other countries, but we need to get better at making friends and doing business, world wide.

[Azselendor]

The sad reality of the present is that our government is far more interested in disrupting the progress of civilization than helping it along.

[Gandalf Parker]

While I have in the past suspected the US government of conveniently going to war just before re-election time, Im not ready to suspect something on this scale even from the big W.

[JimMorrison]

While I have in the past suspected the US government of conveniently going to war just before re-election time, Im not ready to suspect something on this scale even from the big W.

A) He said he wanted be a war-time president.
B) He always felt ashamed of his father's inability to unseat Hussein.
C) He considered himself a divine messenger, a warrior of the apocalypse. I don't think he went to war expecting public opinion to clinch the election - he went to war despite that, for very very personal reasons.

[Azselendor]

When I said disrupting the progress of civilization I'm referring to the sum of america's foreign policy since nixon.

As for Bush, He's done a fine job of stopping america's progress for a good long time.

[Edratman]

A very large concern I have with the Republican party is their demonizing of intellectuals. What kind of society can we expect to have when a person is elevated because they have lesser ability?

[Agema]

It's not quite that. It's not that Republicans are idiots or that their leaders don't enact a nuanced view of the world and embrace intellectual endeavour.

Politics can thrive on black and white. Present a simple picture of the world, and it can be very comforting as it's both easy to understand and can readily tie in with people's belief systems. On the other hand, if you present things as grey area, that there are many conflicting views, nuances and complexities it starts being much harder for people to grasp what is being advocated, and furthermore by accepting both sides it challenges belief systems.

I'd suggest many Republican voters like the world expressed in black in white, whereas intellectuals pretty much must be thinkers who dwell in grey areas. Consequently, there's a clash of attitudes, and it is worth Republican politicians playing up to their electorate.

All political groups tend to demonise certain sectors of the population when they perceive it will win them more support, the Democrats do it too.

[Edratman]

Agema, the process of demonizing a sector gets personal sometimes.

[Agema]

Agreed. I'm an academic, anti-intellectualism infuriates me.

I would guess intellectuals tend to vote Democrat and can count as political enemies. But whilst my (our?) sector usually just gets offhand, crowd-pleasing abuse, many other sectors really get it in the neck: serious abuse and prejudicial policies.

[Azselendor]

It's easier to convince the simple minded than the educated of a lie.

[Aapeli]

But it is harder for the simple minded to create a lie that is in any means convincing, wich I think is a good quality and in all means humane (I hope no one says its humane to lie).

[JimMorrison]

But it is harder for the simple minded to create a lie that is in any means convincing, wich I think is a good quality and in all means humane (I hope no one says its humane to lie).

However a number of our presidents have proven that the simple minded can adequately deliver a convincing lie - at least, a lie that is convincing enough for enough of the population to matter. ;)

[Atrocities]

I am not voting for Obama because I do not like his political ideology, nor do I trust a man who can go to a church for 20 years where hateful racial speech was conducted regularly and then say that he never heard it. Right. I do love Joe Biden despite his anti-gun stance. In fact I believe that Joe Biden is the best person for the top job on the democratic side. This year I will be supporting McCain and Palin. While I certainly do not like everything that McCain stands for or has done, I feel that he is a better choice for America than the Obama alternative. Despite McCains many flaws, he is at least, less dishonest than Obama and that gives him a slight advantage. I also like Palin very much. I think she is exactly what we need in Washington, and its about time we get it too.

Obama can stay in the senate where he can continue to do his duty in that special way that he does. And We get to keep Biden and McCain and gain Palin if John can win the election.

But given the vile voter fraud that is taking place in Ohio right now, I doubt McCain will win and in four years, we will have no choice but to fire Jimmy Cart #2 and find us a new Ronald Reagen.

[Atrocities]

Well, as far as I'm concerned Obama just doesn't have the qualifications. It's old hat to say this, but with Palin on the ticket that argument holds a lot less water. I am personally terrified of the idea of of Mcain winning and a heart attack later having Palin in command.

Not to offend any one, but I find this opinion, which is shared by many, to be odd. I fail to see how any one could be so frightened of Palin taking office when they support Obama.

Compare the two, Obama a three year senator who has spent the last year running for office compared to Palin, a women who has managed a large family, her own business, was a mayor and is now Governor of one of our largest energy producing states; Alaska. I think Palin is far more qualified to run our nation than Obama. Sure she isn't up to speed on all aspects of foreign policy and what not, but lets face it, she was and is up to speed on her job as Governor of Alaska and I am sure given the potential for a job change, will get up to speed on national and international issues within an acceptable amount of time.

This argument that Palin is somehow stupid because she is a down to earth friendly and likable women, who just so happens to be Governor of Alaska, is rubbish. She is not Tina Fey, nor is she Dan Quayle. And those who have been trying to say that she is are little more than paid hit men assigned to damage her reputation and convince Americans of a lie. A lie that none of us should be swallowing at any level. You don't get to become a governor unless you have the skills to lead and govern and do them well.

There is absolutely no doubt that Sarah Palin is far more qualified to run our nation than Senator Obama. Sure she's less qualified when compared to Biden or McCain but certainly more qualified that Obama.

In fact Obama shouldn't even be in consideration for this job, a VP position sure, but not the top Job in the land. That honor should have gone to Joe Biden.

[Atrocities]

Read my blog for even more right wing anti-left wing rhetoric. :D Link is in my signature.

[JimMorrison]

You don't get to become a governor unless you have the skills to lead and govern and do them well.


Are you serious....? What fairy tale world do you live in where we are assured that our public servants are capable, just because they landed in office?

If you can listen to her speak for 5 minutes, and not see the glaring problem, then I am not sure you will be able to overcome your bias while talking to a third party. Of course, I have felt the same way about our good ol' GW for a long time now, but somehow a whopping 18% of us actually still think he's doing a fine job.

[Atrocities]

You don't get to become a governor unless you have the skills to lead and govern and do them well.


Are you serious....? What fairy tale world do you live in where we are assured that our public servants are capable, just because they landed in office?

Yes I am serious and frankly I don't enjoy the tone of your comment in that it comes across as condescending to me because I support McCain and Palin. You do not have that right to talk down to me and I would expect that you would elect to reign in your sarcasm and think twice about how you speak to people in the future.

While a great amount of lead way is given in any heated discussion, when tongue in cheek comments are intended, it is best to validate them with sincere humor to avoid the propriety of condescendence.


If you can listen to her speak for 5 minutes, and not see the glaring problem, then I am not sure you will be able to overcome your bias while talking to a third party. Of course, I have felt the same way about our good ol' GW for a long time now, but somehow a whopping 18% of us actually still think he's doing a fine job.

I ask you to enlighten me as to what you believe the "glaring problem is." Are you mistaking her humble likability as weakness? Are you assuming that because she isn't a rude, obnoxious, blow hard, elitist, media vetted, Washington insider that she is somehow weak, pathetic, stupid, or unqualified?

I don't see her as a weak uneducated women with no qualifications to lead our nation as you apparently do, what I see is a women who is comfortable in her shoes. Oh sure a bit lacking in awareness of current issues both domestically as well as abroad, but again, thats not a weakness its simply that she hasn't been a Washington insider over the last few years.

I do not look down upon her because Tina Fey can carry off a good parody, a parody being the key phrase here, over a bad interview with Katty Couric. All politicians have their moments with the media that are then used against them time and time again. I do not believe Sarah Palin to be some dumb country bumpkin because of the way she talks, how her voice sounds, how she looks, how she acts, or how she answered Katty's questions. To do so is to be bias.

I honestly believe that the dislike for her comes from fear that she is weak because she doesn't sound like the other people from Washington DC. Look at how well those sorry a**ed elected officials have ran things over the last two years and then think to yourself about what defines real qualifications. The Democrats have had the power to make real change now for two years and they have done nothing. In fact they hold the lowest approval rating of any congress since the formation of our nation. If those people are the people to whom you are using as a yard stick to measure Sarah Palin's abilities and qualifications, then I would submit to you that perhaps you should consider a change.

Speaking of change, when Obama speaks about change, he does so as if he owns the word without having any real understanding of what change really means. He comes from the Chicago political machine, the good old boys factory, and he plays dirty politics with the best of em. His phrase, "change" along with his tactics are text book Che Guevara communism. So what does real change really mean when it comes from Senator Obama if his inspiration and indeed his entire campaign effort was rooted from socialism and backed by the hard core dirty tactic using Chicago political machine? It means that Obama doesn't represent change, he represents radical change. A radical change that would fundamentally and negatively alter our perception of who we are as nation. While Obama himself cannot affect major change, he coupled with the liberal democrats in congress could quite literally change the very fabric of our constitutional society. And that is something that cannot be aloud to happen for all of our sakes.

The liberal agenda is already known, no expression of religion, no gun rights, no conservative talk radio, no Fox News, more taxes, higher taxes, more restrictions on where we can go through oppressive environmental regulations. Forget about driving your car, assuming you could afford fuel, you wouldn't be able to pay the new taxes imposed upon its use.

It amazes me that liberals will shout from on high about the rights of people who's phone calls might be monitored as part of an ongoing anti-terrorism program, but say nothing about the fact that every single email that they have ever sent or received is achieved by their email provider. Where were the liberal rights advocates when Sarah Palin's email account was hacked? Had Obama's or even Biden's email accounts been hacked by the son of a republican state representative, holly hell would have been raised. But again, since it happened to Palin, nothing.

I say that this anti-Palin rhetoric is because it is okay to trash Palin since she is viewed by the media as being something of a Dan Quayle for which, in all reality, she is not.

McCain won't win in November and while I strongly disagree with Senator Obama's political ideology, I will support him, aside from his anti-military, anti-gun rights, and unacceptable tax increase initiatives. And come Nov 2012 I will look to the Republican party to put forth a real challenger and vote freedom and nation first in the hopes that we will defeat him and his democratic cohorts and then restore the rights and privileges lost to us during his reign as Czar.

If I am as you say, bias, then that is a welcome labeling that I will wear proudly.

[Skirmisher]

One thing is certain, every politician lies.

I was actually hoping that Huckabee would win over McLame.

[JimMorrison]

Okay, Atrocities, your tirade makes it apparent that you haven't read the rest of the thread, including my previous posts.

And anyway, my quote from you had nothing to do with Palin specifically. You made the assertion that somehow Palin's election to Governor, was proof positive of her abilities. I was exasperated that anyone could claim that by sheer virtue of holding an office, someone is magically gifted with the ability to perform well.

Personally, I think Palin is in WAY over their head as a Governor, and has no business in the White House at all - in an official capacity.


And come Nov 2012 I will look to the Republican party to put forth a real challenger and vote freedom and nation first in the hopes that we will defeat him and his democratic cohorts and then restore the rights and privileges lost to us during his reign as Czar.

You have got to be kidding me, seriously. Rights and privileges? Like the right to not be covertly surveyed without a warrant? The right to due legal process? The right to travel on the same continent without being treated like a criminal? The right to earn enough money to even HAVE a quality of life? The right to not have your government co-opted by corporate interests, in a burgeoning police state?

Yeah. I should vote Republican too, the party of civil liberties, and fiscal sensibility.


(PS- I love our two party system where any yahoo can walk into this thread and see me bash Palin, and automatically think that I am in love with Obama. Might read the part where I'm not a Democrat, you fuzzy and likable person.)

[Atrocities]

Now JimMorrison, where in my post did I make the assertion or accusation that you were either Democrat or an Obama supporter?

And anyway, my quote from you had nothing to do with Palin specifically. You made the assertion that somehow Palin's election to Governor, was proof positive of her abilities. I was exasperated that anyone could claim that by sheer virtue of holding an office, someone is magically gifted with the ability to perform well.

I made the connection because I was speaking about Palin and it was pretty clear that your comment was meant to be condescending. I am not an idiot so please don't attempt to play me for one.

Personally, I think Palin is in WAY over their head as a Governor, and has no business in the White House at all - in an official capacity.

I again ask you to explain, if you will, why you believe this. Its your opinion, so put some effort into it and explain it. Do you believe that she is under qualified to be a Governor because she is a women, or perhaps because she has a down to earth way of talking? Does your pernicious opinion of her have anything to do with how the liberal bias media has been treating her and her reputation? Do you believe that she is somehow lacking in the intelligence department because she doesn't speak like those oh so unsuccessful politicians from Washington DC? I just want to know the reasoning behind your opinion. Is there a reason or is it simply that you dislike her because you believe everyone else does? Its your opinion, please explain it.

You have got to be kidding me, seriously. Rights and privileges?

I was, when commenting about rights and privileges, referring to the second amendment.

Like the right to not be covertly surveyed without a warrant? The right to due legal process?

I am no fan of the Patriot Act and fear that has the potential to be horribly abused. If you dislike someones point of view, and you're in the white house, you could simply invoke the Patriot Act and charge that person to whom you disagree with as being a domestic terrorist and have them shipped off to God only knows where. Bush, to the best of my knowledge, hasn't abused the Patriot act domestically and I would demand proof from you if you say that he has. And please, not far left propaganda, actual concrete physical proof.

The right to travel on the same continent without being treated like a criminal? The right to earn enough money to even HAVE a quality of life? [/quote[

Now its my turn to say really. :)

The only examples that I can find of people being treated like criminals for traveling on "the same continent" are the arrests of drug traffickers, illegal aliens, known felons, and those involved in criminal activities. Of course these people should have the right to travel wherever they want without being treated like criminals even though by most laws they are. But that might depend upon what you mean by traveling on the same continent..

As to the earning money aspect of your above comment, unless you are referring to criminals or illegal aliens not having the right to earn enough money to even have a quality of life, I cannot find any instances of anyone being barred or prohibited from working and earning a wage.

[quote]The right to not have your government co-opted by corporate interests, in a burgeoning police state?

A police state. If you honestly believe that we are now living in a burgeoning police state just wait until after Obama takes office. Under his administration you will see some of the most restrictive anti-freedom laws take affect from attacks on the first and second amendment, to limiting your mobility through higher taxes on vehicles, fuel, licenses, and so on. You are only as free as the distance you can afford to travel.

You are right, I haven't read every single post in this thread, I am working my way through it through, so I don't know everything there is to know about what you or others have said. You see it takes time to get up to speed when there is so much to go through. But rest assured I will work my way through it, kinda like Sarah Palin is now doing with Washington DC politics. So if I make a gaff, step on someones toes or unintentionally get a fact or two wrong, I offer up a preemptive apology.

[JimMorrison]

You not only walked into this thread completely belligerent, but you are purposefully obtuse, and now I am quite convinced that you are just pushing my buttons so that you can point your finger at me when this thread devolves even further.

I'm just glad that the people who think like you, are in fact a shrinking minority, while awareness and rational thought are becoming more and more popular these days.

I honestly can't believe you think I dislike Palin for being a woman. So glad I'm not your psychoanalyst.....

[Bwaha]

I'm truly saddened that the media has fanned the fires of hatred. Those of us who are Americans should be able to debate freely without being hated. I think we need to fire the news anchors that are trying to demonize the other side. Also we need to fire all politicians who have served a term. To be in politics successfully you have to have a machine and money behind you. This means they control the politicians actions. This must stop before we lose our fine nation. Bwaha

[Azselendor]

Don't you just love political rhetoric

[Atrocities]

You not only walked into this thread completely belligerent, but you are purposefully obtuse, and now I am quite convinced that you are just pushing my buttons so that you can point your finger at me when this thread devolves even further.


This isn't about you. There are two types of people in this world, those who do for others, and those who do for themselves. You fall into the latter category since you believe that this whole discussion is all about you.

I needn't remind you that it was you who responded to my posts in a condescending tone that did little more than identify you as a hot headed, ill informed, fatuous with poor impulse control.

I am merely expressing my opinion within an open discussion on a topic of interest. If you feel pressured by my questions than please don't respond to my posts with pernicious type comments and expect to get away free and clear without challenge.

As to the thread devolving any further, I think you should stop trying to play the victim and review your own incendiary comments before you try and float the asinine accusation that my comments are somehow devolving this thread.

I'm just glad that the people who think like you, are in fact a shrinking minority, while awareness and rational thought are becoming more and more popular these days.

I honestly can't believe you think I dislike Palin for being a woman. So glad I'm not your psychoanalyst.....

The one constant in the universe is that when liberals are faced with an opposing point of view, in most cases the that being the truth, they, instead of participating in an open discussion, choose to attack those who express differing opinions. Now you can say that you are not a liberal, but your words and actions say otherwise.

And for the record, I never stated that "I" thought that you dislike Sarah Palin because she is a women. I left it up to you to say for yourself.

Given the tone of your comments and the lack of a meaningful response, I am left to wonder if you possess the basic discussion skill set of an educated individual to express ones motives behind ones opinion in an articulate and meaningful manor. I am therefore going to do you a favor. I am going to tell you why it is that some people believe that Sarah Palin is under qualified to be the Veep let alone the President.

According to those educated individuals who chose to state specifically why it is that they feel Sarah Palin is not qualified to be commander and chief is because she lacks a command presence.

You should, with your limited tunnel vision, be able to take it from their. And in the future I suggest that you keep your elitist inspired condescending tone in check.

[Gandalf Parker]

I think that the democrats need to un-republican the country abit so I really want to vote that way.

But I must admit that I really like some of the sexy pictures of Palin. Particularly the swim suit video when she was competing in the beauty contest. (yeah I know, not good reasoning. But its not much worse than some Ive seen here) :p

[Atrocities]

I just want to see someone elected to office who really cares about the people first and foremost. Someone who won't erode our constitutional rights, anger our allies, lie to us, or rather pass a lie to us. A leader who, like Harry Truman, Teddy Roosevelt, or JFK, has character and takes the heat when it gets hot and comes out on top putting the nation and our way of life first. It doesn't matter to me if the person is rep dem or indy, a man or a women, or what race they are. I just want what we had before it was taken from us before its completely gone for good. My last blog kinda spells out how I feel.

PS, Jim, I am not trying to push any ones buttons. I played it a bit hot in my last post, a bit of tit for tat so to speak, but really all I originally intended was to state my point of view and explain my motives for my opinions. If that got under your skin and pushed your buttons, it wasn't my intention.

[Bwaha]

What ticks me off is the constant lies that are taught in our schools. For instance tail gunner Joe McCarthy is portrayed as a villain, I've had arguments with my buddy's and they claim he was a member of HUAC. Not so my friends, he was a senator. Also his claims of soviet infiltration of the state dept. are a matter of historical fact. If you don't believe me check into the Verona decrypts. Now I'm not red baiter, but I read a fascinating but very dry book. I will get the title to you later, but it is the memoirs of a GRU general. Lastly my late friend Ted was a devout Maoist. We argued constantly but loved each other regardless of our political positions. :soap: :D

[JimMorrison]

I just want to see someone elected to office who really cares about the people first and foremost. Someone who won't erode our constitutional rights, anger our allies, lie to us, or rather pass a lie to us. A leader who, like Harry Truman, Teddy Roosevelt, or JFK, has character and takes the heat when it gets hot and comes out on top putting the nation and our way of life first. It doesn't matter to me if the person is rep dem or indy, a man or a women, or what race they are. I just want what we had before it was taken from us before its completely gone for good. My last blog kinda spells out how I feel.

PS, Jim, I am not trying to push any ones buttons. I played it a bit hot in my last post, a bit of tit for tat so to speak, but really all I originally intended was to state my point of view and explain my motives for my opinions. If that got under your skin and pushed your buttons, it wasn't my intention.


Thank you. I also apologize if my criticism of Palin as a political figure was harsh. If I had to put my finger on my problem with her (beyond the fact that she doesn't seem intelligent or informed at all), it's her religion. Not her specific religion - I would just like to see someone in our highest office that doesn't put their god, or conception of god first. I want someone who is not a Christian, or a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Buddhist, as both our President, and VP. I want them to put their country first - not their faith.

[Agema]

The US is supposed to be a free democracy: that means people should have freedom of views, and the free speech to express those views.

That Communists were trying to infiltrate the USA is irrelevant. The fact is that many of McCarthy's victims had done nothing wrong, he had no adequate evidence they'd done anything wrong, yet he ruined their lives, many even had to leave the USA. He did so because they had merely the barest of links to left-wing thought. He was a vicious bully; he was thought police; he was a force of oppression. That's why he is a villain, and even he caught as much as a whole spy ring he'd still be a villain.

[Bwaha]

Dear Agema, it was a group of house members that did this. Huac was a over-reaction. McCarthy was not a part of it. Historical fact. That you were taught this is exactly what I object to. Its not your fault that you've been taught untruths. I blame the teachers. Not all teachers indoctrinate their students, but rather teach them to think. These I approve of.:D

[Agema]

I wasn't taught McCarthy was part of HUAC.

He was a public face of anti-Communist hysteria, and I don't doubt he had indirect influence on them. He was chairman of committees which investigated public officials and devastated them without evidence, and carried out all sorts of horrors against free society, like banning books.

Frankly, it's abhorrent he should be rehabilitated. Particularly by the sorts of authors who normally rage about historical revisionism when it stands up for the left wing. But some people don't let hypocrisy get in the way.

It's a disgrace that people like Ann Coulter talk about liberals as "traitors". There can be nothing more narrow-minded, intolerant and socially divisive than to suggest people with differing political views are betraying the state. That is support for authoritarian rule, virtually indistinguishable from the sorts of things the Nazi and Soviet regimes did.

If that is what is acceptable policy for Republicans, then the party should be damned worldwide as a hotbed of fascism and unfit to exert any power in the free world. Thankfully though, I believe most Republicans find it as horrific and unacceptable as most of the rest of us.

[capnq]

Compare the two, Obama a three year senator who has spent the last year running for office compared to Palin, a women who has managed a large family, her own business, was a mayor and is now Governor of one of our largest energy producing states; Alaska.This kind of distorted, lop-sided "comparison" is one of the reasons I hate political arguments.

It's not fair look at Palin's entire life for qualifications, but only look at Obama's past three years.

[Agema]

Speaking of change, when Obama speaks about change, he does so as if he owns the word without having any real understanding of what change really means... His phrase, "change" along with his tactics are text book Che Guevara communism. So what does real change really mean when it comes from Senator Obama if his inspiration and indeed his entire campaign effort was rooted from socialism.

Che Guevara's tactics were those of armed revolution. Have you any hard evidence that Obama is planning to arm the common workers to militarily overthrow the bourgeoisie and exploitative ruling classes?

Please also bear in mind that the US mainstream left-wing Democrats are more right-wing than your average Western European mainstream right-wing, such as the British Conservative party or the French UMP. Positioning the Democrats as "socialist" or "communist" denies such statements of credibility, as Western Europe is clearly not in the grip of Marxism.

[lch]

Please also bear in mind that the US mainstream left-wing Democrats are more right-wing than your average Western European mainstream right-wing, such as the British Conservative party or the French UMP.
True.
Positioning the Democrats as "socialist" or "communist" denies such statements of credibility, as Western Europe is clearly not in the grip of Marxism.
And if it would be, would that necessarily be that bad a thing?
I keed, I keed... :p

[Azselendor]

Current debate tactics in america consist of setting up straw men and knocking them down. There are so many logical fallacies in the political discussion, america should be ashamed of itself.

Take this Rev. Wright issue. Yes, he said evil things about about america. Things I consider treason. But on the other side, how many fundamentalist neo cons are calling for the deaths of athiest americans or the expulsion of everyone non-white. Hell, Pat Robertson even called for nuclear strikes on Washington DC a few years back.

See my point.

if not, how about this

"...and the pot called the kettle black..."


The point is, US politics have devolved into a 3rd grade playground pissing contest.

[JimMorrison]

...The point is, US politics have devolved into a 3rd grade playground pissing contest.

Because the people who own our economy find it easier to conduct their business, when the populace are deluded into petting infighting and irrational anger.

Oh and I finally watched the VP debate last night, what a show. I'm amused by Palin's overuse of her cute little "heckuvalot", I wonder how many people are voting the McCain ticket because of her personality. What was the term? Down to earth? I guess that is neo-con speak for "un-intellectual". We all know the intellectuals will ruin the earth - what with their heretical scientific beliefs and all.

[Atrocities]

Compare the two, Obama a three year senator who has spent the last year running for office compared to Palin, a women who has managed a large family, her own business, was a mayor and is now Governor of one of our largest energy producing states; Alaska.This kind of distorted, lop-sided "comparison" is one of the reasons I hate political arguments.

It's not fair look at Palin's entire life for qualifications, but only look at Obama's past three years.

True. However it is only fair to point out that Palin is being forced to show ALL of her qualifications while Senator Obama isn't. It is lop sided. But by now we all know who we are going to support so all of this is really just cheap entertainment for us now. I am going to sit back and laugh at all the crap both sides is going to start flinging. Should be fun.

[Ballbarian]

The biggest problem with all of you intellectuals is that you think too damned much. :)

[JimMorrison]

The biggest problem with all of you intellectuals is that you think too damned much. :)

Tell me about it. It made me bald. :shock:


Also, I very much dislike the time limit for edits..... I'd like to change my odd typo of 'petting' to 'petty' as it was supposed to be. Spellcheck doesn't get these things. :doh:

[Azselendor]

There's a reason why there are so many sheep references in politics and religion.

A large part of this election is a final verdict on Washington itself. Obama's rise to fame wasn't for any reason other than many liberals and moderates out-right rejecting the last 8 years of washington DC politics. A lot of people are fed up, tired, hurting, and broke as a result of the incompetence in DC. They see several hundred entrenched career politicians and lobbiest and pundits doing nothing along with media outlets from Fox News and CNN acting more like tabloids than news outlets.

But they also see problems rising up let right and center and nothing being done to fix it except piles of money being chucked at it in the hopes we can bury it with debt.

So when someone new steps up and starts talking to them about things that matter, that someone is suddenly heard.



See, I've concluded American political affiliations really don't matter at this point. We all want someone to hear our plight and help us before we have to start wearing Hoover Hats once again.

And thanks to Bush-O-Nomics, it won't matter who wins the presidency as the next president MUST raise taxes.

[Agema]

True. However it is only fair to point out that Palin is being forced to show ALL of her qualifications while Senator Obama isn't. It is lop sided. But by now we all know who we are going to support so all of this is really just cheap entertainment for us now. I am going to sit back and laugh at all the crap both sides is going to start flinging. Should be fun.

This is sort of true and also sort of not true. His general experience is of a similar level to Palin's, and their capabilities as a statesmen and leaders, that may occur in decisions behind closed doors, is not clear.

However. Obama is a force. I don't live in the US, and I've known about him for several years as a major up-and-coming politician. In 3-4 years he's made a big impression. He campaigned so well he beat Clinton, who was a massively strong candidate, not just with pretty speeches but with solid organisation. Consequently, Obama has already proved he has leadership qualities, charisma, and can work in politics on a national and international level.

In contrast, Palin was completely obscure outside her home state, and it's a very low-population state. She had made little or no impact in the US never mind anywhere else, and was plucked out of nowhere for VP candidate.

That's really the difference. Obama has already been through the wringer and performed decently throughout, which means he has been tested. Palin has only just started to face tests, and she's already stumbled (such as her pretty incompetent Couric interview).

[JimMorrison]

But they also see problems rising up let right and center and nothing being done to fix it except piles of money being chucked at it in the hopes we can bury it with debt.


Because what happens when we are low on money? The "Federal Reserve" prints more, and "loans" it to us. Where do they get it? It's paper. Who are they? The heads of the largest banks in the world.

Eventually we will owe the Federal Reserve so much money, that they could declare the nation bankrupt, and attempt to seize the "hard assets" of the nation, in order to recoup their "losses" (of "paper" that they "loaned" us). We already gave them Fort Knox to "hold onto".

[llamabeast]

This isn't about you. There are two types of people in this world, those who do for others, and those who do for themselves.

I thought almost by definition that "left wing" referred to the former. and "right wing" referred to the latter.

*takes cover*

[llamabeast]

That was actually a naughtily provocative post by me, but it does bring up the issue of the fundamental differences between the left and right wings.

My understanding was something like this. The left wing believe everyone should be as equal as possible. Hence they try to help those who are not fortunate enough to look after themselves, improve public services and so on. This seems very laudable.

The right wing would argue that laudable as it might be, such socialism is flawed and doomed to misery. People will always sponge off a welfare state, and most people who are poor are poor through their own lack of enterprise. Better to encourage business and entrepreneurship to produce money which will ultimately make the whole country richer, as well as providing jobs. By making things easier for the very rich, you end up helping everyone. Also by encouraging enterprise people have an enhanced sense of freedom and opportunity.

Would people say this is a roughly correct view of things?

As far as Americans are concerned by the way, I'm inclined to the left-wing side of things. But I think you wouldn't guess that from the way I wrote the above.

[Edratman]

My own take on left wing/right wing:

A right winger is opposed to any and all change unless he himself (or those close to him) profits from the change.

A left winger will accept change where he himself does not gain any benefit as long as someone less fortunate gains.

(Guess which way I lean.)

[Azselendor]

But they also see problems rising up let right and center and nothing being done to fix it except piles of money being chucked at it in the hopes we can bury it with debt.


Because what happens when we are low on money? The "Federal Reserve" prints more, and "loans" it to us. Where do they get it? It's paper. Who are they? The heads of the largest banks in the world.

Eventually we will owe the Federal Reserve so much money, that they could declare the nation bankrupt, and attempt to seize the "hard assets" of the nation, in order to recoup their "losses" (of "paper" that they "loaned" us). We already gave them Fort Knox to "hold onto".


I don't subscribe to world bank conspiracies. Our current economic crisis is a direct result of the federal reserve authorizing banks to issue money that it didn't have (credit means new money printed) without securing a means to recoup that money. High gas prices and rising prices in general are a direct result of the inflation this has created.

Now one of the things that really irked me was McCain saying the gov't would buy up all the bad mortgages at the loan's value, then sell it at current market prices. In many cases the gov't will be dumping this property at a loss.

And mind you, the government would then hold all public lands in the mean time..

Welcome to the Soviet America.

[lch]

Because what happens when we are low on money? The "Federal Reserve" prints more, and "loans" it to us. Where do they get it? It's paper. Who are they? The heads of the largest banks in the world.

Eventually we will owe the Federal Reserve so much money, that they could declare the nation bankrupt, and attempt to seize the "hard assets" of the nation, in order to recoup their "losses" (of "paper" that they "loaned" us). We already gave them Fort Knox to "hold onto".
I don't think it can be summarized to something so easy as that. Money is actually not as easy as most people think, since as you already understand it has no real value in itself, it only has a value attributed to it. How and why money works, and what to make of it, that's a science on itself I'd say.

[Edratman]

Azelendor,

I agree entirely. But I do not think Marx would be very proud of us. I believe that he intended for the working man to reap some benefit. The G. Bush version has privitized profit and socialized the risk and burden.

[JimMorrison]

Because what happens when we are low on money? The "Federal Reserve" prints more, and "loans" it to us. Where do they get it? It's paper. Who are they? The heads of the largest banks in the world.

Eventually we will owe the Federal Reserve so much money, that they could declare the nation bankrupt, and attempt to seize the "hard assets" of the nation, in order to recoup their "losses" (of "paper" that they "loaned" us). We already gave them Fort Knox to "hold onto".
I don't think it can be summarized to something so easy as that. Money is actually not as easy as most people think, since as you already understand it has no real value in itself, it only has a value attributed to it. How and why money works, and what to make of it, that's a science on itself I'd say.



Until the creation of the Federal Reserve, all US currency was backed and valued with hard assets - gold and silver. The US government was the only body who could print more currency, and I would agree that I am mystified by what process they determined the value of gold and silver, and how much money could circulate based on that.

However, what I am not so confused about, is the creation of the Federal Reserve. It is a private organization, that was handed the right and responsibility of printing all US currency. They also have the right and responsibility to alter interest rates, and other economic factors - with the express purpose of NOT allowing this sort of thing to happen. But you know what? 16 years after the creation of the Fed, in 1929, we entered the darkest financial times in our nation's history - the precise situation that the creation of the Fed was supposed to preclude.

I am no conspiracy theorist. But, it doesn't take a lot of imagination to guess that if some people knew there was about to be a horrible economic downturn, they could liquify their assets, and gobble up enormous amounts of property when the market crashed.

I am not saying that happened - all I am saying is that with humanity's penchant for greed and thirst for power, it is entirely unreasonable and irresponsible to give this sort of power to the richest people in the world, without 100% transparency and oversight. But, they meet in private, and do not release any of their discussions to the public - only their conclusions and economic manipulations.

Also, I may not fully understand all of the ins and outs of our current corporate financial juggernaut - but I do know that we will always be better off with currency being based on something real and tangible, rather than an arbitrary currency that is manipulated by private hands, behind closed doors.


Possibly a $trillion bailout occurring right now. How many people have actually read the text of the bailout plan? How many people have any idea what it will actually accomplish - WHERE all of that money will end up? You see, high finance is a lot like the shell game. Once things start moving around, and things are rapidly changing hands, and there's a $trillion being tossed around - who is going to account for where that money ultimately goes?

If we can unload $13billion in unmarked, untraceable US currency on a forklift in Iraq and then lose track of it, then I would have to sadly say that we are in a position to make some disgustingly wealthy people even more money right now - just because they can slide those shells around the table so deftly.

[lch]

Until the creation of the Federal Reserve, all US currency was backed and valued with hard assets - gold and silver.
And horse-drawn carriages were still a common sight on the streets. Just saying. Pssst, when I was talking about "no real value", that included things like gold and silver, too. Or pebbles or shells or whatever else you use for your monetary system.

However, what I am not so confused about, is the creation of the Federal Reserve. It is a private organization, that was handed the right and responsibility of printing all US currency. They also have the right and responsibility to alter interest rates, and other economic factors - with the express purpose of NOT allowing this sort of thing to happen. But you know what? 16 years after the creation of the Fed, in 1929, we entered the darkest financial times in our nation's history - the precise situation that the creation of the Fed was supposed to preclude.
Which only shows the complexity of the system, to me. I have confidence that the people that print money are doing their job correctly of making some sense out of this and provide some working system for us. Which I considered extremely difficult after thinking about it for a while. Nowadays, all the money you have is just some data blip on some bank server. Not that it's to be expected, but ever considered what it would mean and what would happen if some disaster would take out all of these records? Only regarding monetary values, not any kind of chaos that might start, I mean. You seem to be under the impression that money is something that is real and can just be counted.

[Skirmisher]

Here's something for you all to chew on.

http://www.prolognet.qc.ca/clyde/illumin.htm

[lch]

:crazy:

I assume that was a joke.

I didn't read anything on that page because it was displayed in an unreadable way. I force-forwarded through http://www.prolognet.qc.ca/clyde/money.htm instead but it was already quite obvious that the site was built by lunatics.

[Skirmisher]

OK maybe this then.

http://www.rense.com/general83/ilum.htm

[JimMorrison]

I like that crazy emote. :p

Again, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, I just feel that the current system IS far too open to exploitation by people with more power than wisdom, and that many events have very much appeared to be at least minor exploitation of the system by those in control of it.


Horse drawn carriages can't perform the tasks necessary for the efficient execution of modern life. But while it is easy to see the glaring difference between legs and wheels, I do not see the same difference in transferring the currency of our monetary system from something tangible, to something intangible. Furthermore, even if we could magically agree that at the time it made sense, and that it ultimately helped our economy become what it is today (crumbling?), it is obviously not sufficient to deal with our current modern situation. It seems to me readily apparent that we have to attach our currency to something real again, so that we are not at the mercy of 7 untouchable bankers who could suddenly stumble on accident, or on purpose.

[lch]

Well, how real do you want your money to become again? Back to exchanging real goods and resources? Those three eggs and the hen in your purse could become a bit unhandy. Money has always been just a token. The simple principle is that you can give it to somebody and he gives you something in return, a good or a service. The wonder is that he actually does accept that you give him just that mere token. That only works because of trust. Trust, that this token is worth something. That's the principle on how labor can be traded. Banks only work on trust, too. No bank is able to pay back all the money of its customers if they'd all come, because that money is inaccessible, it's been given out in loans that run for years, lots of years, thirty years or more. The problem is partly because the banks started trading those debts, yes, but on the other hand it's because people were living way over what they were possibly able to pay back, too. The fun thing to consider: what we see right now is only the beginning.

[Atrocities]

Just a quick show of hands.

How many of you were for this bail out rescue bill? I was against it. Felt it wouldn't do anything to help the economy but convince people that our economy is weak. Whenever you need the government, by extension us, to bail a market out of trouble, your stating that that market is weak. Rapid sell off shall ensue.

Those fat cat rat bastards on wall street took our 401k funds, money we invested, and retired on it laughing all the way to the bank to cash their 20 million plus dollar bonus checks, then leave their company to cry wolf and beg for government help.

This bail out bill was just some scam to rip us off even more so that fat cats from AIG could go on some half a billion dollar retreat after being bailed out. WTF?? I say again, WTF!!!

HEADS NEED TO ROLL!

[JimMorrison]

The problem is partly because the banks started trading those debts, yes, but on the other hand it's because people were living way over what they were possibly able to pay back, too. The fun thing to consider: what we see right now is only the beginning.


Again, in case you missed my earlier post, my family belongs to the segment of the population affected by "distressed loans". Though we were first lied to, and our original mortgage was about 30% higher than our agent quoted us, it was within our means so we went through with it. We carried that loan for 5 years, and though it may have been a bit of a burden, it was worth it, and we paid it. Over a 6 month period, our payments got hiked by another 30%, due to being tricked into an Adjustable Rate Mortgage. So you see, we could pay the loan that we took, we just couldn't pay 30% more still, as they thought they could milk from us, due to a cleverly worded loan, and their reassurances that with our payment history, the rate would most likely slightly decline, lowering our payments.

These lenders were incredibly predatory, and shifting the blame to the buyers completely ignores not only the lending practices that bordered on usury, but also the devious methods that agents (like car salesmen) use to get you into the largest home you can possibly afford.


And no, I do not wish to see us go back to the barter system. However, our currency needs to at least represent something more tangible than "trust", because I'll tell you one thing, no bank has ever shown me a shred of trust, and they get none back from me. Apparently that makes my money worth nothing, unfortunately my lack of trust does not void the cruelly exhorbitant loan that I am defaulting on.



And Atrocities, I am in full and complete agreement with your last post. I'm glad, that we can find some mutual ground to stand on.

[Azselendor]

Now we're talking.

Something we are just starting to see discussion of in the news is trust. Specifically, the betrayal of consumer trust. The law has a specific section of code dealing with that, called Fraud.

Whoever the next president is, they need to open public investigations into each and every one of these organizations and get back every last penny that was conned out of the government and public trust.

[Skirmisher]

I was against that because it hasn't changed anything. We all knew it wouldn't before they passed it. Somebody(s) made out like a bandit. Did you see how joyful the president looked as it showed him signing that bill? Personally ,I've never seen him so happy.
It failed the first vote probably because at the last minute,they needed more golden parachutes. So a revised package was in order.

[Edratman]

I have become very angry about spreading the onus of the mortgage crisis between the lenders and borrowers.

1. If a person is not qualified for a standard loan/mortgage there is an insignificent probability that they are capable of accurately assessing their financial situation vis-a-vis a substantial debt obligation.
2. If unqualified borowers are assured by someone in a white shirt and tie that their debt obligation is free of risk, they are probably easily convinced that everything is okay.
3. Twenty five years ago, if you did not qualify for a loan froma financial instituion, you could knock on every single door and still not obtain a loan. Thus all the power was, and still is, in the hands of the lenders. On rare ocasions people were able to obtain loans when there was substantial risk, but the lender made a conscious decision to grant the loan for some defined and/or quantifiable reason.

Thus, blaming greedy borrowers has little or no logical foundation. Sure there are billions who desire something for nothing, but why should they have been able to get that loan unless the lenders had motivations that transcended reality?

[Azselendor]

I was against that because it hasn't changed anything. We all knew it wouldn't before they passed it. Somebody(s) made out like a bandit. Did you see how joyful the president looked as it showed him signing that bill? Personally ,I've never seen him so happy.
It failed the first vote probably because at the last minute,they needed more golden parachutes. So a revised package was in order.

You can't get anything done in DC without greasing it up with some pork.

Why don't they just classify that sort of crap as bribes?

[Atrocities]

Hum. "My plan is to spread the wealth around." - Obama
Obama's Own Comments (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KXRq2bErVc)

"“It’s not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody that is behind you, that they have a chance for success too.” - Obama


socialism
so·cial·ism /ˈsoʊʃəˌlɪzəm/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[soh-shuh-liz-uhm] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1. a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
2. procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.
3. (in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.

Socialists mainly share the belief that capitalism unfairly concentrates power and wealth into a small section of society who control capital, and creates an unequal society. All socialists advocate the creation of an egalitarian society, in which wealth and power are distributed more evenly, although there is considerable disagreement among socialists over how, and to what extent this could be achieved.

[Atrocities]

The Democrats are now saying that they are working with the Obama camp to call a lame duck session in order to pass a new stimulus package. They are attempting to buy the election. If you re-elect us, we will give you money,.

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy...

~Alexander Fraser Tytler

Voter fraud directly tied back to Obama, and now this, buying votes. Its bad enough that the main stream media is in the Obama camp, now we have Congress working with Obama to try and buy our votes, along with stealing them. What a shameful betrayal of democracy.

[Atrocities]

I want to clarify that I do not believe Obama is behind any thing like voter fraud or illegal. I do however worry about the fact that these people are doing these things for him and he hasn't done much to denounce them or discourage their activities.

I do not believe that congress or Obama are attempting to buy votes per say. However, I believe they are simply waving a carrot in our faces leaving us to draw an inference as to their intentions. Those being "re-elect us and elect Obama and we'll give you money.

[Azselendor]

Nationalizing banks and large corporations is also socialism.

As for acorn, every election cycle they get caught cheating but oddly enough, its because they follow the rules by submitting all the ballots they collect to local election authorities (as mandated by law). I do feel the organization needs a good investigation into voter fraud.

As I also feel that local neocon (I won't call them conservatives because the current political party that claims that road left the conservatives behind long ago) political branches and groups should be investigated for using foreclosure lists to purge voter lists knowing fully well areas hardest hit by the foreclosures are largely democratic voting blocks in urban areas.

[lch]

socialism
so·cial·ism /ˈsoʊʃəˌlɪzəm/ Pronunciation Key...
Hahaha, oh wow! :happy:

[thejeff]

Note that there is a large distinction between voter registration fraud and voter fraud.

ACORN has often been accused of voter registration fraud, but not, to my knowledge, of actual voter fraud. Like any voter registration group they are required to submit all forms they receive to the registrar. This is to prevent groups from throwing out all the voters that register Republican, for example. They can, and often, but apparently not always, flag suspicious forms. In at least some cases the election officials have ignored these warnings and later accused ACORN of registration fraud.

Registration fraud is usually caught at that level, especially when it's like the commonly quoted examples of cartoon characters and celebrities. Examples of people actually voting under these false ids, which would be actual voter fraud, are extremely rare in recent cycles.

What hasn't been rare are attempts to keep people from voting. Purging voter lists under various criteria intended to hit one party's area harder; Lack of voting machines, causing long lines and discouraging voters, in precincts likely to vote heavily towards one party, etc, etc.
These have the potential to swing far more votes than traditional voter fraud.

[lch]

Semi-related of sorts: Anybody who hasn't played The Redistricting Game (http://redistrictinggame.org/) yet?

[Tifone]

Socialists mainly share the belief that capitalism unfairly concentrates power and wealth into a small section of society who control capital, and creates an unequal society. All socialists advocate the creation of an egalitarian society, in which wealth and power are distributed more evenly.

...And this is a very, very, oh so wicked belief, because... ?

(Answer keeping in mind the almost 1 trillion dollars hole in your economy done by the people who were capitalizing your money, and will be dismissed by their societies with just a few million dollars for consolation, while you pay for their crazy investments, please)

[Atrocities]

Socialists mainly share the belief that capitalism unfairly concentrates power and wealth into a small section of society who control capital, and creates an unequal society. All socialists advocate the creation of an egalitarian society, in which wealth and power are distributed more evenly.

...And this is a very, very, oh so wicked belief, because... ?

(Answer keeping in mind the almost 1 trillion dollars hole in your economy done by the people who were capitalizing your money, and will be dismissed by their societies with just a few million dollars for consolation, while you pay for their crazy investments, please)

You're right, there is no excuse for this bail out. It is the worst thing our elected officials have ever done. We were lied to again. Everyone in office now who voted for this bail out bill needs to be fired.

[Azselendor]

Nothing says incompetent government like throwing money at our problems. Drugs, Aids, immigration, iraq, now the economy.

[capnq]

Socialists mainly share the belief that capitalism unfairly concentrates power and wealth into a small section of society who control capital, and creates an unequal society. All socialists advocate the creation of an egalitarian society, in which wealth and power are distributed more evenly.

...And this is a very, very, oh so wicked belief, because... ?Because it removes most of the incentive to create more wealth to distribute "evenly". Because the people who decide how to distribute the wealth invariably siphon off a larger "equal" share than the people who don't make the decisions.

A soon as you have even one person who isn't satisfied with the "equal" share the government decides is "fair", socialism starts to fail. Socialism fails because it ignores basic human nature.

[Tifone]

Because it removes most of the incentive to create more wealth to distribute "evenly". Because the people who decide how to distribute the wealth invariably siphon off a larger "equal" share than the people who don't make the decisions.

You are talking about a total different matter than mine. This is the corruption of this system (expecially you're thinking about URSS I suppose) and I was talking about the belief at the base of the system.

A soon as you have even one person who isn't satisfied with the "equal" share the government decides is "fair", socialism starts to fail. Socialism fails because it ignores basic human nature.

If 2000 years ago I would have said you "hey, you know what I think it's wrong? That the men has an upper hand on the women in social roles! I mean, we're equal! And is wrong that we kill/crucify/lapidate/incinerate people because of their different religion/race/sexual orientation!" you would have said that I was ignoring the basic human nature of supremacy of the strong male on the weak female and the holiness of the rules that were used to bind us to kill people. Now you say they were against it (I hope). Think if in 1000 years people will think it was fair that in this time, 1/4 of humanity were eating up to explode, and 3/4 of were starving to death, because our "human nature" is against an equal distribution, capnq.

[Azselendor]

Some people would make you think socialism is a dirty 4-letter word. The fact of the matter is that socialism fails in some categories, but it succeeds in others. Like Taxation and welfare programs. Everyone paying their fair share of taxes is a good thing. Do you think EA games pays their share of taxes? no. Why, because they got the money to pay people to hide even more money.

Besides, people shouldn't be worried. No president since Nixon has accomplished any of their truly good campaign promises. No tax reform (unless it allowed the rich to pay less and the poor to pay more). No campaign finance (unless it allowed surrogates to raise and attack for you) and certainly no attention paid to the US Constitution (unless it suits them).

The real question, with the mass consolidation of power from the Bush administration, is how long until bush's own polices are turned against him.

[Bwaha]

I feel that any system, any, will become toxic without restraints, Capitalism, Socialism, whatever. We need to change the laws concerning incorporation. That the leaders of these companies can do anything they want to is wrong. And they can't be held liable for their crimes. This is our true problem. And since they control the courts and the various organs of state, I fear that this malady will never change. :mad:

[Atrocities]

Socialists mainly share the belief that capitalism unfairly concentrates power and wealth into a small section of society who control capital, and creates an unequal society. All socialists advocate the creation of an egalitarian society, in which wealth and power are distributed more evenly.

...And this is a very, very, oh so wicked belief, because... ?



Socialism abrogates the power of the people and gives it the government thusly giving control to people who have proven that they can and will abuse said power. Look to the Soviet Union where the media was controlled by the state and any who dare ask a question of their leader, Stalin, would be killed, disappeared, or thrown in prison. Sound familiar?

The mainstream media in the US has basically become propaganda wing for the liberal democrats and Obama. Obama and the left wing leaders of Congress have pledged to enact the fairness doctrine which would shut down FOX news and conservative talk radio. Those who ask question, like Joe the plumber are crucified by not only Obama himself, but by the Obama controlled media. They say the republicans should have vetted Joe the plumber before McCain used his comments at the last debate. Honestly what does that say about the left when they say that average people who want to ask questions of Obama need to be vetted first? Come on. That sounds a lot like Stalinism to me.

Obama answered Joe's question (Joe being the middle name of Samuel Wurzelbacher) honestly thusly sounding the whole socialism bell. Then Obama decides that he didn't like his answer so he attacks Joe and then has his media smear machine go after him.

Obama claims Republicans are shouting "kill him" at Sarah Palin rallies which turned out to be untrue. He used this lie to make himself look like a victim of the bitter republicans who cling to guns and god in order to garner sympathy from undecided voters and move the topic away from his answer to Joe's question. But the question remains, and his answer stands, he wants to spread the wealth around, and that alarmed a great many people so Obama unleashed an attack campaign against an average guy for daring to ask him a question that proved out to be an embarrassment for Obama. What an elitist SOB Obama is for doing this. If you don't like the question or accidentally provide an honest answer that, in this case, illuminates your true nature and intentions, you must attack the asker and discredit him for asking the question. How deplorable and low can you go. Oh wait, it's ok because Obama is doing it. I forget that the Obama run media told me that it was fine and perfectly ok for Obama to do this to Joe.

When you control the information, you control the message, and in this case the danger is that when an average person cannot ask a question of those who wish to lead and then become a target of that candidate and his party to whom the question was asked who is safe? We all have questions and now, thanks to Obama's attack machine, are afraid to ask. This is not the old American way, but it is fast becoming the new American way the Obamanation way.

I will not vote for Obama because I do not like his politics or ideology and after this display of pure Stalinism, I am rapidly growing to dislike the man. Oops, that puts me at risk for incarceration following his election so I had better take that back or else. Or else this **|** Obama!

[Atrocities]

This same argument about redistribution of the wealth, socialism, has been playing out for decades. Elements of socialism are vital to any democracy in that systems like Social Security are a needed to ensure the well being of those who can no longer work in the capitalistic economy. However absolute socialism, such as taking the wealth of others and spreading it around, has proven to be an abysmal failure in that it breeds laziness. Why should I work if my money is going to be taken from me and given to someone else? Why should I work if someone else's money is going to be taken and given to me?

Obama is a leftist. He is a full on socialist and just look to people for whom he has become linked. Look to his favorite authors, his own words, and his plan for America. When it comes right down to it, governments job is not to take away your property and give it to someone else. Governments job is represent the peoples wishes and provide for a united and uniform code of ethics and laws that govern our republic in democratic way. Of course democracy is two wolves and sheep discussing whats for dinner. In this case, after Obama's election, the liberals, the socialist of our nation, will have a super majority. And for the next two to four years we will all have to live with the good and the bad of it. The Liberals will have finally won and will take steps to consolidate their power by eliminating any voice that stands counter to their ideology. They will legislate away freedom of speech, the second amendment, and usher in new laws and restrictions that will forever change the landscape of America. I do not support this, and I will bet that 48% of Americans alive today will stand with me and vote against Obama and the change he represents. A Liberal Supermajority (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122420205889842989.html)

{Edit}
In my opinion government is run best when the power is divided and both parties must work together. When one party controls all the power there are no checks and balances and corruption shall thrive and expand without restraint. I fear this and I suspect that is what the man who spoke to McCain mean when he said that he feared an Obama presidency. Fear that uncontrolled power is a kin to absolute power and we all know that absolute power corrupts absolutely.

[Azselendor]

I'm gonna point out at this time that no one had called Obama a stalinist/communist/socialist/etc-ist until just before the last debate when the mccain/palin campaign started to.



I love talking points.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-teM03FPUow

[Atrocities]

I'm gonna point out at this time that no one had called Obama a stalinist/communist/socialist/etc-ist until just before the last debate when the mccain/palin campaign started to.
I love talking points.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-teM03FPUow

You are mistaken. Obama has been linked to socialism for sometime but he himself has never made any direct statement about it and thusly no one has dared to report upon it say for bloggers and some daring souls on youtube. Obama himself, by his own words, identified his true beliefs and thusly ushered in the vulnerability that now threatens an insignificant portion of his victory.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6Huk3H9Lu0 - Regarding Above Comments.

Just for fun. Enjoy. (Has notta to do with above statement)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Np4lvspNVM

[Azselendor]

Aside from the video's comments, the text cards lack citations I do agree he needs to answer these clearly. As obama's connections to others are very legitimate questions in an election cycle. (why ayer's wasn't hung is beyond me). Just as William Timmons, the Washington lobbyist who John McCain has named to head his presidential transition team needs to disclose his lobbying actions on behalf of Saddam Hussain's government and former senator's Gramm's (McCain's economic advisor and personal friend) relationship with wall street and the deregulation of wall street. Specifically McCain and Gramm's part in repealing the Glass-Steagall Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass-Steagall_Act) - which, by the way, is what is ultimately responsible for allowing our banking system to implode.

The final bit of the video plays as a conspiracy theory. The part about acorn bullying banks on obama's behalf. Really? seriously? Come on now. Why would banks put up for 2 seconds with an organization whose greatest power is annoying the hell out of registered voters and the homeless? They'd call the police and their own security and have them thrown off in minutes.

And as others have said prior, Voter Registration Fraud is different from Voting Fraud.
The end result of this lipstick scandal will be a mass purge of the voter registrations. Sounds very jim-crowish to me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws
http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Pres/Maps/Oct18.html#2

by the way, I do recommend tracking the election with
http://www.electoral-vote.com (liberal slanted) or
http://www.electionprojection.com/ (conservative slanted)

Back to acorn. This organization is fundamentally flawed. They pay per registration. Hell, gimmie forms, a scanner, a wordprocessor and a phonebook database and everyone will be registered to vote for these guys: http://www.pot-party.com/

See, that's the problem with acorn. It's like giving a kid money to slap business flyers on windshields. What's to stop the kid from chucking the flyers in the garbage and collecting the money a few hours later? nothing. The good thing about voter registration fraud is that imaginary people don't show up to vote.

It also explains why the democrats register massive numbers of people each election and still wnd up being a few hundred short of winning. (looking at your Mr. Gore )

As for socialism. Not all socialism is bad. Public Education, Dept of Transportation and Social Security are a few examples of socialism are work. Without public education, we end up with a nation of dumbasses and morons.... Without roads, we can't move freely (a core unstated freedom of america. If you don't like where you are at, you are free to go somewhere else). Without social security, we end up seeing our grandparents work at walmart along side the morons from our crippled and partially dismanted public education system.

And mind you social security under John Mccain would end up in wallstreet. The same people that did a wonderful job with our home mortgages last week and a terrific job with our retirement savings.

[Azselendor]

LMFAO

refering to you first video, after a few minutes these two gems popped up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpwLdgTqlc0&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpwLdgTqlc0

[Atrocities]

A very good post Azselendor.

The part about acorn bullying banks on obama's behalf. Really? seriously? Come on now. Why would banks put up for 2 seconds with an organization whose greatest power is annoying the hell out of registered voters and the homeless?

I believe the answer to this was that the Banks were being sued and or threatened with lawsuits so they caved. I have seen a few "one sided" yet highly informative videos about it on Youtube, ABC, and Fox.

[JimMorrison]

First, let me just say - Atrocities, you seem to be rather intelligent, and you put a lot of thought into this, so at heart I do believe you must be a good person. This despite how much we seem to disagree on matters of government and economy. ;)



Why should I work if my money is going to be taken from me and given to someone else?

This is a very good question. I'd like you to ask that question of a single mother, who is working 3 part-time, minimum wage jobs, killing herself to support her children who are just going to grow up to be criminals anyway, because the system puts her in a situation where she can't provide them with proper guidance.

As Aszelendor pointed out, Socialism is not Communism. Socialist policies do not take wealth from individuals, to distribute to other individuals. Socialist policies take assets away from the unscrupulous, to provide them to the populace as a whole in an equitable manner. We socialize aspects of our society not to impact wage disparities - but only to insure and guarantee the function of a community as a whole, and the well being and quality of life of our citizens.

While Communism has surely never succeeded (in large part because of the corrupt leaders who like controlling ALL of the wealth), Socialism, as is being demonstrated by Canada, and much of western Europe, is in fact rapidly creating sustainable economies, and standards of living that will soon surpass those of the good old US of A, if we keep letting greedy and immoral people profit immensely from (essentially withholding from many, through) overcharging for basic services.

I will use myself as an example for a moment. I am considered a very intelligent person, by those who know me. I am creative, and passionate, and a great team player or leader, whichever is needed. However, I have barely managed to make enough money to keep myself off the streets (my current cost of living is about $650/month) for the past 8 years now. Why? Because I lack health insurance, and what little medical attention that I have managed to afford, did not discover what is malfunctioning in my body, leaving me unable to reliably work, and therefore rendering me unsuitable for employment in most sectors of our badly stressed job market. There are many thousands of people in similar situations as mine, who would love to contribute more to society, but who are unable to, because of chronic health concerns - health concerns which would be addressed if we Socialized medicine in a way that results in more contribution, and less cost in the long run.

Understand (I'll say this again, since it may be easy to forget), I am not particularly fond of Obama. His appeal to me, is the fact that McCain is so distasteful. Bush and Cheney were about the worst thing to ever happen to our country, by nearly all quantifiable benchmarks, and McCain wants to keep doing the same, but "better" (read: worse).


Now, getting back your original statements about Communism, it is true that no one has ever gotten such a system to work as expressly intended. The goal of such a system of course, is to eliminate gross excess and greed to the point that if each individual got approximately an equal share of the pie, they would be happy with the task at hand, because they would have a good life.

Now, to build off of that, I am not a Communist. However, I do think that we are approaching a point in human development where we can very adequately balance the flow of wealth in a way that is fair to everyone. Note that fair does not mean "equal". However, when one person makes a few phone calls here and there to keep their profit machine rolling while they lounge by their private pool, whilst someone else works 60+ hours in miserable conditions just to keep their family alive, then something is not right with the system. I think that our economic system overlooks two things: that our money is not intrinsically linked to benefit or contribution (and in many ways, profit actually results from doing harm to others), and also that money = time = life. Thus, we need not only to acknowledge that society cannot function without waiters, and gas pumpers, and custodians - but we also need to re-engineer the system so that vast amounts of profit cannot be created through artificially creating demand by withholding needed goods and services from "less powerful" citizens.


I have more to say, and I will soon, but thank you for the practice.

<3

[capnq]

A soon as you have even one person who isn't satisfied with the "equal" share the government decides is "fair", socialism starts to fail. Socialism fails because it ignores basic human nature.

If 2000 years ago I would have said you "hey, you know what I think it's wrong? That the men has an upper hand on the women in social roles! I mean, we're equal! And is wrong that we kill/crucify/lapidate/incinerate people because of their different religion/race/sexual orientation!" you would have said that I was ignoring the basic human nature of supremacy of the strong male on the weak female and the holiness of the rules that were used to bind us to kill people. Now you say they were against it (I hope). Think if in 1000 years people will think it was fair that in this time, 1/4 of humanity were eating up to explode, and 3/4 of were starving to death, because our "human nature" is against an equal distribution, capnq.No, I am not saying they were against it then. But I don't believe historical societies should be judged solely by modern standards.

In 1000 years, I expect historians will consider our era the beginning of the Second Dark Ages.

[thejeff]

I'm not going into the full fledged socialism debate, but I just wanted to comment on a two points in Atrocities anti-Obama diatribes.

First, on Joe the Plumber: It's a bit disingenuous to claim that "Those who ask question, like Joe the plumber are crucified by not only Obama himself" and "that average people who want to ask questions of Obama need to be vetted first?"
Joe asked his questions, got his answers, whether he liked them or not, and nobody had and problems with that. No one was crucified or even looked into until McCain brought him up again and again during the debate. Obviously no one needs to be vetted before asking questions, but if you're going to try to make someone into an iconic centerpiece of your debate strategy you should probably make sure they can stand a little scrutiny.

Second, claiming Obama is a socialist is just nonsense. Even by American standards he's a solid center-left politician. By European standards, where they actually have functioning socialist parties the whole Democratic party is barely left of center.
This gets thrown out about every Democratic presidential candidate. It's nonsense every time.

And thirdly, Acorn no longer pays by registration, if they ever did. They pay by the hour.
Heard about Mark Jacoby, working for the Republican National Committee, arrested for voter registration fraud? Apparently known for pulling the same scam in 2004?

[Edratman]

I am astonished by how successfully the Republicans/conservative movement has managed to convince so many working class citizens that their policy of enriching the wealthy is not only good for everyone, but also the ultimate expression of patriotism.

On the other hand, I have deemed them the "Hood Robin" party; steal from the poor and give to the rich.

[Atrocities]

First, on Joe the Plumber: It's a bit disingenuous to claim that "Those who ask question, like Joe the plumber are crucified by not only Obama himself" and "that average people who want to ask questions of Obama need to be vetted first?"
Joe asked his questions, got his answers, whether he liked them or not, and nobody had and problems with that. No one was crucified or even looked into until McCain brought him up again and again during the debate. Obviously no one needs to be vetted before asking questions, but if you're going to try to make someone into an iconic centerpiece of your debate strategy you should probably make sure they can stand a little scrutiny.

The guy only asked a question. Just a question. What Obama and his cronies did to the man is inexcusable. You cannot at any level expect a reasonable person who possesses any measure of commonsense to believe for a second that what Obama did to that man, regardless of McCain's use of his question or not, to be appropriate. Obama attacked him because Obama's own answer was being used to illuminate his real beliefs. This blaming the victim crap that the left enjoys using so much is really getting old.

Some of you guys are posting some incredibly good posts.


Second, claiming Obama is a socialist is just nonsense. Even by American standards he's a solid center-left politician. By European standards, where they actually have functioning socialist parties the whole Democratic party is barely left of center.
This gets thrown out about every Democratic presidential candidate. It's nonsense every time.

Really now, this is your answer and you're going to stick to it? Leftism ala liberalism, is directly linked to socialism because the left tend to be the party that chooses to employ socialistic ideals such as national health care for one. They believe that it is governments place to provide completely for the people. The left believe in a the ideals of a welfare state and that the power should lay with the government and not with the people. That is a fundamental tenant of socialism.

Obama's own campaign is modeled after the methods used by Linen and Stalin to over throw the Czar of Russia. They talked about how we needed change. In fact Change was the major theme of their entire revolution as it is with Obama's.

Oh ya, by Obama's own addition one of his favorite books was penned by Che Guevara, a committed far left socialist. The one thing he and Hillary had in common.

And thirdly, Acorn no longer pays by registration, if they ever did. They pay by the hour.
Heard about Mark Jacoby, working for the Republican National Committee, arrested for voter registration fraud? Apparently known for pulling the same scam in 2004?

So by your logic all because some guy broke the law in 2004, its ok for ACORN to do the same? ACORN wouldn't be under federal investigation if they were an honest group of innocent community organizers. Again I go back to the commonsense heart of things. Oh by the way, since the offices of ACORN in Nevada were raided, Obama conceded Nevada.

[JimMorrison]

Oh ya, by Obama's own addition one of his favorite books was penned by Che Guevara, a committed far left socialist. The one thing he and Hillary had in common.

Che was actually more of a Populist than a Socialist. He saw the indigenous peoples' needs and rights being completely cast aside as insignificant in comparison to the needs and rights of the city dwellers (most of whom were not full-blooded natives). He fought for those people whose entire civilization and culture had been paved over in the name of progress. If you've never really looked into his life, he was really a rather fascinating and compelling persona.

Regarding Socialism, I need to try to clarify this a bit again, as your preconception seems to be a bit confused. Socialism does not remove power from the people, and give it to the government. Socialism removes power only from the senselessly wealthy, and by investing that power into public control, is actually giving it back to the people. So in the example of health care, rather than it being a corporate-for-profit industry that ultimately becomes this monster of money that only cares about numbers, it would (hopefully) develop into an effective tool for enriching the lives of the people. Granted, it's not a magic bullet, and it takes work and planning to make Socialized Medicine work as intended - but if you look at the reality of our current situation, I think you would be hard pressed to extrapolate how it could (even if poorly implemented) really end up less efficient than the broken system that we have in place already.

And finally, regarding "Joe the Plumber". Joe's entire conundrum was fallacious. As a working man, his taxes would go down under Obama. If he managed to put his plan into action to enter management, and take on other contractors, then his taxes would only increase if his revenues exceeded 250k. I think it's fairly ridiculous to assume that the math would not be balanced out in a way so as to allow "Joe" (or anyone else) to develop their business beyond that threshold. It is entirely unreasonable to try to portray this plan as having such a steep curve, as to make it utterly impossible to have a profitable small business larger than 250k/year - and Obama himself has stated that he plans to implement tax credits (for everyone, but with small business in mind) for employing American citizens inside of our borders.


I see a lot more Obama bashing, than any kind of illustration of McCain's superior plans for the nation. Ironic, as it mirrors McCain's own platform - "John McCain, because he's just not as bad as Barack Obama.". :re:


McCain has only one trait that I look for in a leader - he doesn't panic when he's put on the spot. That doesn't really in any way compensate for all of his shortcomings.....

[Atrocities]

A well spoken post Jim,

I'm Voting Democrat (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPG25Wf0aa4)

The issue with Obama's tax plan is that while he says he is going to lower taxes on those who earn less than 250k, in reality his plan will increase their taxes by 10 fold over any benefit his tax plan would provide in that he intends to raise taxes on everything from electricity to social security. Sure your income taxes could be lowered, but in the end your capital gains taxes are going to go up. So while you save a couple hundred a year in income tax, when you sell your house, car, property, inherent something, etc, you're going to pay taxes through the nose. His plan will raise taxes from the registering your car to the tax on a bottle of water. From taxing plastic bags to increasing your property taxes. He plans on raising the corporate tax which in turn will cost jobs and force more companies to look outside of the USA for their needs. And I also should point out that every Democrat that has ran on a promise to cut taxes has in the end reneged upon that promise and actually raised taxes.

A super liberal majority of power, congress, the media, and Obama will effectively remove any measure of checks and balances from our government. This means that any law that they wish to pass will get passed. From oppressing first amendment rights to the out and out right dismantling of the second amendment. These facts are not in dispute, they are a reality. A reality that scares the hell out of me because they won't stop with taking our rights away, they will go further by passing laws that will make them more powerful and less likely to be tossed from power. That is something that we as American's cannot allow.

Power should never be horded by one side, it should be shared by all sides so that no one party is denied their rights.

I have no problem with people who want change, I just don't want that change to abrogate my rights under the constitution. For me, this is the crux of it. I cannot support Obama because he voted against our right to defend our families in our own homes without the fear of prosecution or lawsuits. When a person cannot defend their family in their own home from harm or death without the fear of being sent to prison because the used a firearm, or fear of being sued by the very criminal who attacked them, then we no longer live in a society that values an individuals rights. The police are not obligated to protect us as proven by a Florida case. You do not make a person safer by making them defenseless. Obama not only opposes our right to safety in the home, but has vowed to reduce our military, close foreign bases, stop military research, (research that ironically led to the Internet, gps, cellphones, etc), all in the name of making America more world friendly. You do not make a nation safe by making it defenseless. You don't sit down with the enemy and ask them to be nice. All that does is make you weak in their eyes and emboldens them to become even more ruthless. (A lesson we learned through Clinton's politics.)

Ask yourself one question, do we as a nation want to secure our future at the expense of our freedom and safety, or do we want to secure our future without scarifying those fundamental American values that so many of our greatest have fallen to protect?

Obama is a good man, but he is a dangerous man. With a super liberal majority in congress, a willing pro-liberal controlled media, and a proven far left leaning Obama in office, we won't see an awakening of a prosperous future, but rather one that will usher in the end of one.

If my words offend people well then, sick the Obama machine on me. I am sure that I, an average American, deserve to have my entire life investigated and made public for daring to say NO to Obama and his liberalism. Mitigate my comments with rude personal attacks, defile my good name, and offer up liberal talking points to counter my statements. In the end what I say or believe really doesn't matter for Obama is going to win by a horrendous landslide and even though years from now, when we look back at my diatribes and say damn that dude was right on the money, it still won't matter because I'll either be dead, disappeared, or in jail for having dared expressed them in the first place.

[Azselendor]

The only person that needs to be blamed for any hike in taxes is Bush.

Doesn't matter who wins, the next president MUST raise taxes. It's not a future I like, but it's the end result of unrestrained liberal spending by the republican party. A government unable to raise revenue is doomed.

As for vast generalizations, I'll point out lumping people in one group never serves anything. Us vs. them doesn't get anywhere.

This is what blows my mind about America today. Here we are, fighting a war that for the first time in half a century has landed clear blows on American soil and spilled American Blood on American Soil, and we are busy trying to rip out each other's jugular or disembowel the other first of pure silliness. Really, did the civil war end? Did the North win? because it seems like America can't decide if it's the Confederate States or United States.

Every one of your arguments can also be laid upon the republican party, the whigs, the federalist, and so on down the chain of history. Many of them are null designed to get the base up into a frenzy. John the Plumber, btw, isn't registered to vote and it's too late for him to register so if he really cared about his taxes, he should've registered to vote. I have no sympathy for his fear of taxes.

And repeating political talking points doesn't make them true.

Obama is a good man, but he is a dangerous man. With a super liberal majority in congress, a willing pro-liberal controlled media, and a proven far left leaning Obama in office, we won't see an awakening of a prosperous future, but rather one that will usher in the end of one.

This I take exception at as very few americans can now look back at the last 8 years and say we've had a prosperous future compared the the 8 that preceded that.



Let's face facts, America right now is weak. We face a crumbling economy, federal debts that won't be paid off for another century (counting only principle) a corrupt government, a divided nation against itself, China is only getting stronger, the russian military has reconstituted itself but couldn't find its missing nukes if their lives depended on it, we can't scare north korea, the UN is crippled by an outdated cold-war setup , and a global energy and climate crisis.

So really, is America strong enough to face these challenges and see Victory?

We are entering a long and hard period of reconstruction that may not succeed. We need someone who has laid out a plan and been consistant, not someone who throws ideas against the wall in the hopes something might stick and drops what he's doing to leap for a photo up.

[Atrocities]

Azselendor you do a very effective job of countering my comments. It is a pleasure as always to read your posts. While I am swayed to agree with you on a few items there are a couple that I need to offer counter points to.

The only person that needs to be blamed for any hike in taxes is Bush.

Bush shouldn't become the scape goat for the fools who are really to blame. Most of which were fired and hired in 06. Those are the real asshats that are behind this. Bush has had no real power since 06.


Doesn't matter who wins, the next president MUST raise taxes. It's not a future I like, but it's the end result of unrestrained liberal spending by the republican party. A government unable to raise revenue is doomed.

For the record the US economy grew more under Bush than it did Clinton. That is a verifiable fact of reality. This whole economic situation that we are now in is as much to blame on the failed democratic policies as it is on republican ones. For one, Bush inherited an economy that was going into the tank following 8 years of Clintonomic. Remember black Friday in October of 97? Two, this whole sub prime loan fiasco could have been resolved in 05, but NO, it was blocked by elements of both parties in control. Three, although Bush is the president, the Democrats have had control of Congress for the last two years and have done NOTHING to stem the tide when they could have.

I believe that this whole melt down can be traced right back to rising oil prices. That is what started this disaster ball rolling. It was predicted by a mathmatician back in 1999. He stated that within 10 years the price for oil will be more than $100.00 per barrel. That when that happened the US economy, and that of the world, would fall into chaos. He proved this by math.

As the oil prices rose, people had less and less disposable income so they started to use their credit cards. Once those were maxed out they stopped paying their mortgages so they could eat, keep the car, buy gas, and keep the lights on. The price of oil kept going up, mostly because the oil companies were buying their own oil via the speculator market which they only stopped after Bush and Congress finally threatened to look into the speculator market at the behest of conservative talk radio hosts and angry Americans. People who had these sub prime mortgages were the ones that were hurt first, once they stopped paying their mortgage and their homes fell into foreclosure the banks that held the paper started to fail. The rest is history in the making.

Doesn't matter who wins, the next president MUST raise taxes. It's not a future I like, but it's the end result of unrestrained liberal spending by the republican party. A government unable to raise revenue is doomed.

I tend to agree with you in that tax increases are most likely going to happen. So why do both candidates keep saying they are going to cut taxes? Why not cut spending instead? And I hate to be the voice of reason all the time, but under Obama, government is poised to grow thus increasing the debt. In order to pay for his projects, taxes are going to have to be raised. And as we know, lower taxes fuel an economy, and higher taxes, especially in these times, stall the economy.

John the Plumber, btw, isn't registered to vote and it's too late for him to register so if he really cared about his taxes, he should've registered to vote.

Fact Check: "The Ohio press reports that he (Joe the Plumber) is in fact registered to vote, under a slightly misspelling of his name." The misspelling was due in part to a clerical error.

[lch]

The only person that needs to be blamed for any hike in taxes is Bush.

Bush shouldn't become the scape goat for the fools who are really to blame. Most of which were fired and hired in 06. Those are the real asshats that are behind this. Bush has had no real power since 06.
So he shouldn't be blamed that/because he had no real power?

I don't even know about the power thing. I mean, I see that man as incompetent and always mostly saw him as kind of a puppet from the start, yes. But for others, I'd think he just wasn't as prominently visible in the media, and thus less present.

Doesn't matter who wins, the next president MUST raise taxes. It's not a future I like, but it's the end result of unrestrained liberal spending by the republican party. A government unable to raise revenue is doomed.
And that's what, I'd assume, will unfortunately be the perception about the next president and his party, whoever it may be. "Usurper, he was good for nothing, he raised our taxes!" It's bad if people don't understand that it is necessary and the carefree living that they had before wasn't really viable and showed its ugly downside in the end.

Let's face facts, America right now is weak. We face a crumbling economy, federal debts that won't be paid off for another century (counting only principle) a corrupt government, a divided nation against itself, China is only getting stronger, the russian military has reconstituted itself but couldn't find its missing nukes if their lives depended on it, we can't scare north korea, the UN is crippled by an outdated cold-war setup , and a global energy and climate crisis.
Well, regardless what you do, you won't solve the climate crisis now even if you tried with all your might, you can only adapt and I hope that America will, same for global energy. As for North Korea, I see that one as a paper tiger. If there is one land that has hit rock bottom except Africa, then it's North Korea, I'd say, at least for the people that live there. I don't think they'll have the breath to continue like this that much longer.

[Atrocities]

I am willing to bet that North Korea is about to lift the current and join the world. They have nothing to loose and everything to gain. I hope North Korea announces today that they willing to work with everyone in putting the cold war to bed.

What I want to see is a person elected to office that won't abrogate our constitutional rights because the far left or right want them too. Despite all the nasty things Bush has been accused of, there lacks a genuine lack of proof as to his abuse of power. I do believe that he aloud himself to be manipulated and played and in turn was used as a tool to benefit people like Cheyenne and that bastard Dumbsfield.

[lch]

What I want to see is a person elected to office that won't abrogate our constitutional rights because the far left or right want them too. Despite all the nasty things Bush has been accused of, there lacks a genuine lack of proof as to his abuse of power.
What do you call the USA PATRIOT Act, then? Or maybe I misunderstood those sentences? And I may probably be biased, but it was my impression that Bush was the one that wanted the Iraq war most and it was mainly his initiative and determination to carry through with this, it wasn't somebody else who pressured him into that. We don't have to discuss that thing again, though, good that we got over it.

[Edratman]

Atrocities, you are most likely correct about Bush being maniplated by his subordinates.

However, the captain of the ship is the one who is solely responsible for the well being of the ship. If the ship runs aground in the middle of the night, the captain is held responsible, even if he was soundly sleeping at what is a normal sleep period. Others will also accrue punishments, but the man in charge is ultimately held responsible.

If everything was sunny and rosy, I'm sure Bush would be the first one to claim the credit, even if the good times were the result of actions by subordinates. So all the blame should also fall on his shoulders.

I would like to hear someone, anyone, admit to being responsible for the present crisis. That's probably not going to happen. Republicans blame democrats, Democrats blame Republicans: the wealthy blame the poor, the poor blame the wealthy: and so on.

The economists are now busy finding the faults in their reasoning; yet not one will admit that economics is merely a pseudo-science and all the equations that they pass off as science were developed so that they fit past numbers. Then they use the self same numbers to verify the accuracy of their equations.

I really have no idea what the future holds, but I'll make one prediction.

At some point the world economy will revive, the politicans will lie to us some more and the poor will always be downtrodden.

[thejeff]

And it is again somewhat misleading to claim that
Bush has had no real power since 06.
and
although Bush is the president, the Democrats have had control of Congress for the last two years and have done NOTHING to stem the tide when they could have.

The Democratic majority in Congress, especially in the Senate, is slim. Bush has threatened or wielded his veto pen against pretty much anything the Democrats have tried. And the Republicans in the Senate have stood firm together and ensured that any Democratic bills have needed 60 votes overcome a filibuster. Often the Democratic leadership, not being able to enact their own solutions and believing that something must be done, has brought the White House's proposals to the floor and allowed them to pass with a majority of Republican and a few Democratic votes.
A president with a strong minority in Congress is hardly powerless, especially one who has expanded the power of the executive as no administration since Nixon has tried to do. And one who seems willing to play chicken with the welfare of the country to avoid any compromise.

[Atrocities]

What I want to see is a person elected to office that won't abrogate our constitutional rights because the far left or right want them too. Despite all the nasty things Bush has been accused of, there lacks a genuine lack of proof as to his abuse of power.
What do you call the USA PATRIOT Act, then? Or maybe I misunderstood those sentences? And I may probably be biased, but it was my impression that Bush was the one that wanted the Iraq war most and it was mainly his initiative and determination to carry through with this, it wasn't somebody else who pressured him into that. We don't have to discuss that thing again, though, good that we got over it.

I call the patriot act a tool that could be horribly abused if permitted to be mishandled. Thankfully there is no direct evidence that it has been abused domestically and was re-affirmed by a democratic congress after much thoughtful review.

As to the Iraq war, we were sold a bill of goods that wasn't true. History cannot be undone, only learned from. And I would like to think that by fighting this battle now, we saved our children from having to fighter it at a much higher cost in the future. Does that make it right, no, we were misled and although I don't personally believe that Bush knew the extent of the lies, I do believe that he should share in some of the blame for what happened. However PBS has a Front Line episode that explains why the war went south when it became a policing effort following the end of mission accomplished.

The fact was we genuinely believed that Saddam was a threat. From credible news stories from ABC to the History channel the argument against Saddam was believed to be valid. History proved otherwise.

Am I sad to see him overthrown and dead, no, the man was a tyrant responsible for more deaths than all of the deaths that followed the US invasion by 10 fold. It makes me very sick to think, however, that many innocent people were harmed, killed, and jailed because of our failure to anticipate the reality of what it was we chose to do. My God have mercy on us for that horrific blunder that cost so many lives. Our troops are doing good in Iraq, my nephew is there and he and his fellow soldiers having nothing but good things to say about the progress going on in Iraq now following the surge.

While the road to a better Iraq has been a bloody one, with Gods will and the work of good people, Iraq will, as we are seeing now, recover and prosper. I don't blame Bush for the failures in Iraq, I blame that on the murdering SOB terrorists, Dick Cheney, and Ronald Dumbsfield. Firing that prick was the best thing Bush has done to date. If anything, Bush's greatest failure was in not firing that SOB sooner.

Obama has the potential of becoming a great leader, I just genuinely pray that he does so without abrogating our constitutional rights.

[Atrocities]

And it is again somewhat misleading to claim that
Bush has had no real power since 06.
and
although Bush is the president, the Democrats have had control of Congress for the last two years and have done NOTHING to stem the tide when they could have.

The Democratic majority in Congress, especially in the Senate, is slim. Bush has threatened or wielded his veto pen against pretty much anything the Democrats have tried. And the Republicans in the Senate have stood firm together and ensured that any Democratic bills have needed 60 votes overcome a filibuster. Often the Democratic leadership, not being able to enact their own solutions and believing that something must be done, has brought the White House's proposals to the floor and allowed them to pass with a majority of Republican and a few Democratic votes.
A president with a strong minority in Congress is hardly powerless, especially one who has expanded the power of the executive as no administration since Nixon has tried to do. And one who seems willing to play chicken with the welfare of the country to avoid any compromise.

You are correct and I suspect that this will be why the Republicans will be resoundingly beaten in two weeks. Lets face it, we dropped the ball more than once and now its time to pay the price for our failures. I am a moderate independent with a leaning tendency toward the right mainly because I value equal points of view, the second amendment, and the truth. Both sides lie very well, but both sides have good values. while I often attack the liberals I do share many of their ideals. I believe that we have the right to choose our time of death, I believe firmly that people have the right under the law to equal representation, the right to share in life and life choices equally under the law, the right to choose for ourselves what is right for us. Protection for gay couples equally under the law as given to married heterosexuals. I believe in protecting our environment, providing for the needy, health care for all, even helping illegal immigrants to become tax paying US citizens. Hell I believe it is our duty to provide protection to all who enter our country, be that putting up aid and water stations in the desert with the absolute promise that any who use these facilities shall be aloud to do so without fear, to providing health care to any who need it. I believe that our government should never lie to us, and that the best feeling in the world is the greats gift God has given us, and that is to help our fellow human beings. I value the constitution and as I have stated many times, the first and second amendments above all. I am proud that we live in a nation that has forsaken its ugly past and unified its people under one flag equally without preconditions. I love the fact that while I often get angry over what I believe to be injustices, we live in a just society and with the right leadership can do more, become more, and be more than what we are.

However, the captain of the ship is the one who is solely responsible for the well being of the ship. If the ship runs aground in the middle of the night, the captain is held responsible, even if he was soundly sleeping at what is a normal sleep period. Others will also accrue punishments, but the man in charge is ultimately held responsible.

You are 100% correct. The buck stops at that desk and the person sitting behind it should butch up and take the heat. So many things were done wrong over the last 16 years that it makes the next 16 years seem like an insurmountable hurtle. But with any luck, we will come through this better than when we went into it.

[lch]

I call the patriot act a tool that could be horribly abused if permitted to be mishandled. Thankfully there is no direct evidence that it has been abused domestically and was re-affirmed by a democratic congress after much thoughtful review.
It is also one of the biggest limitations, if not the biggest that I know of, of those constitutional rights that you seemed to be so aware of. Does it only take some nicely packaged words to sway your principles?

The fact was we genuinely believed that Saddam was a threat. From credible news stories from ABC to the History channel the argument against Saddam was believed to be valid. History proved otherwise.
So you come across as somebody who is totally unprotected against manipulation by the media. Maybe a simplistic black and white view on things, too, but I don't want to exaggerate too much into this.

If you say that Saddam was perceived as a real threat, when what did that threat look like? This is mostly a rhetoric question, but think about it and tell how Saddam could have been a threat to the US. Limited range of missiles is only the beginning - I'm at a loss if I want to imagine how some backwater country is fighting a numerically and technologically vastly superior superpower, especially getting at their grounds and gaining anything from it in the mid to long term. If a cold war Soviet Union failed against the United States, how could the Iraq have succeeded? Unknown super weapons? Secret Moon Bases? I admit, I'm getting polemical.

One thing that I don't want to touch again is that there was absolutely no link at all from 9/11 to Saddam. Was it just that the time was right?

Am I sad to see him overthrown and dead, no, the man was a tyrant responsible for more deaths than all of the deaths that followed the US invasion by 10 fold.
I dislike this altruistic perception of the USA as a worldwide police force. I simply cannot keep up this image in my mind anymore. There are dozens of warlords in Africa that committed and still commit far greater atrocities than Saddam ever did, and they're still alive, they're still doing this. Why doesn't the self-declared peace force get to work there? And as I said earlier, I am quite uncertain if the quality of live in Iraq has really improved and if you can call it "prospering" now. Maybe in the long term. Much later.

[Atrocities]

I call the patriot act a tool that could be horribly abused if permitted to be mishandled. Thankfully there is no direct evidence that it has been abused domestically and was re-affirmed by a democratic congress after much thoughtful review.
It is also one of the biggest limitations, if not the biggest that I know of, of those constitutional rights that you seemed to be so aware of. Does it only take some nicely packaged words to sway your principles?

The fact was we genuinely believed that Saddam was a threat. From credible news stories from ABC to the History channel the argument against Saddam was believed to be valid. History proved otherwise.
So you come across as somebody who is totally unprotected against manipulation by the media. Maybe a simplistic black and white view on things, too, but I don't want to exaggerate too much into this.

I am sorry but this comment of yours seems to be on the verge of some sort of unwarranted personal attack. Is that your intent here? :confused:



If you say that Saddam was perceived as a real threat, when what did that threat look like? This is mostly a rhetoric question, but think about it and tell how Saddam could have been a threat to the US.

I can only reiterate what was in the media at the time. So I cannot add much to this other than that. I would point out that a bunch of dudes living in mud huts managed to take down four planes, two buildings, and punch a hole in the Pentagon. Saddam, with much more resources at this disposal, could, and at the time was believed to be a threat. Again, we were wrong.


One thing that I don't want to touch again is that there was absolutely no link at all from 9/11 to Saddam. Was it just that the time was right?

These are the facts and they cannot be denied.

Am I sad to see him overthrown and dead, no, the man was a tyrant responsible for more deaths than all of the deaths that followed the US invasion by 10 fold.
I dislike this altruistic perception of the USA as a worldwide police force. I simply cannot keep up this image in my mind anymore. There are dozens of warlords in Africa that committed and still commit far greater atrocities than Saddam ever did, and they're still alive, they're still doing this. Why doesn't the self-declared peace force get to work there? And as I said earlier, I am quite uncertain if the quality of live in Iraq has really improved and if you can call it "prospering" now.

I cannot dispute your comments here as they are true. There are far worse SOB's than Saddam and there is no excuse for any civilized nation to allow them to continue to reap horrors upon innocent people.

As to your uncertainty about the quality of life in Iraq, I can only repeat what I have been told by my nephew who was their. I have no reason to doubt him or his word. But I concede your point, until the mainstream media gets off its collective arses and finally gets down to doing some real unbiased reporting, we will not know the truth about Iraq's alleged prosperity.

[lch]

I am sorry but this comment of yours seems to be on the verge of some sort of unwarranted personal attack. Is that your intent here? :confused:
I was only hinting at it by my "I admit I'm getting polemical" sentence earlier, but to get this straight across, no, I am not interested in attacking you personally. I mostly want to get you to think. I am not somebody who is reasonably convinced by conspiracy theories, but at the same time I don't trust the media or politicians too much. I still hope that I can come to my own conclusions about things, and I hope that they're right. Better than just letting others do the thinking for me and adopt their position undigested.

I can only reiterate what was in the media at the time. So I cannot add much to this other than that. I would point out that a bunch of dudes living in mud huts managed to take down four planes, two buildings, and punch a hole in the Pentagon.
Something that, and here unfortunately I might come across as a heretic in a medieval "there is only one truth, and it's our truth, no questions" society, is still disputed territory. As far as I know, the FBI still did not find any direct link of the 9/11 suicide bombers and Bin Laden. Except some videos with muffled voices. You get lots of those after each of these kinds of attacks, I guess. I remember that I defaced my own websites some years ago for a week or so. A few weeks later, I found a russian cracker site on the web that claimed that they hacked my site and defaced it. :P

[Atrocities]

I am sorry but this comment of yours seems to be on the verge of some sort of unwarranted personal attack. Is that your intent here? :confused:
I was only hinting at it by my "I admit I'm getting polemical" sentence earlier, but to get this straight across, no, I am not interested in attacking you personally. I mostly want to get you to think. I am not somebody who is reasonably convinced by conspiracy theories, but at the same time I don't trust the media too much. I still hope that I can come to my own conclusions about things, and I hope that they're right. Better than just letting others do the thinking for me and adopt their position undigested.

Very well said. :)

[Azselendor]

the USA Patrtiot act is the greatest piece of gun control legislation EVER written. Think about it. It gives the president and government unprecedented powers and no one really bothered to oppose it -hell, read it- until after it was passed into law.

The jeff is absolutely right, the Democrats, lacking the ability to build a super majority or coalition in the government, were left at the mercy of the filibuster. I have to appauld the founding fathers for that as it is a great tool of the minority to defend itself against the majority (who whould be protecting the interests of the minority as well as their own. Now thanks to the failure of the Bush Administration, the democrats are damned close to having a super majority and with the economy going down faster then the hindenberg, many republicans are willing to break with GOP rank and file to save their necks in the next election on 2010 (senate/house)

I'm looking at your John McCain. He says maverick. I say oppurtunisic waffle.

As for bush being an idiot, I sincerely hope no one believes he is incompetent. I believe his country yokel act is merely an act. Yes, he commits faux pas, but everyone has too. He just happens to have cameras crammed up every part of his body to catch it for the evening news.

Edratman is very right. If he's will to claim all the credit for sunny days, he deserves the credit when it rains. For example, saying bush isn't responsible for the actions of those under him is like saying heinrich himmler isn't responsible for the holocaust.

On North Korea, I don't think we'll see that communist regime fall anytime soon. We've seen multiple generations raised under that and when people are raised into a particular ideology, it gets hard to break. As long as china props them up, we can't hope to see things change there.

[Atrocities]

Oh dear, sorta kinda bad news for Obama. Read (http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=78945) Looks like he is a socialist. Signed the paper work any ways.

Newspaper shows Obama belonged to socialist party
Democrat's campaign denied allegations, but new evidence indicates membership

At this point I say who the hell cares any more? I am very thankful that soon all of this will be over and we can get back to being mad about important things like our games not arriving on time, or whether to order a Pizza with mushrooms or not. Our voices are never heard over the roar of those with big money and hidden agenda's. So in the end our votes mean about as much in the grand electoral scheme of things as a fart in the wind, and they last about as long.

[Edratman]

I had a brain fart today and decided to actually look at the Patriot Act. The actual act itself may have been written in Etruscan for all I was able to make of it (I did determine that I will never be bored to death).

The following is an excerpt I obtained from a White House site on the Dept. of Homeland Security and its purpose:

"Protect the American people, our critical infrastructure, and key resources. To protect the lives and livelihoods of the American people, we must undertake measures to deter the threat of terrorism, mitigate the Nation's vulnerability to acts of terror and the full range of man-made and natural catastrophes, and minimize the consequences of an attack or disaster should it occur."

To my slightly (sic) offbeat thinking, it appears to me that Patriot Act allows the government to charge many in the financial industry with terrorism and ship them to Cuba or some other black site for perpetual limbo.

I'm willing to send a substantial check to the Barbed Wire Fund if it would help. :mean::mean::mean:

[lch]

As for bush being an idiot, I sincerely hope no one believes he is incompetent. I believe his country yokel act is merely an act. Yes, he commits faux pas, but everyone has too. He just happens to have cameras crammed up every part of his body to catch it for the evening news.
I didn't say that. Idiot, no. Incompetent, yes. As in "unfit for president". I'd invite him to a BBQ, he seems like an amicable guy, but as for what he's done as a president, a lot of things were nothing short of a disaster.

I still don't quite get Atrocities problems with the words "social", "socialism" and "socialist". Is that word taboo? Is America still living the cold war?

[JimMorrison]

I still don't quite get Atrocities problems with the words "social", "socialism" and "socialist". Is that word taboo? Is America still living the cold war?


The right wing largely (as far as the party line) supports the concept of free market capitalism, and the idea that ultimately the best interests of corporations, in the form of long term profits, coincide with the best interests of individuals. ;)

To them, there is no reason to look on the term "Socialism" in any light other than Marxist - that is, an "imperfect step on the way to -true- communism".

Personally, I think this is quite unfair, and forces a sort of semantic warfare where no one will find it possible to affect the status quo in America without entirely avoiding the term altogether, when referencing any vaguely Populist or Collectivist theories or plans which involve removing the influence of Exploitism from systems which directly impact the base quality of life of the individual.

[Azselendor]

ich, my comment on bush was in general. I'm sure he's an okay guy to know. I also think its an act.


as for the conservatives, apparently they are. Afterall, war is peace.

[thejeff]

Or possibly the right wing has just decided to upgrade the standard smear to socialist, since after 8 years of conservative rule, liberal doesn't sound quite as bad as they'd made it seem?

[capnq]

He says maverick. I say oppurtunisic waffle.This is one of the most frustrating problems in American politics. Politicians are not allowed to make mistakes, they are not allowed to admit they've made mistakes, and they're not allowed to learn from their mistakes. (They're freely allowed to criticize their opponents' mistakes, though.) If they ever change positions on any issue for any reason, they're accused of waffling or flip-flopping.

[Bwaha]

Well, now we have just raided Syria. Great, just what we need, another country angered at us. I was looking at the BBC news and just found this out. Lets see, do we have a mandate to invade anyone? I'm an isolationist and think all our adventures are going to destabilize what little peace left in the middle east. I think our executive branch let us down. If they had any sense they would of used the same tools that worked in WW2. After 911 king George should of gotten a formal declaration of war, sold war bonds, and had a general mobilization. We should have landed on Afghanistan with both boots. At that time we could have gone thru Pakistan and thus cut the talibans route of retreat. Now we have a festering sore that will take decades to solve, if ever. By the way I blame Jimmie Cater for all this mess. If we would have shown strength when Iran invaded our embassy, (An act of war) the Arabs wouldn't think we are a bunch of pantie waists. Sorry, I'm really ticked right now. Bwaha :mad:

[Tifone]

Atrocities,

If you come to visit me in Italy and suddenly (I sincerely hope not) your heart has a problem in my house, and if (I dunno, but let's suppose) you are poor and don't have any health insurance, you will be brought to the nearest hospital immediately. You could stay even a week there under observation of medics. If your heart problem is big, you would be carried by helicopter to Florence (where there are the best nearer hospitals to my hometown), and if necessary they would find a new heart for you as soon as possible, for an intensive surgical operation of replacement with half a dozen of medics.

All of this, completely free for you (except maybe minor tax expenses, the so called tickets), but payed by my (and Italian) taxes, which I would be glad to have payed DOUBLED if it could help to save your or s.o. else's life.

This is the kind of "socialism" you fear in modern states. (See "Sicko" by Michael Moore for further details :) )

Nothing to fear, really. ;)

P.S. not that I say that my country is great, really, I'm probably going away as soon as I finish the University, but that's another story at all :D

[lch]

Well, I could understand all the agitation if the term would have been "communist" or "terrorist", but not "socialist" or much less "liberal". Though it seems to me now like "socialist" is a synonym for "communist" for conservatives in the US and "terrorist" has just been used way too often and incautiously in the past to hold any deeper meaning to me, much like "patriot" is just a buzz word without any ethically expressive meaning to me.

[Gandalf Parker]

Amazing. We have again crossed another nations border for our own purposes. "Oh we arent attacking YOU, we are just taking out this building because we didnt like what it was used for." Apparently to take out 8 people.

There is no way we would stand for Mexico or Canada or Russia or Britain or any of our other neighbors sending military troops into our territory to attack in force. Much less some country from the other side of the world.

[lch]

The right wing largely (as far as the party line) supports the concept of free market capitalism
I see. I've been reading up on this and it seems that many US Americans believe in the power of free markets to govern themselves all the time. I don't know if those "laws" can be applied to the financial markets like that without any trouble as well, but anyway, I'm coming from where the social market economy is being practiced, which is a form of free market economy, but it might be too "social" to some. So I have another basis to this.

[Edratman]

The small things can be very significent.

On last nights evening NBC News, the reporter "embedded" (I hate that term) with the McCain campaign said the following:

"I am here in Defiance, Ohio, where John McCain held his latest political rally. The announced attendance was 6000 people, predominately comprised of school children bussed here for the event. McCain said .....". :party: