Here's the problem(s) with what he did....I can't think of any.
It's in bad taste, it's over the top as a bad joke, but it's NOT illegal. Lib, this is STILL America, we have the freedom to make fun of our government and anything else we wish. All the PC, race baiting mumbo jumbo in the world can't change that.
How PC are you Lib? Did you get outraged at the people who called for GWB's assassination? Or is this about shooting Pres-elect BOHICA specifically, and not about shooting the President of the U.S. in general? And if it's just about BOHICA, why the difference?
Yes, what the store owner did was terrible, especially coming around the 45th anniversary of John Kennedy's death. That said, according to a quote attributed to Cumberland County Sheriff Mark Dion in the linked article, "It doesn't appear that it constituted a criminal threat or a terrorizing incident."
Was it in poor taste? Undoubtedly. Was it illegal? Emphatically, no. The remedy for offensive speech is more speech, not less. The remedy is decidedly not hate speech codes that prohibit exercise of our First Amendment rights.
As an aside, how to you feel about the free speech rights of Fred Phelps, pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church who pickets the funerals of US servicemen killed in action, displaying signs that their deaths are God's retribution for our country's tolerance of homosexuals? How do you feel about local authorities allowing effigies of Sarah Palin hung from trees as Halloween decorations while effigies of Barack Obama hung from trees were investigated as hate crimes?
That's really funny Annie, trying to use logic with a liberal. (LOL) You should know better. Best stick to simple things, like asking he/she/it what their favorite flavor of Kool-Aid is.
I must agree with Annie. It is in bad taste (depending on whom is talking) but it is definitely not illegal. Would I do it? Probably not. I detest Phelps and his cohorts, but I defend their rights to say what they please. I would prefer that they change the name of the church because many people will not realize that all Baptist are not like Phelps.
Free speech is not guaranteed in all cases. The best example is shouting "FIRE" in crowded theater. There are other examples but I think you get the idea.
I don't think anyone needs to fire up the right wing base of violent nutcases any more than they were during the campaign by McCain/Palin. The history of terrorism and assasinations in this country trends heavily towards the right wing as perpetrators.
Believe me, if anything would happen to Obama due to you people, you won't be safe leaving your homes. Such an occurrence will end this country as we know it. Trust me.
Why can't you people just accept that you lost due to the horrible job the republicans did in managing the country? Why are you such, immature, poor losers? Do you realize what you're teaching your children? You're teaching them that when you lose the game, that means you can trip the other team at the banquet as they walk up to get their trophies.
You're not only bad losers, I believe more and more that you are bad people.
We'll be safe and sound should the unthinkable happen. You should be worring about your own skin.
But it's so thoughtful of you to be concerned...
And it's clinically proven that not only does our political ideology and worldview make us happier than "YOU people", we are also more secure, much more productive, and better providers for our families and charities.
"Bad people". LOL! Careful... There's a conservative under your bed...
The truth behind that "research" shows that your self-reportted happiness is derived from your ability to ignore other humans' suffering and to look at the injustices and wrongs of the world and shrug with indifference. In other words, you lack of empathy and compassion is a plus. For you. But then, that's all that matters until you need something then you go crying for help.
That said, I see little in the way of happiness when I'm around conservatives or when I read conservative websites. It's quite a bitter display of anger and acrimony. Especially now that you've been rendered powerless by the last two elections where your ideas were soundly rejected.
And don't forget the research that shows conservatives to live in constant fear as opposed to liberals who don't get as freaked out by life. There's no way a group that lives in fear that much can find that to be a happy situation.
As for the charity thing: The research you people like to cite shows religious liberal to be nearly as generous as religious conservatives, though I would take issue with self-serving giving to one's church as being charity. The significant finding was that secular conservatives (think Wall Street, fratboy, Bush type cons) are the least generous of all. Oh, and giving money to get your family name on a building at a university isn't real charity.
Every conservative I've ever met lays awake nights worrying that somewhere a poor person is getting a few pennies of their taxes. They'd crawl off theri deathbeds to vote against anyone proposing helping others with tax money. but you expect people to believe you're more generous? Even waitpersons report tips to be lousy in areas where conservatives live.
Funny how we liberals don't need to conduct phony studies or have to brag about our generosity. It's just something we accept without needing to tell everybody about it.
Not sure where your data on productivity comes from but in my experience, conservatives are the ones who kiss the boss' ass the most and do everything slimey they can to get ahead so they can retire early and escape the system they profess to love and go golfing every day. Is that what you mean by more productive?
Happy LiberalFreak said... I don't think anyone needs to fire up the right wing base of violent nutcases any more than they were during the campaign by McCain/Palin. The history of terrorism and assasinations in this country trends heavily towards the right wing as perpetrators. Give me facts, not your warped opinion. What is you chapter and verse?
Who shot Lincoln? A pissed off right winger. Who shot MLK? A pissed racist. Who blew up the federal building in OK City? A pissed off anti-government conservative, Timothy McVeigh. Who bombed the abortion clinics? Pissed off christian conservatives. Who shot abortion doctors? Pissed off christian conservatives. Who bombed the Altanta Olympics and a gay bar? Eric Rudolph, a pissed off conservative. Who burned crosses and lynched blacks? Pissed off southern racist conservatives. (Don't even try the "but they were democrats" argument. They were conservatives in any case). Who is making threats against Obama's life? Pissed off conservative racists. That doesn't even include the various gay bashers, thugs and bullies who identify exclusively with conservatism.
Notice how the liberal left out people like terrorist Bill Ayers, the radical leftist old broads from Code Puke, and the leftist Nazi queers stomping old people in California? To liberals, facts and reality are like holy water to a vampire.
There were no victims from Bill Ayers' activities, despite the lies from your side. Code Pink? Terrorists? LOL! Protesting gay people, terrorists? LOL!
Their activism and protest is a far cry from blowing up a building and killing nearly 300 people including the children at a day care center in the building. Or setting off a bomb in a bar full of people.
You people need a crash course in proportion.
Face it, your side is home to the violent nutjobs. That's a fact.
Happy liberal: Apparently you don't know your history as well as you think you do. You also don't know the definition of a conservative. One who is tolerant of others.John Wilkes Booth was a southern sympathizer who was racist and he killed Lincoln for that reason. He was not a conservative because conservatives were the ones pushing for freeing the slaves and operated the underground railway. Booth may have made the decision to kill the President after hearing Lincoln deliver a speech urging Negro suffrage, according to Booth's former friend, Louis Weichmann. Weichmann spoke of his viewing of the President's speech with Booth: "I had never seen Mr. Lincoln up close and I knew he was a tall man, however nothing could have prepared me for the sight of him. A long shadow did he have. And his arms, when at his sides, touched near his knees. Very professionally he said that there would never be any suffrage based on differences in the way people look. UPON THIS, BOOTH TURNED TO THE TWO OF US AND SAID, “THAT MEANS NIGGER CITIZENSHIP. NOW BY GOD I’LL PUT HIM THROUGH!” Remember it was a liberal, Janet Reno, that sent troops that caused the deaths of many children at WACO. As for Timothy McVeigh you cannot say for sure that he was a conservative. He was acting in response to the murders at WACO. Homosexuals that attack a group of praying Christians simply because they were not wanted in the neighborhood is terrorism whether you want to call it that or not. The riot squad had to be called to protect the Christians. Violence begets violence. When you murder babies by crushing their skulls and sucking their brains out is surely terrorism to that baby. When you practice violence against the innocent you must expect violence in return. The facts are that the red states give more to charity that blue states, especially following katrina. Obama gave less than 1% of his income to charity.
I knew that someone would eventually come out with the example of "yelling fire in a crowded theater" to illustrate that the First Amendment right to free speech is not absolute. Of course we have not the right to yell fire in a crowded theater. That action is guaranteed to cause harm. Selling chances on a pool guessing whether or when President elect Obama will be killed is not guaranteed to do anything other than generate a lot of heat and very little light. The reason that such speech is not guaranteed to cause harm to the President elect is because we, each one of us, is responsible for his own actions regardless of the signs he reads.
I think you will find that this sign, however offensive and in poor taste it may be does not rise to the level of the much touted "yelling fire in a crowded theater."
"Believe me, if anything would happen to Obama due to you people, you won't be safe leaving your homes. Such an occurrence will end this country as we know it. Trust me."
That sounds suspiciously like a threat and also like frank plagiarism from Sandra Bernhard's threat that her "big black brothers would rape Sarah Palin if she entered Manhattan" or James Carville's threat that there would be riots if [then] Senator Obama lost the election. Statictically, causasians are more likely armed and more likely better armed that our African-American brethren, so that kind of rhetoric is wasted here.
Your characterizatiion of John Wilkes Booth and Eric Rudolph as representative of conservatives would be laughable were it not so monumentally ignorant and wrong-headed. Perhaps you should avail yourself of remedial American history education to clear up your thinking and reasoning errors.
There is however one area in which I am wholehearted agreement with you. That is that the Republican Party allowed it's traditional ethos of fiscal restraint and sound monetary policy to be hijacked by neo-conservative idaelogues who favored deficit spending and a soaring national debt to pursue a misbegotten war to achieve regime change in a country that lacked the means to harm us.
By the way, according to my own, personal "Fairness Doctrine," I have made it a policy to offer the privileges of guest authorship to anyone who regularly posts here. I have also long wanted a liberal guest author to offer a counterpoint to the ideas of the rest of us who post here. If you'd like to accept my offer, send a message to tgrtfinancial@aim.com or jangalt1944@aol.com with a valid E-Mail address and I shall dispatch an invitation to guest authorship with all deliberate speed.
After the events of the 20th century--national socialism, international socialism, inter-species socialism from Earth First--anyone who is still on the left is obviously insane and not responsible for his or her actions. -- P. J. O'Rourke
Perhaps in the past conservatives and republicans were more level-headed but since the late 70s they have become home to the worst elements in society. I think it began after the Civl Rights Act passed and LBJ warned that the south would desert the democrats. Of course we all know that happened the best illustration being Nixon's "southern strategy" of playing on racism to win the south. The dem/libs were happy to be rid of the racists and the republicans were all too eager to welcome them with open arms. The republicans repeated that scenario over they years picking up the least tolerant, the most angry and the most ignorant segments of the electorate. The republican powerbase
Now they've lost the few intellectuals they had left- Powell, Buckley, wealthy intllectuals, too who were horrified with the gutter ideology conservatism has become.
1. There has never been a band of roving homosexuals attacking christians. That's propaganda from nutjob cons.
2. So do ya think Eric Rudolph was a big liberal? LOL
I go away for a few days and when I come back we have a real live liberal to play with? I read he/she/it's post and I think its the real deal. It feels that since we disagree with her, we are cretans (in fact she seems to associate any conservative with a cretan). She redefined terrorism into murder so as to make Ayers less of a terrorist (though any interview would show his victims would disagree), she says that any kind of homosexual terrorism is propoganda but I know one old lady who would disagree not to mention a church that was swarmed by them and temporarily taken over. I also wonder if she was equally as vocal when people called for Bush to die and even burned him in effigy. She also called us sore losers and that we should just accept that Obama won and asked what we were teaching our children. Apparently her memory does not go back 4 and 8 years. And as for us igoring suffering? Please. Conservatives give more to charity then liberals do. The difference is that conservatives believe its our responsibility according to our own conscious to give where we feel is needed whereas liberal think that government should steal money from people and give to where it feels its needed.
Poots sorry to say nothing exciting .. I flew down to Florida to drive my aunt back to NJ with her dog in her car. It was 2 days of her coughing up a lung and yelling at me for driving too fast.
Also, Abe Lincoln was the first Republican President. To say the John Wilkes Boothe (an actor) was a Conservative is a ridiculous assertion. You might as well compare Whigs and Torys to Republicans and Democrats.
I never said Eric Rudolph was a liberal. I simply siad that he was not representative of the conservative movement. He was insane. Would you object if I cited Kathy Boudin [killed 3], Katherine Ann Power [killed 1], Charles Manson [killed 9] as representative of the liberal movement?
I can't believe my friends here would waste their time trying to apply common sense, logic, and fact to a liberal. That's like trying to shoot pool with a rope! Obviously, the low-life's objective is to incite, one of the very few things liberals are good at. (the others being lying and avoiding reality)
Well Spider, shouldn't we try to convert he/she/it? NO! I don't want to convert liberals, i want to destroy them, the same way they want to destroy us! Liberals are the cancer of the earth, the destroyers of freedom, and the new-age Hitlers and Stalins!
But the one's i know do have one attraction, their women are easy to bed.
Spider buddy, it's more likely that conservatives will be destroyed judging from the last two elections. I mean, you're already halfway there! When this economic meltdown gets started, conservative will become synonymous with "pedophile" just as it was in the 1930s.
Oh, and good try on distancing yourselves from what you consider the fringes of right wing crazies, people. Too bad they're the core of the ideology.
Hypocrite liberal freak ... in the 1930's, liberalism made the depression worse ... please re-read your history. And the reason Obama won was because actual conservatives did not vote because they did not feel they had anyone to vote for and Obama ran on a conservative platform in some respects by promising to cut spending and lower taxes (even though they are lies). Besides, HLF, you do realize that your recent ad hom attacks are a sign of desperation on your part. They generally begin when you realize you can no longer argue fact.
"Oh, and good try on distancing yourselves from what you consider the fringes of right wing crazies, people. Too bad they're the core of the ideology."
First off, welcome aboard, HLF. Nice to see a dissenting opinion occasionally.
That being said, your above quote is really a slippery slope for you to try and walk on. No sane person wants to be linked to the far-out fringes of any political ideology. That the person who bombed the abortion clinics also happened to be a conservative is irrelevant. He was insane. To say that the conservative ideology demands the bombing of abortion clinics is intellectually bankrupt, and also very hateful. I could say the same thing to you, and say that the Weather Underground proves that leftist ideology demands the bombing of the pentagon and post ofices, or that leftist ideology demands several (9, if memory serves) brutal, bloody murders to be committed in LA. These people were leftist. If you want to tie in crazy, fringe rightists into the argument,t hen we get to do the same; if you say we support Rudoplh,then we get to say that you supported Manson. See the bankrupt path that leads us down? It gets us nowhere, besides mud slinging.
And to say that the current administration even REMOTELY adhered to conservative ideals is also a bankrupt argument. Bush is NOT a conservative, and his failures in no way reflect upon conservative ideals.
As to the OP, it was stupid, ignorant, in poor taste, and if it is found that the owner of the restraunt knowingly allowed it to be posted on his premises, then i think everyone against such a statement should make a statement of their own:
Don't eat there.
However, you don't get to prosecute him for this. It is not a threat, either overt or direct, and thus, it is protected speech.
Not to mention the fact that you don't have to actually KILL anybody to be a terrorist. The dead feel very little fear. Well, about somebody blowing them up, anyway.
I laugh when I read "ad hominem" on blogs. It's a phrase conservatives use to try and look intelligent.
If it weren't for liberals taking power during the Depression we would have had a revolution much like Russia's. Your knowledge of the events back then are simply conservative revisionism. The truth is that the conservatives ran the country with an iron fist from the late 1890s to the 1930s which led us to the Great Depression. Sound familiar?
That resulted in republicans dropping to 19% of Congress and losing the White House for 20+ years allowing the liberals the power to remake this country.
That's rule #2 in the conservative rulebook. [Number one is that conservatives are always victims of biased media and are the underdogs. No matter how much they control they still want to be seen as underdogs who can't get a fair shake from the "liberal media".]
Rule #2 states that: when conservatives fail, they aren't "real" conservatives. Believe it or not, the same accusation was leveled at Reagan at one point. If failed conservatives aren't real conservatives, conservatism never fails.
Sounds like a good tactic but the people see right through it. The intelligent ones, anyway.
I have a few questions to ask of you, in an effort to get to know you a little bit better. I hate to make assumptions about people, and to assume that because you say you are a liberal, that you adhere to every liberal policy would be a bit presumptuous. Would you be so kind as to indulge me the following?
1.) Do you feel as though the government should provide you with healthcare? For what reason?
2.) Do you feel as though every citizen is deserving of an income, regardless of whether they choose to work or not? For what reason?
3.) Do you feel as though it is fair to pay a person more than their position is worth in order to meet the financial needs of that perticular person?
4.) Do you feel as though America is fundamentally flawed and needs to be drastically revamped? For what reasons?
Those are the typical four talking points that I am most at odds with the lock-step liberal policies, and so I think it is as good a place to start as any.
Who burned crosses and lynched blacks? Pissed off southern racist conservatives- HappyLiberalFreak
You will find that the most southern racist of the 1960's were democrats!
George Wallace was a southern democrat! I could go on, but I won't.
I will also say that you condemn others for making assumptions about a whole group of people based on one characteristic. But you do that when you say all conservatives are..... It is just as wrong to make those type of sweeping generalizations about conservatives as it is to make them about a particular race.
HLF .. Did you just use an ad hominem attack to refute my point about ad hominem attacks? Do you even see your hypocracy? Liberalism did not end the Depression, it made it worse. What saved America's economy was World War II.
My Dear Happy Liberal - No one said there was a "roving band of Homosexuals". Those were you words. It seems you have a knack for changing word to fit you needs. The media reported the incident. Also the facts are that MSM did favor Obama and was very open about it. Remember "it caused tingles up my leg." As for Palin stirring up the crowd it was proven by the Secret Service that it was a false report started by a reporter.
So, how bout it Missy? Lets go gits buttered down in Florida and go slidin round own each udder while we wait fo sumbubby go an off the new Kuhn-Elect.
"Where I get this stuff" is by reading. It's great. I recommend that you give it a try.
Charles Manson was a product of the free love liberal era of the 1960's and used the blood of Gary Hinman to write "political piggy" on the wall of Hinman's house after Manson's followers stabbed him to death. As you will doubtless remember, the word "Pig" was liberal argot for cops or any other members of the political establishment with which whom they disagreed. Charlie M. also required one of his followers to draw a Black Panther symbol on the wall in Hinman's blood. Manson had predicted "Helter Skelter" a race war between blacks and whites; and by his shooting of Bernard Crowe whom he thought was a Black Panther, did his best to bring it about. Does that sound like a "political operative" to you?
I have one thing to say that I think at least some of you will agree with. If you cling to one particular ideology (liberal/conservative, Republican/Democrat) you are a FOOL.
Get the facts, look at both sides of everything and make your own informed decision.
If you are who I think you are [ the artist formerly known as Bill O Writes] I've re-sent your invitation. If not, please forgive me and send me another note to tgrtfinancial@aim.com and I'll send you another invite...this time to the correct address.
Why have you not sent me a mesasage? Guest authorship and full administrative privileges await you. "Full administrative privileges" mean that you can re-design this site to your own satisfaction. All guest authors have that privilege.
Whereever did Happy Liberal Freak go? [sob!] I had so hoped he would stick around and join our band of merry pranksters as a guest author, so's to keep the conversation lively.
Or could it be that HLF was our own Snorphty posting under a nom de plume?
Despite the popular image of liberals in conservative lore, I work and can't be posting here all day, that's where I've been. West coast time.
A few things:
Manson's actions weren't political, they were homicidal. McVeigh's and Rudolph's were political and geared towards anti-government conservatism. Unless you think blowing up a federal building is not a political act.
1.) Do you feel as though the government should provide you with healthcare? For what reason?
Yes, based on a system of collective funding. Just like defense, infrastructure and K-12 education. Just like Medicare. The government will not provide it, just pay for it from the aforementioned funding. The benefits far outweigh the costs as most first world countries have discovered.
2.) Do you feel as though every citizen is deserving of an income, regardless of whether they choose to work or not? For what reason?
There should be a floor for those who cannot or cannot find gainful employment. In a system where we can have billionaires, there must be those with nothing. It is a zero-sum game. That is the system we have accepted. There will always be those we need to take care of. Anticipating the basis for your question: Welfare is a very small part of the taxes you pay despite the common conservative misconception that 99% of the tax you pay goes to "welfare". That is simply a rationalization for the conservative distaste of paying for the government-provided services they use that they think should be free. To them. Not anybody else. opposition to "welfare" has been the safe harbor for the deadbeats that live among us.
3.) Do you feel as though it is fair to pay a person more than their position is worth in order to meet the financial needs of that perticular person?
Define "more than their position is worth". As determined by who? under what situation(s)? Define financial needs.
4.) Do you feel as though America is fundamentally flawed and needs to be drastically revamped? For what reasons?
America is indeed fundamentally flawed as are most things in life. it is alsos a country on a steep decline. It needs to be drastically revamped but I see little chance of that happening in my lifetime. There is too much hyper-competitive nonsense and not enough collectivism. Competition is counter-productive in the long run. How much time you got?
We will be seeing fundamental changes soon. We've already seen much change, it just hasn't sunken in yet.
There is no Utopia but there are a lot more efforts in better adjusted cultures than here. I believe selfishness, greed and fear (read "conservatism") is the culprit and is what is holding us back and is what has always held us back from being better than who we are. Looking back through history, it has always been the liberals who have led civilizations toward progress with the status quo-loving conservatives acting as the anchor to be dragged along. In the end though, liberal ideas have always prevailed. Indeed, the ideas we chereish the most- equality, freedom and opportunity- are very liberal ideas. Otherwise we would still be living under monarchy or a feudal system, both systems I am sure the conservatives of their time favored highly over the progress being proposed by the liberals of that time.
The ideals of our founders were liberal only in that they advocated revolt against the British Crown. Other than that notable exception, their ideals were very much libertarian, with limited central government, states rights and personal responsibility being at the core of those ideals. They had a healthy fear of a strong central government; which is why we have the Second and the Tenth Amendments.
"Manson's actions weren't political, they were homicidal. McVeigh's and Rudolph's were political and geared towards anti-government conservatism. Unless you think blowing up a federal building is not a political act."
Perhaps you did not recognize a reductio ad absurdum argument comparing Rudolph, and Manson, HLF. Or, perhaps you do not comprehend a simple syllogism. If your argument is that Timothy McVeigh and Eric Rudolph are representative of all conservatives, your premise is so profoundly ridiculous on its face as to be meaningless. Of course Manson's motivation was homicidal. Of course McVeigh's misguided motivation was anti-government. It was in no way representative of true conservative. If your argument is that Rudolph and McVeigh are the face of conservatism, then you and I have no basis for intelligent dialog.
Annie, I'm shocked! I thought you were a "real" conservative who could engage in civil debate without getting ruffled.
Look. I'll accept my side's 9/11 conspiracy theorists and tree-sitting logger-haters but you have to accept your far right terrorists. Neither may be totally representative of their respective ideologies but they are an extension of them. The difference is mine write crackpot letters to the editor and yours blow up children at a daycare center.
Does this mean the offer of guest-blogging is off the table?
I can't fathom you believe 10% of the opinions you have shared.
Thanks for reminding me, I almost forgot.
Have to go to "The Conservative Illegal Weapons and Explosive Outlet" for some more Semtex. Never know when the opportunity might arise to blow up some women and children. No wait, it's not Conservative Radicals that do that....it's Muslim Radicals.
Silly you for mixing the two up.
How many years have you spent overseas? If you have, ever went to the nationalized medical center/hospital for treatment? I know you didn't because if you had you'd, in no way, wish that system on Americans.
Barak (excuse me) Obama's plan to tax the wealthy and big businesses to give it to the po folks will accomplish exactly one thing.
The wealthy and big business will leave. They have to. That leaves their employees holding an empty sack.
Unemployment will go thru the roof. The economy will crash.
It's a stupid idea which only someone who has little touch with reality would consider. It's the kiss of death for Capitalism. Guaranteed.
Just about every campaign promise uttered by The Obama is spin on common sense, carefully crafted to appeal to the fuzzy feelings of New Age thinkers.
The real shame is - in a couple of years or so, all those that voted for the messiah are going to see the cold, hard facts. He came out of nowhere, was relatively unknown before the campaign, has a very lightweight resume and a bunch of friends of dubious nature. In no way could he have pulled this off by himself. Some very serious money was spent to get this vacuum-in-a-suit elected. He was bought and paid for by the left-wing elite, and his persona was totally fabricated by the media. He owes these people everything. He will follow the script they give him to the letter.
And the results are going to be painful for all.
So, revel in your 'win' if you must. You elected a hamster in an excersize wheel. A zombie follower of the hard core left's line. A cartoon character. A myth.
I wish the Dems has selected any number of well-know people for their "first black president" candidate. Colin Powell, Condaleeza Rice, Thomas Sowell, and so many other well-qualified, experienced people - who also happen to be of African heritage.
They pick this guy. Danger, Will Robinson!
For those students of history, didn't this campaign closely resemble that of the National Socialist German Worker's Party in the early 1930's? Tell a lie long enough in the media and in schools and it will be believed.
First damn George W. Bush during the entirety of his 8-year term. Blame every problem on him. Now, when the campaigns start, connect any Republican candidate to Bush and the public will vote for the opponent, no matter who.
The technique worked. The same way it did for the Nazi's. In 12 years, Germany was physically, economically and morally destroyed.
HLF - In your response about healthcare you said: "The government will not provide it, just pay for it from the aforementioned funding. The benefits far outweigh the costs as most first world countries have discovered". Would you please enlighten us as to what first world countries you are talking about?
Annie: I only disagree with you on one point. That being "states rights". As the Late Bill O'Writes said, only individuals can have rights. No group, government or other entity can have "rights". The Constitution spoke of states' powers as opposed to Federal. Rights, as in the Bill of, was reserved for "WE THE PEOPLE". And if anyone of these politicians, judges, and lawyers would look at history and what our Founding Fathers wrote, it would be obvious what they intended. And it was not a loose interpretation of the Constitution, but rather straight forward with a modest amount of flexibility. But certainly not where these rights can not be infringed.
The American health care systemranks 37th in the world for quality and access. The top of the list contains the European countries and Canada, those that have the dreaded "socialized medicine".
To the person that thinks we're living in Utopia and that Obama will kill the economy: Too late. 30 years of conservative dominance over the budgets and policy agenda already did that. Do you people even read what you write? Have you read the papers lately? Can you read?
As for the wealthy leaving if taxed too high: Did that happen prior to 1980? Besides, where they going to go? There's no place on the planet where the wealthy get a better deal. No livable place. If they want to live in a South American nightmare behind armed guards in armored Mercedes, let them.
Here's the facts without all the crystal ball gazing about the dire consequences of electing Obama. Republicans have dominated the agenda for 30 years. We're now in the toilet. Here are the numbers:
28 years of conservative ideological dominance:
20 of the last 28 years with a republican President 1980-1992, 2000-2008
Republican majority Congress:
Republican Senate 1981-1987, 1995-2007
Republican House 1995-2007
(total republican control of Congress 1995-2007)
The last 8 years with a republican President and Congress 2000-2008
Compared with:
Democrats with a slim Congressional majority under a republican president 2007-2008
But you want to try and blame a man who hasn't taken office yet? LOL, 10 points for creativity, -10 points for grasp of reality.
I think my favorite part of your post was suggesting that Uncle Thomas Sowell would have been a good candidate for the democrats. Shows a oddly skewed view of the world brought on by the grief of having your party totally and completely removed from power.
Why do you find it necessary to call Mr Sowell an "Uncle Tom"? He is an extremely educated, vastly intelligent individual, who became a success. He did this without handouts from his humble beginnings in Harlem, attended Harvard and is an independent thinker. But I don't think he would want to be a shill for the Democratic party either.
The offer stands, if you will but send me a message containing a valid address. What 9/11 conspiracy theories do you speak; the ones that say George Bush engineered the attacks? Please, let us not be ridiculous! But in the spirit of bi-partisanship, I shall cede the point that Rudolph and McVeigh were politically motivated while Manson was motivated by God knows what, save his own insanity.
Where we seem to differ, HLF is that I believe that an individual, whatever his political ideology may be is responsible for his own actions, regardless of the messages he sees on signs or the crackpot letters he reads in newspapers. Your own statements at the beginning of this discourse, "Believe me, if anything would happen to Obama due to you people, you won't be safe leaving your homes. Such an occurrence will end this country as we know it. Trust me," leads me to conclude that you believe that we at this site are capable by the written word, of inciting an individual to murder the President elect. This indicates to me that you believe that the individual is powerless over his own behavior and is blown hither and yon by the opinions of others; and moreover is not responsible for his own actions.
Yes, HLF, I shall admit that Rudloph and McVeigh were expressions of their own warped interpretation of conservative ideology; but I would submit that the ideals that they acted upon were a bastardization and a perversion of true conservatism.
Please, send me a message to tgrtfinancial@aim.com so that I may add your name to our list of guest authors.
You state that conservative politics over the last 30 years have run us "into the toilet."
Then, you went on to show us the times when the conservatives had power over the last 30 years, and are claiming that the reasons that we are "in the toilet" are specifically due to the conservatives being in power.
Without any evidence to back this up, this is clearly an ad hoc fallacy, and I urge you to provide specific examples of coservative policies that have lead to us being "in the toilet".
That being said, if you blame the bad times on conservatives, then by your logic, we must also credit them with the good times, which, in the last 30 years, have BY FAR outnumbered the "bad time" years.
Now, as to why we are "in the toilet" right now, if you want to blame that on conservatives, then you go right ahead and delude yourself to death, pal. However, I hand you Chris Dodd, and Barney Frank, among others, as your major culprits.
Oh, did you notice that both of them have a "D" after their names? Did you also notice that it was a coalition of CONSERVATIVES that noticed that the democrats were running Fannie and Freddie into the dirt in the name of "housing equality?"
Cover your ears and start yelling LA LA LA LA HLF, becauseif you want someone to blame for our current "in the toilet" status, the list of those responsible will be made up of mostly democrats.
There, I've actually backed my statements up with examples of why I think it was DEMOCRAT policies that put us into the toilet, instead of just listing the number of years they were in power.
Oh, and I'll say again, the current administration is RINO (republican in name only). They don't count, and if you read here on this site, they most SURELY do not get a free pass. My guess is that you could find more dislike of them HERE than you could on Kos.
Where do you get your "facts" from? The American heathcare system as 37th? Based on what. As a doctor, I can tell you if you think the Canadian and European systems are better, I wish you well. Waste, corruption, sub-par services for most people and procedures are the rule there, not the exception. And if you think healthcare is a right rather than a privilege, watch what happens over the next generation as our healthcare system really does die from nationalization. And these other systems you are so fond of would collapse if it were not for American medicine proping them up as we do with the entire world economically.
I'm quite sure Mr. Sowell took advantage of any and all affirmative action programs he could just as Clarence Thomas did.
Yes, my point about left wing crazies was those who believe 9/11 was engineered. Although.......it was the best thing to happen to republicans since reagan.
Ah, the death penalty. Even many of my liberal brethren support that. Shows that even the left can be mired in savagery on some issues. There is nothing more abhorrent about American culture than it's embrace of the death penalty.
For a good example of why they are RINO, I give you the Iraq war. History has shown time and again that conservatives dislike the idea of the US intervening in foreign affairs. Vietnam, Somalia, Kosovo, the Balkans, and lebanon are just a few examples of foreign interventions that recieved a HUGE amount of opposition from the right.
These were all endeavors taken up by the left. Foreign military intervention has always been a leftist desire. We could go back in history a bit more if you like, in order to prove that, but possibly you will just conceded this point as fact instead of choosing to ignore facts and believe whatever you want.
This foreign intervention is no different. Conservatives back wars when and only when there is a threat to eliminate, and end the wars when the threat is gone.
I give you Gulf War I for a perfect example.
So, I submit that this is further proof that the current administration is RINO.
That, and the fact that they spent more money than any administration has, ever. Sound conservative to you?
There are some of us on the right who [believe it or not] favor abolition of the death penalty and are pro-choice on the issue of abortion. Some of us even have experience relating to these issues.
And, there is a reason that Americans are a savage people. Our ancestors came to the US of A because they couldn't assimilate into polite society from whence they came, or were brought here against their collective will; witness James Oglethorpe's Georgia penal colony and the many black Africans captured by other black Africans and sold into slavery. We represent the detritus of European society who could not or would not fit into the social mores of the lands of their collective origin.
The push westward was fueled by the same thing, the inability or unwillingness to conform to societal mores. A good example of this was the colonization of Texas by Austin, the war for independence from Mexico led by Houston [a drunk], Crockett [the quintessential misfit] and Travis [a megalomaniac and my ancestor], and the establishment of the region as an independent republic. What arrogance! What hubris! We are a bellicose people. What we want, we buy if we can [Louisiana Purchase, Alaska] or we take by force of arms [the Southwest].
As far as the current debacle in Iraq, there are many conservatives [yours truly, Ron Paul] who opposed such an idiotic foreign policy blunder. The invasion of Afghanistan was a sad but necessary fact of political reality. Had we not invaded the country that allowed the Mujahedeen to metamorphose into the Taliban and provide a safe haven for Al Qaeda to plan and launch the 9/11attacks, we would have been at the mercy of every disaffected and disenfranchised Muslim on the Arab Street. Was there an element of revenge in the invasion? Probably. Could it have been avoided? Again, probably since we armed and assisted the Mujahedeen after the Soviet invasion.
This does not represent a departure from decades of American Middle East foreign policy, though. We have alternately armed and gone to war with the Taliban, Saddam, and any other political junta who we perceived could aid us in keeping the oil taps wide open. I do not deny that an assured supply of oil is a matter of national interest. The aspect of the Iraq invasion that I find most disturbing is the fact that it was couched in the rhetoric of "bringing democracy to Iraq." I would find it refreshingly honest if our president would say, "We need the oil under that godforsaken hellhole, so we are going to take it by force and regime change if necessary." Our Middle East foreign policy is, was and ever will be about oil.
Pant! Pant! Pant! Okay, I'm done now. Take me back to my room, nurse. Is it time for my Cogentin and Haldol?
You claim that you are sure that Mr Sowell took advantage of the affirmative action situation presented to him? There was no affirmative action when he went to school. He received his education in the 1950's and early 1960's. Is it so hard for yoy to understand that a black person can succeed on his or her own? Or does your liberal ideology suggest that minorities are the white man's burden?
HLF: If the medical coverage is so good in England why do so many go to India, which has a two tier system, to have surgery. Why did the parents of a youngster come here to have doctors use superglue on his brain. In reality healthcare is already rationed in England. The reason - cost. The state of Oregon will not pay for some cancer medicine but will pay for assisted suicide. If Canada has such a good system why do so many expectant mothers come here to give birth? Medicine may be less expensive in Canada because the people here pay for the R&D that Canadians don't have to pay. If this is such a bad place to live why do we have so many immigrants coming here?
The American healthcare system is broken and it needs to be fixed. Unfortunately, I am not intelligent enough to do the job. Any plan that will provide universal care at government expense will by necessity ration care. The European system is much more focused on preventative programs such as prenatal care and well baby programs than our system.
I worked with many Canadian physicians who emigrated to the US shortly after OHIP went into effect because they could not make a living in Canada. They also spoke of 3-year waits for elective surgery that are readily available in the US. I also worked for a company headquartered in Vienna, VA that provided addiction treatment services that were not to be had in Canada. The company paid an employee stationed in Ontario $30,000 per month to feed OHIP patients into our system. I know beyond a doubt that this is true and the number is accurate because I had to sign the checks.
In another job [health services consulting] I discovered that there were more MRIs and CT scanners in metro Denver than the entire nation of Canada. Wonder how long you'd have to wait in Canada for an MRI or a CT?
That said, we need to fix the system because we have so many working uninsured or underinsured that it becomes a matter of productivity. An unhealthy work force is an unproductive workforce. Also, a population that receives its primary care through the emergency room is always going to be a burden on the public health system. I believe the answer to the later problem is Medicaid managed care [HMOs] to wean Medicaid patients off the most expensive care in our current system. Medicare HMOs have worked well at managing senior healthcare costs while still achieving desirable outcomes.
If president-elect Obama is as intelligent as I believe him to be, he will not exhibit the same hubris and arrogance as did Hillary Clinton in attempting to re-design our entire healthcare delivery system in secret, without the input of physicians and insurance carriers. Any such secret plan is going to be doomed to the same fate as was hers. Any plan such as hers that would make a criminal out of a healthcare consumer for choosing to go outside the system and pay out of pocket is doomed as well. Moreover, any system that reduces physician pay to little more than working for wages is doomed, or it must be accompanied with a system of reducing medical school tuition and malpractice insurance coverage so that a new doctor does not start his practice owing a half-million dollars and paying half his income for his malpractice premium.
Where would American big business go if the Obliviot raises corporate taxes?
What country uses good sense in their taxation of business?
Ireland.
The Corporate tax rate is 10%.
The local workforce speaks English.
The prevailing wage is a lot lower than here.
I dunno. If I was on the board of a big American company I'd certainly entertain relocating to Ireland...if the corporate tax rate gets raised here as Barak (excuse me) Obama stated he will to help the po folk. An' Lawdy, dey needs mo free cheese.
Break America into separate provinces, fiefdoms, or whatever? You'd better give this one a good think. What kind of military would any of them be able to afford? A pretty small force, I'd say. How long do you think it would be before one of the 'real' countries would come and absorb your little haven of goodness, equality in all things and burgeoning Birkenstock sales?
"Canadians aren't streaming across the border to seek medical care. Lie."
If you are calling me a liar, please offer some sort of proof other than your own deluded ranting that what I say is false. Did you ever work in healthcare? Do you have personal experience in treating Canadian patients and billing OHIP for their care? Living in the Pacific Northwest, albeit a charming place does not necessarily qualify one as a healthcare policy expert.
"What good is having 2000 MRIs in Denver if the only people accessing them are rich people to diagnose a simple headache?"
Again, empty, ill thought out, ignorant rhetoric. I asks ya, I asks, how many indigent patients recieved sophisticated diagnostic testing or nuclear medicine exams such as MRIs or CT scans in Denver in 1993? How many patients paid out of pocket for those services? Do you have personal experience in the Denver healthcare market, specifically in the diagnosis of headaches in rich people? No? Don't need experience to make statements that have no basis in fact? Good God,, HLF, you're going to have to do better than that. Sharpen up those ol' debate skills and refrain from ranting about things of which you are woefully uninformed.
One doesn't need to be a chicken to recognize an egg.
Think about what you are saying. You need an operation. The Canadian system says you can wait. The operation will cost you $40K in America. You cross the border and pay cash? Riiiiiiight. Unless you're seeking a buttlift or tummy tuck, you wouldn't be in the class to be able to do that. And if the rich want to come across the border to get their toenails trimmed by a doctor, fine. That's more real treatment for the regular folks.
The propaganda about health care sounds much like when Medicare was proposed. Ronald Reagan even made a scary recording about how it was "socialism!" Now, every last one of you depdends on Medicare to pay for your aged relatives' care, the last bills usually around $100K. That's $100K you'd have to put out or watch your parents sell everything they own to pay the $3000 a month private insurance premiums, if they could even qualify. Allowed most of you to inherit more, didn't it?
And I know there are lots of you who participated in the scam where you hide the old folks' money and then put them in nursing homes on Medicaid, the program for the poor. I knew several good, upstanding, republican families that did that. Of course they bristled when I told them they were welfare cheats.
Eminent psychiatrist makes case that leftist thinking is a mental disorder "Based on strikingly irrational beliefs and emotions, modern liberals relentlessly undermine the most important principles on which our freedoms were founded," says Dr. Lyle Rossiter, author of the new book, "The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness." "Like spoiled, angry children, they rebel against the normal responsibilities of adulthood and demand that a parental government meet their needs from cradle to grave."
The rantings that we have read from HLF are evidence of this.
"One doesn't need to be a chicken to recognize an egg. Think about what you are saying. You need an operation. The Canadian system says you can wait. The operation will cost you $40K in America. You cross the border and pay cash? Riiiiiiight."
I did not create this site to teach remedial healthcare policy to individuals who lack the mental capacity to comprehend it. For your information, HLF, OHIP pays for certain medical procedures in the US healthcare system that are beyond capability to provide in a reasonable time frame. Approximately 95% of the 5,500 Canadian patients with whom I had contact were funded by OHIP. In your vast healthcare experience, how many of your Canadian patients were private pay and how many were OHIP funded?
93 comments:
Do you people have such little decency that you don't see anything wrong with what he did?
Nevermind. I think I know the answer to that.
kinda like a preacher saying "god damm america"
Here's the problem(s) with what he did....I can't think of any.
It's in bad taste, it's over the top as a bad joke, but it's NOT illegal. Lib, this is STILL America, we have the freedom to make fun of our government and anything else we wish. All the PC, race baiting mumbo jumbo in the world can't change that.
How PC are you Lib? Did you get outraged at the people who called for GWB's assassination? Or is this about shooting Pres-elect BOHICA specifically, and not about shooting the President of the U.S. in general? And if it's just about BOHICA, why the difference?
Oh how sweet. We have our very own silly little liberal troll.
The 'timing' of this story is a little suspect, I'd say.
11/22??? The reporters were out LOOKING for assassinations.
Damn Jimbo, I never made the connection. Good job.
It's reprehensible and disgusting, but not illegal. What dates are left and how much id the pool?
With the economic meltdown gaing speed, it's far more likely that republicans will be the targets of violence than Obama anyway.
I'd say that by 2010 we'll be hunting republicans with DOGS.
Welcome, Happy Liberal Freak!
Yes, what the store owner did was terrible, especially coming around the 45th anniversary of John Kennedy's death. That said, according to a quote attributed to Cumberland County Sheriff Mark Dion in the linked article, "It doesn't appear that it constituted a criminal threat or a terrorizing incident."
Was it in poor taste? Undoubtedly. Was it illegal? Emphatically, no. The remedy for offensive speech is more speech, not less. The remedy is decidedly not hate speech codes that prohibit exercise of our First Amendment rights.
As an aside, how to you feel about the free speech rights of Fred Phelps, pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church who pickets the funerals of US servicemen killed in action, displaying signs that their deaths are God's retribution for our country's tolerance of homosexuals? How do you feel about local authorities allowing effigies of Sarah Palin hung from trees as Halloween decorations while effigies of Barack Obama hung from trees were investigated as hate crimes?
That's really funny Annie, trying to use logic with a liberal. (LOL) You should know better. Best stick to simple things, like asking he/she/it what their favorite flavor of Kool-Aid is.
All depends on how fast Hillery can hire somebody.sfp
I must agree with Annie. It is in bad taste (depending on whom is talking) but it is definitely not illegal. Would I do it? Probably not. I detest Phelps and his cohorts, but I defend their rights to say what they please. I would prefer that they change the name of the church because many people will not realize that all Baptist are not like Phelps.
Free speech is not guaranteed in all cases. The best example is shouting "FIRE" in crowded theater. There are other examples but I think you get the idea.
I don't think anyone needs to fire up the right wing base of violent nutcases any more than they were during the campaign by McCain/Palin. The history of terrorism and assasinations in this country trends heavily towards the right wing as perpetrators.
Believe me, if anything would happen to Obama due to you people, you won't be safe leaving your homes. Such an occurrence will end this country as we know it. Trust me.
Why can't you people just accept that you lost due to the horrible job the republicans did in managing the country? Why are you such, immature, poor losers? Do you realize what you're teaching your children? You're teaching them that when you lose the game, that means you can trip the other team at the banquet as they walk up to get their trophies.
You're not only bad losers, I believe more and more that you are bad people.
"You People..."
You're a silly little delusional elitist dipshit.
We'll be safe and sound should the unthinkable happen. You should be worring about your own skin.
But it's so thoughtful of you to be concerned...
And it's clinically proven that not only does our political ideology and worldview make us happier than "YOU people", we are also more secure, much more productive, and better providers for our families and charities.
"Bad people". LOL! Careful... There's a conservative under your bed...
BOO!
Did I make you wet your panties? :-)
Gee, what's "clinical proof" of your happiness?
The truth behind that "research" shows that your self-reportted happiness is derived from your ability to ignore other humans' suffering and to look at the injustices and wrongs of the world and shrug with indifference. In other words, you lack of empathy and compassion is a plus. For you. But then, that's all that matters until you need something then you go crying for help.
That said, I see little in the way of happiness when I'm around conservatives or when I read conservative websites. It's quite a bitter display of anger and acrimony. Especially now that you've been rendered powerless by the last two elections where your ideas were soundly rejected.
And don't forget the research that shows conservatives to live in constant fear as opposed to liberals who don't get as freaked out by life. There's no way a group that lives in fear that much can find that to be a happy situation.
As for the charity thing: The research you people like to cite shows religious liberal to be nearly as generous as religious conservatives, though I would take issue with self-serving giving to one's church as being charity. The significant finding was that secular conservatives (think Wall Street, fratboy, Bush type cons) are the least generous of all. Oh, and giving money to get your family name on a building at a university isn't real charity.
Here, see if you can read this:
http://philanthropy.com/free/articles/v19/i04/04001101.htm
Every conservative I've ever met lays awake nights worrying that somewhere a poor person is getting a few pennies of their taxes. They'd crawl off theri deathbeds to vote against anyone proposing helping others with tax money. but you expect people to believe you're more generous? Even waitpersons report tips to be lousy in areas where conservatives live.
Funny how we liberals don't need to conduct phony studies or have to brag about our generosity. It's just something we accept without needing to tell everybody about it.
Not sure where your data on productivity comes from but in my experience, conservatives are the ones who kiss the boss' ass the most and do everything slimey they can to get ahead so they can retire early and escape the system they profess to love and go golfing every day. Is that what you mean by more productive?
Happy LiberalFreak said...
I don't think anyone needs to fire up the right wing base of violent nutcases any more than they were during the campaign by McCain/Palin. The history of terrorism and assasinations in this country trends heavily towards the right wing as perpetrators.
Give me facts, not your warped opinion. What is you chapter and verse?
Who shot Lincoln? A pissed off right winger. Who shot MLK? A pissed racist. Who blew up the federal building in OK City? A pissed off anti-government conservative, Timothy McVeigh. Who bombed the abortion clinics? Pissed off christian conservatives. Who shot abortion doctors? Pissed off christian conservatives. Who bombed the Altanta Olympics and a gay bar? Eric Rudolph, a pissed off conservative. Who burned crosses and lynched blacks? Pissed off southern racist conservatives. (Don't even try the "but they were democrats" argument. They were conservatives in any case). Who is making threats against Obama's life? Pissed off conservative racists. That doesn't even include the various gay bashers, thugs and bullies who identify exclusively with conservatism.
Shall I go on? Do you need more examples?
I'd rather be any one of those things, or all of them, than be a liberal.
Notice how the liberal left out people like terrorist Bill Ayers, the radical leftist old broads from Code Puke, and the leftist Nazi queers stomping old people in California? To liberals, facts and reality are like holy water to a vampire.
where can i get one? i am jealous
There were no victims from Bill Ayers' activities, despite the lies from your side. Code Pink? Terrorists? LOL! Protesting gay people, terrorists? LOL!
Their activism and protest is a far cry from blowing up a building and killing nearly 300 people including the children at a day care center in the building. Or setting off a bomb in a bar full of people.
You people need a crash course in proportion.
Face it, your side is home to the violent nutjobs. That's a fact.
Happy liberal:
Apparently you don't know your history as well as you think you do. You also don't know the definition of a conservative. One who is tolerant of others.John Wilkes Booth was a southern sympathizer who was racist and he killed Lincoln for that reason. He was not a conservative because conservatives were the ones pushing for freeing the slaves and operated the underground railway.
Booth may have made the decision to kill the President after hearing Lincoln deliver a speech urging Negro suffrage, according to Booth's former friend, Louis Weichmann. Weichmann spoke of his viewing of the President's speech with Booth:
"I had never seen Mr. Lincoln up close and I knew he was a tall man, however nothing could have prepared me for the sight of him. A long shadow did he have. And his arms, when at his sides, touched near his knees. Very professionally he said that there would never be any suffrage based on differences in the way people look. UPON THIS, BOOTH TURNED TO THE TWO OF US AND SAID, “THAT MEANS NIGGER CITIZENSHIP. NOW BY GOD I’LL PUT HIM THROUGH!”
Remember it was a liberal, Janet Reno, that sent troops that caused the deaths of many children at WACO.
As for Timothy McVeigh you cannot say for sure that he was a conservative. He was acting in response to the murders at WACO.
Homosexuals that attack a group of praying Christians simply because they were not wanted in the neighborhood is terrorism whether you want to call it that or not. The riot squad had to be called to protect the Christians.
Violence begets violence.
When you murder babies by crushing their skulls and sucking their brains out is surely terrorism to that baby. When you practice violence against the innocent you must expect violence in return.
The facts are that the red states give more to charity that blue states, especially following katrina. Obama gave less than 1% of his income to charity.
AHA!
I knew that someone would eventually come out with the example of "yelling fire in a crowded theater" to illustrate that the First Amendment right to free speech is not absolute. Of course we have not the right to yell fire in a crowded theater. That action is guaranteed to cause harm. Selling chances on a pool guessing whether or when President elect Obama will be killed is not guaranteed to do anything other than generate a lot of heat and very little light. The reason that such speech is not guaranteed to cause harm to the President elect is because we, each one of us, is responsible for his own actions regardless of the signs he reads.
I think you will find that this sign, however offensive and in poor taste it may be does not rise to the level of the much touted "yelling fire in a crowded theater."
"Believe me, if anything would happen to Obama due to you people, you won't be safe leaving your homes. Such an occurrence will end this country as we know it. Trust me."
That sounds suspiciously like a threat and also like frank plagiarism from Sandra Bernhard's threat that her "big black brothers would rape Sarah Palin if she entered Manhattan" or James Carville's threat that there would be riots if [then] Senator Obama lost the election. Statictically, causasians are more likely armed and more likely better armed that our African-American brethren, so that kind of rhetoric is wasted here.
Your characterizatiion of John Wilkes Booth and Eric Rudolph as representative of conservatives would be laughable were it not so monumentally ignorant and wrong-headed. Perhaps you should avail yourself of remedial American history education to clear up your thinking and reasoning errors.
There is however one area in which I am wholehearted agreement with you. That is that the Republican Party allowed it's traditional ethos of fiscal restraint and sound monetary policy to be hijacked by neo-conservative idaelogues who favored deficit spending and a soaring national debt to pursue a misbegotten war to achieve regime change in a country that lacked the means to harm us.
By the way, according to my own, personal "Fairness Doctrine," I have made it a policy to offer the privileges of guest authorship to anyone who regularly posts here. I have also long wanted a liberal guest author to offer a counterpoint to the ideas of the rest of us who post here. If you'd like to accept my offer, send a message to tgrtfinancial@aim.com or jangalt1944@aol.com with a valid E-Mail address and I shall dispatch an invitation to guest authorship with all deliberate speed.
QUOTABLE QUOTES
After the events of the 20th century--national socialism, international socialism, inter-species socialism from Earth First--anyone who is still on the left is obviously insane and not responsible for his or her actions.
-- P. J. O'Rourke
Oh, and...
By the way, I am attempting to be courteous, so if you'd please lighten up on the "you people" designations I would be ever so grateful.
Perhaps in the past conservatives and republicans were more level-headed but since the late 70s they have become home to the worst elements in society. I think it began after the Civl Rights Act passed and LBJ warned that the south would desert the democrats. Of course we all know that happened the best illustration being Nixon's "southern strategy" of playing on racism to win the south. The dem/libs were happy to be rid of the racists and the republicans were all too eager to welcome them with open arms. The republicans repeated that scenario over they years picking up the least tolerant, the most angry and the most ignorant segments of the electorate. The republican powerbase
Now they've lost the few intellectuals they had left- Powell, Buckley, wealthy intllectuals, too who were horrified with the gutter ideology conservatism has become.
1. There has never been a band of roving homosexuals attacking christians. That's propaganda from nutjob cons.
2. So do ya think Eric Rudolph was a big liberal? LOL
You people is simply like saying you conservatives or you republicans. It's not some great insult.
I go away for a few days and when I come back we have a real live liberal to play with? I read he/she/it's post and I think its the real deal. It feels that since we disagree with her, we are cretans (in fact she seems to associate any conservative with a cretan). She redefined terrorism into murder so as to make Ayers less of a terrorist (though any interview would show his victims would disagree), she says that any kind of homosexual terrorism is propoganda but I know one old lady who would disagree not to mention a church that was swarmed by them and temporarily taken over. I also wonder if she was equally as vocal when people called for Bush to die and even burned him in effigy. She also called us sore losers and that we should just accept that Obama won and asked what we were teaching our children. Apparently her memory does not go back 4 and 8 years. And as for us igoring suffering? Please. Conservatives give more to charity then liberals do. The difference is that conservatives believe its our responsibility according to our own conscious to give where we feel is needed whereas liberal think that government should steal money from people and give to where it feels its needed.
So where'd you go Missy?
O and HLF, please stop, you're bringing a tear to my eye and making me miss the good old times.
Now where'd I put that horsewhip? O rite, I left it over there with the tar and feathers.
Snorpht
Poots sorry to say nothing exciting .. I flew down to Florida to drive my aunt back to NJ with her dog in her car. It was 2 days of her coughing up a lung and yelling at me for driving too fast.
No sympathy from me. I have inlaws in from China......
- - - for FIVE AND A HALF MONTHS!!!!!!!!!!!.
LETS RUN AWAY TOGETHER AND GET OUR ROCKS OFF. WHADDYA SAY?
sfp
Dear Mr Liberal Do-gooder:
I beg to differ. A quick google search will turn up all sorts of victims of Bill Ayer's weather underground activities.
eg:
http://papundits.wordpress.com/2008/10/20/the-forgotten-victims-of-the-weather-underground/
Also, Abe Lincoln was the first Republican President. To say the John Wilkes Boothe (an actor) was a Conservative is a ridiculous assertion. You might as well compare Whigs and Torys to Republicans and Democrats.
well poots my aunt's condo in celebration is free and clear for the next 2 months
typo?
celebration should read
celebation
Reading skills, HLF...
I never said Eric Rudolph was a liberal. I simply siad that he was not representative of the conservative movement. He was insane. Would you object if I cited Kathy Boudin [killed 3], Katherine Ann Power [killed 1], Charles Manson [killed 9] as representative of the liberal movement?
Annie - celibacy is nothing to celebrate.
Missy, see you there in the morning.
Stock up on butter. sfp
I can't believe my friends here would waste their time trying to apply common sense, logic, and fact to a liberal. That's like trying to shoot pool with a rope! Obviously, the low-life's objective is to incite, one of the very few things liberals are good at. (the others being lying and avoiding reality)
Well Spider, shouldn't we try to convert he/she/it? NO! I don't want to convert liberals, i want to destroy them, the same way they want to destroy us! Liberals are the cancer of the earth, the destroyers of freedom, and the new-age Hitlers and Stalins!
But the one's i know do have one attraction, their women are easy to bed.
Spider buddy, it's more likely that conservatives will be destroyed judging from the last two elections. I mean, you're already halfway there! When this economic meltdown gets started, conservative will become synonymous with "pedophile" just as it was in the 1930s.
Oh, and good try on distancing yourselves from what you consider the fringes of right wing crazies, people. Too bad they're the core of the ideology.
Hypocrite liberal freak ... in the 1930's, liberalism made the depression worse ... please re-read your history. And the reason Obama won was because actual conservatives did not vote because they did not feel they had anyone to vote for and Obama ran on a conservative platform in some respects by promising to cut spending and lower taxes (even though they are lies). Besides, HLF, you do realize that your recent ad hom attacks are a sign of desperation on your part. They generally begin when you realize you can no longer argue fact.
HLF said:
"Oh, and good try on distancing yourselves from what you consider the fringes of right wing crazies, people. Too bad they're the core of the ideology."
First off, welcome aboard, HLF. Nice to see a dissenting opinion occasionally.
That being said, your above quote is really a slippery slope for you to try and walk on. No sane person wants to be linked to the far-out fringes of any political ideology. That the person who bombed the abortion clinics also happened to be a conservative is irrelevant. He was insane. To say that the conservative ideology demands the bombing of abortion clinics is intellectually bankrupt, and also very hateful. I could say the same thing to you, and say that the Weather Underground proves that leftist ideology demands the bombing of the pentagon and post ofices, or that leftist ideology demands several (9, if memory serves) brutal, bloody murders to be committed in LA. These people were leftist. If you want to tie in crazy, fringe rightists into the argument,t hen we get to do the same; if you say we support Rudoplh,then we get to say that you supported Manson. See the bankrupt path that leads us down? It gets us nowhere, besides mud slinging.
And to say that the current administration even REMOTELY adhered to conservative ideals is also a bankrupt argument. Bush is NOT a conservative, and his failures in no way reflect upon conservative ideals.
As to the OP, it was stupid, ignorant, in poor taste, and if it is found that the owner of the restraunt knowingly allowed it to be posted on his premises, then i think everyone against such a statement should make a statement of their own:
Don't eat there.
However, you don't get to prosecute him for this. It is not a threat, either overt or direct, and thus, it is protected speech.
Not to mention the fact that you don't have to actually KILL anybody to be a terrorist. The dead feel very little fear. Well, about somebody blowing them up, anyway.
I laugh when I read "ad hominem" on blogs. It's a phrase conservatives use to try and look intelligent.
If it weren't for liberals taking power during the Depression we would have had a revolution much like Russia's. Your knowledge of the events back then are simply conservative revisionism. The truth is that the conservatives ran the country with an iron fist from the late 1890s to the 1930s which led us to the Great Depression. Sound familiar?
That resulted in republicans dropping to 19% of Congress and losing the White House for 20+ years allowing the liberals the power to remake this country.
Expect a replay.
Oh boy, he brought up the Depression. I'm just gonna stand back over here...
That's rule #2 in the conservative rulebook. [Number one is that conservatives are always victims of biased media and are the underdogs. No matter how much they control they still want to be seen as underdogs who can't get a fair shake from the "liberal media".]
Rule #2 states that: when conservatives fail, they aren't "real" conservatives. Believe it or not, the same accusation was leveled at Reagan at one point. If failed conservatives aren't real conservatives, conservatism never fails.
Sounds like a good tactic but the people see right through it. The intelligent ones, anyway.
I had no idea that Chalres Manson registered as a political operative.
Where do you guys get this stuff?
HLF;
I have a few questions to ask of you, in an effort to get to know you a little bit better. I hate to make assumptions about people, and to assume that because you say you are a liberal, that you adhere to every liberal policy would be a bit presumptuous. Would you be so kind as to indulge me the following?
1.) Do you feel as though the government should provide you with healthcare? For what reason?
2.) Do you feel as though every citizen is deserving of an income, regardless of whether they choose to work or not? For what reason?
3.) Do you feel as though it is fair to pay a person more than their position is worth in order to meet the financial needs of that perticular person?
4.) Do you feel as though America is fundamentally flawed and needs to be drastically revamped? For what reasons?
Those are the typical four talking points that I am most at odds with the lock-step liberal policies, and so I think it is as good a place to start as any.
Who burned crosses and lynched blacks? Pissed off southern racist conservatives- HappyLiberalFreak
You will find that the most southern racist of the 1960's were democrats!
George Wallace was a southern democrat! I could go on, but I won't.
I will also say that you condemn others for making assumptions about a whole group of people based on one characteristic. But you do that when you say all conservatives are..... It is just as wrong to make those type of sweeping generalizations about conservatives as it is to make them about a particular race.
HLF .. Did you just use an ad hominem attack to refute my point about ad hominem attacks? Do you even see your hypocracy? Liberalism did not end the Depression, it made it worse. What saved America's economy was World War II.
My Dear Happy Liberal - No one said there was a "roving band of Homosexuals". Those were you words.
It seems you have a knack for changing word to fit you needs.
The media reported the incident. Also the facts are that MSM did favor Obama and was very open about it. Remember "it caused tingles up my leg."
As for Palin stirring up the crowd it was proven by the Secret Service that it was a false report started by a reporter.
Dats be Libberal Reporta der Pastor.
As in M-F'in Libbera MainStream OckSuggin Reporta
an ya'll kim EATS ME!
So, how bout it Missy? Lets go gits buttered down in Florida and go slidin round own each udder while we wait fo sumbubby go an off the new Kuhn-Elect.
Is my "invite" still "in the mail"?
"I had no idea that Chalres Manson registered as a political operative."
And McVeigh did? How about Rudolph?
You are refuting your own arguments as we go along here. keep talking, you're winning for us!
HLF,
"Where I get this stuff" is by reading. It's great. I recommend that you give it a try.
Charles Manson was a product of the free love liberal era of the 1960's and used the blood of Gary Hinman to write "political piggy" on the wall of Hinman's house after Manson's followers stabbed him to death. As you will doubtless remember, the word "Pig" was liberal argot for cops or any other members of the political establishment with which whom they disagreed. Charlie M. also required one of his followers to draw a Black Panther symbol on the wall in Hinman's blood. Manson had predicted "Helter Skelter" a race war between blacks and whites; and by his shooting of Bernard Crowe whom he thought was a Black Panther, did his best to bring it about. Does that sound like a "political operative" to you?
I go on vacation for a week and things get crazy.
I have one thing to say that I think at least some of you will agree with. If you cling to one particular ideology (liberal/conservative, Republican/Democrat) you are a FOOL.
Get the facts, look at both sides of everything and make your own informed decision.
If you can't do that, you're an Eloi.
I rest my case!
To "Stinkin' Rotten Kids"
If you are who I think you are [ the artist formerly known as Bill O Writes] I've re-sent your invitation. If not, please forgive me and send me another note to tgrtfinancial@aim.com and I'll send you another invite...this time to the correct address.
HLF...
Why have you not sent me a mesasage? Guest authorship and full administrative privileges await you. "Full administrative privileges" mean that you can re-design this site to your own satisfaction. All guest authors have that privilege.
I'm surprised no one has yet asked the difference between beer nuts and deer nuts yet
I'll bite [figuratively, of course]...
What are the difference between beer nuts and deer nuts?
I'll bet the deer in question would think that there's a huge difference!
Beer nuts are $8.99 / lb while deer nuts are under a buck
Rimshot!!!
It's a good thing that I'm a masochist, or I'd never be able to moderate [?] this place!
don't even get me started on wallnuts and chestnuts
Oh, my!
Whereever did Happy Liberal Freak go? [sob!] I had so hoped he would stick around and join our band of merry pranksters as a guest author, so's to keep the conversation lively.
Or could it be that HLF was our own Snorphty posting under a nom de plume?
Despite the popular image of liberals in conservative lore, I work and can't be posting here all day, that's where I've been. West coast time.
A few things:
Manson's actions weren't political, they were homicidal. McVeigh's and Rudolph's were political and geared towards anti-government conservatism. Unless you think blowing up a federal building is not a political act.
1.) Do you feel as though the government should provide you with healthcare? For what reason?
Yes, based on a system of collective funding. Just like defense, infrastructure and K-12 education. Just like Medicare. The government will not provide it, just pay for it from the aforementioned funding. The benefits far outweigh the costs as most first world countries have discovered.
2.) Do you feel as though every citizen is deserving of an income, regardless of whether they choose to work or not? For what reason?
There should be a floor for those who cannot or cannot find gainful employment. In a system where we can have billionaires, there must be those with nothing. It is a zero-sum game. That is the system we have accepted. There will always be those we need to take care of. Anticipating the basis for your question: Welfare is a very small part of the taxes you pay despite the common conservative misconception that 99% of the tax you pay goes to "welfare". That is simply a rationalization for the conservative distaste of paying for the government-provided services they use that they think should be free. To them. Not anybody else. opposition to "welfare" has been the safe harbor for the deadbeats that live among us.
3.) Do you feel as though it is fair to pay a person more than their position is worth in order to meet the financial needs of that perticular person?
Define "more than their position is worth". As determined by who? under what situation(s)? Define financial needs.
4.) Do you feel as though America is fundamentally flawed and needs to be drastically revamped? For what reasons?
America is indeed fundamentally flawed as are most things in life. it is alsos a country on a steep decline. It needs to be drastically revamped but I see little chance of that happening in my lifetime. There is too much hyper-competitive nonsense and not enough collectivism. Competition is counter-productive in the long run. How much time you got?
We will be seeing fundamental changes soon. We've already seen much change, it just hasn't sunken in yet.
There is no Utopia but there are a lot more efforts in better adjusted cultures than here. I believe selfishness, greed and fear (read "conservatism") is the culprit and is what is holding us back and is what has always held us back from being better than who we are. Looking back through history, it has always been the liberals who have led civilizations toward progress with the status quo-loving conservatives acting as the anchor to be dragged along. In the end though, liberal ideas have always prevailed. Indeed, the ideas we chereish the most- equality, freedom and opportunity- are very liberal ideas. Otherwise we would still be living under monarchy or a feudal system, both systems I am sure the conservatives of their time favored highly over the progress being proposed by the liberals of that time.
The ideals of our founders were liberal only in that they advocated revolt against the British Crown. Other than that notable exception, their ideals were very much libertarian, with limited central government, states rights and personal responsibility being at the core of those ideals. They had a healthy fear of a strong central government; which is why we have the Second and the Tenth Amendments.
"Manson's actions weren't political, they were homicidal. McVeigh's and Rudolph's were political and geared towards anti-government conservatism. Unless you think blowing up a federal building is not a political act."
Perhaps you did not recognize a reductio ad absurdum argument comparing Rudolph, and Manson, HLF. Or, perhaps you do not comprehend a simple syllogism. If your argument is that Timothy McVeigh and Eric Rudolph are representative of all conservatives, your premise is so profoundly ridiculous on its face as to be meaningless. Of course Manson's motivation was homicidal. Of course McVeigh's misguided motivation was anti-government. It was in no way representative of true conservative. If your argument is that Rudolph and McVeigh are the face of conservatism, then you and I have no basis for intelligent dialog.
Annie, I'm shocked! I thought you were a "real" conservative who could engage in civil debate without getting ruffled.
Look. I'll accept my side's 9/11 conspiracy theorists and tree-sitting logger-haters but you have to accept your far right terrorists. Neither may be totally representative of their respective ideologies but they are an extension of them. The difference is mine write crackpot letters to the editor and yours blow up children at a daycare center.
Does this mean the offer of guest-blogging is off the table?
HLF,
I can't fathom you believe 10% of the opinions you have shared.
Thanks for reminding me, I almost forgot.
Have to go to "The Conservative Illegal Weapons and Explosive Outlet" for some more Semtex. Never know when the opportunity might arise to blow up some women and children. No wait, it's not Conservative Radicals that do that....it's Muslim Radicals.
Silly you for mixing the two up.
How many years have you spent overseas? If you have, ever went to the nationalized medical center/hospital for treatment? I know you didn't because if you had you'd, in no way, wish that system on Americans.
Barak (excuse me) Obama's plan to tax the wealthy and big businesses to give it to the po folks will accomplish exactly one thing.
The wealthy and big business will leave. They have to. That leaves their employees holding an empty sack.
Unemployment will go thru the roof. The economy will crash.
It's a stupid idea which only someone who has little touch with reality would consider. It's the kiss of death for Capitalism. Guaranteed.
Just about every campaign promise uttered by The Obama is spin on common sense, carefully crafted to appeal to the fuzzy feelings of New Age thinkers.
The real shame is - in a couple of years or so, all those that voted for the messiah are going to see the cold, hard facts. He came out of nowhere, was relatively unknown before the campaign, has a very lightweight resume and a bunch of friends of dubious nature. In no way could he have pulled this off by himself. Some very serious money was spent to get this vacuum-in-a-suit elected. He was bought and paid for by the left-wing elite, and his persona was totally fabricated by the media. He owes these people everything. He will follow the script they give him to the letter.
And the results are going to be painful for all.
So, revel in your 'win' if you must. You elected a hamster in an excersize wheel. A zombie follower of the hard core left's line. A cartoon character. A myth.
I wish the Dems has selected any number of well-know people for their "first black president" candidate. Colin Powell, Condaleeza Rice, Thomas Sowell, and so many other well-qualified, experienced people - who also happen to be of African heritage.
They pick this guy. Danger, Will Robinson!
For those students of history, didn't this campaign closely resemble that of the National Socialist German Worker's Party in the early 1930's? Tell a lie long enough in the media and in schools and it will be believed.
First damn George W. Bush during the entirety of his 8-year term. Blame every problem on him. Now, when the campaigns start, connect any Republican candidate to Bush and the public will vote for the opponent, no matter who.
The technique worked. The same way it did for the Nazi's. In 12 years, Germany was physically, economically and morally destroyed.
I fear the last 2 for our country.
Not me Annie. I woulda run outta BS long before that HLF'er
HLF - In your response about healthcare you said:
"The government will not provide it, just pay for it from the aforementioned funding. The benefits far outweigh the costs as most first world countries have discovered".
Would you please enlighten us as to what first world countries you are talking about?
Annie: I only disagree with you on one point. That being "states rights". As the Late Bill O'Writes said, only individuals can have rights. No group, government or other entity can have "rights". The Constitution spoke of states' powers as opposed to Federal. Rights, as in the Bill of, was reserved for "WE THE PEOPLE". And if anyone of these politicians, judges, and lawyers would look at history and what our Founding Fathers wrote, it would be obvious what they intended. And it was not a loose interpretation of the Constitution, but rather straight forward with a modest amount of flexibility. But certainly not where these rights can not be infringed.
Can I have a liberal to play with for Christmas?
The American health care systemranks 37th in the world for quality and access. The top of the list contains the European countries and Canada, those that have the dreaded "socialized medicine".
To the person that thinks we're living in Utopia and that Obama will kill the economy: Too late. 30 years of conservative dominance over the budgets and policy agenda already did that. Do you people even read what you write? Have you read the papers lately? Can you read?
As for the wealthy leaving if taxed too high: Did that happen prior to 1980? Besides, where they going to go? There's no place on the planet where the wealthy get a better deal. No livable place. If they want to live in a South American nightmare behind armed guards in armored Mercedes, let them.
Here's the facts without all the crystal ball gazing about the dire consequences of electing Obama. Republicans have dominated the agenda for 30 years. We're now in the toilet. Here are the numbers:
28 years of conservative ideological dominance:
20 of the last 28 years with a republican President 1980-1992, 2000-2008
Republican majority Congress:
Republican Senate 1981-1987, 1995-2007
Republican House 1995-2007
(total republican control of Congress 1995-2007)
The last 8 years with a republican President and Congress 2000-2008
Compared with:
Democrats with a slim Congressional majority under a republican president 2007-2008
But you want to try and blame a man who hasn't taken office yet? LOL, 10 points for creativity, -10 points for grasp of reality.
I think my favorite part of your post was suggesting that Uncle Thomas Sowell would have been a good candidate for the democrats. Shows a oddly skewed view of the world brought on by the grief of having your party totally and completely removed from power.
Dear Mr Freak:
Why do you find it necessary to call Mr Sowell an "Uncle Tom"? He is an extremely educated, vastly intelligent individual, who became a success. He did this without handouts from his humble beginnings in Harlem, attended Harvard and is an independent thinker. But I don't think he would want to be a shill for the Democratic party either.
No, HLF...
The offer stands, if you will but send me a message containing a valid address. What 9/11 conspiracy theories do you speak; the ones that say George Bush engineered the attacks? Please, let us not be ridiculous! But in the spirit of bi-partisanship, I shall cede the point that Rudolph and McVeigh were politically motivated while Manson was motivated by God knows what, save his own insanity.
Where we seem to differ, HLF is that I believe that an individual, whatever his political ideology may be is responsible for his own actions, regardless of the messages he sees on signs or the crackpot letters he reads in newspapers. Your own statements at the beginning of this discourse, "Believe me, if anything would happen to Obama due to you people, you won't be safe leaving your homes. Such an occurrence will end this country as we know it. Trust me," leads me to conclude that you believe that we at this site are capable by the written word, of inciting an individual to murder the President elect. This indicates to me that you believe that the individual is powerless over his own behavior and is blown hither and yon by the opinions of others; and moreover is not responsible for his own actions.
Yes, HLF, I shall admit that Rudloph and McVeigh were expressions of their own warped interpretation of conservative ideology; but I would submit that the ideals that they acted upon were a bastardization and a perversion of true conservatism.
Please, send me a message to tgrtfinancial@aim.com so that I may add your name to our list of guest authors.
Oh, and...
HLF, we believe that life begins a conception and ends at birth, hence our unwavering support for the death penalty.
HLF;
You state that conservative politics over the last 30 years have run us "into the toilet."
Then, you went on to show us the times when the conservatives had power over the last 30 years, and are claiming that the reasons that we are "in the toilet" are specifically due to the conservatives being in power.
Without any evidence to back this up, this is clearly an ad hoc fallacy, and I urge you to provide specific examples of coservative policies that have lead to us being "in the toilet".
That being said, if you blame the bad times on conservatives, then by your logic, we must also credit them with the good times, which, in the last 30 years, have BY FAR outnumbered the "bad time" years.
Now, as to why we are "in the toilet" right now, if you want to blame that on conservatives, then you go right ahead and delude yourself to death, pal. However, I hand you Chris Dodd, and Barney Frank, among others, as your major culprits.
Oh, did you notice that both of them have a "D" after their names? Did you also notice that it was a coalition of CONSERVATIVES that noticed that the democrats were running Fannie and Freddie into the dirt in the name of "housing equality?"
Cover your ears and start yelling LA LA LA LA HLF, becauseif you want someone to blame for our current "in the toilet" status, the list of those responsible will be made up of mostly democrats.
There, I've actually backed my statements up with examples of why I think it was DEMOCRAT policies that put us into the toilet, instead of just listing the number of years they were in power.
Oh, and I'll say again, the current administration is RINO (republican in name only). They don't count, and if you read here on this site, they most SURELY do not get a free pass. My guess is that you could find more dislike of them HERE than you could on Kos.
Mr Freak:
Where do you get your "facts" from? The American heathcare system as 37th? Based on what. As a doctor, I can tell you if you think the Canadian and European systems are better, I wish you well. Waste, corruption, sub-par services for most people and procedures are the rule there, not the exception. And if you think healthcare is a right rather than a privilege, watch what happens over the next generation as our healthcare system really does die from nationalization. And these other systems you are so fond of would collapse if it were not for American medicine proping them up as we do with the entire world economically.
I'm quite sure Mr. Sowell took advantage of any and all affirmative action programs he could just as Clarence Thomas did.
Yes, my point about left wing crazies was those who believe 9/11 was engineered. Although.......it was the best thing to happen to republicans since reagan.
Ah, the death penalty. Even many of my liberal brethren support that. Shows that even the left can be mired in savagery on some issues. There is nothing more abhorrent about American culture than it's embrace of the death penalty.
For a good example of why they are RINO, I give you the Iraq war. History has shown time and again that conservatives dislike the idea of the US intervening in foreign affairs. Vietnam, Somalia, Kosovo, the Balkans, and lebanon are just a few examples of foreign interventions that recieved a HUGE amount of opposition from the right.
These were all endeavors taken up by the left. Foreign military intervention has always been a leftist desire. We could go back in history a bit more if you like, in order to prove that, but possibly you will just conceded this point as fact instead of choosing to ignore facts and believe whatever you want.
This foreign intervention is no different. Conservatives back wars when and only when there is a threat to eliminate, and end the wars when the threat is gone.
I give you Gulf War I for a perfect example.
So, I submit that this is further proof that the current administration is RINO.
That, and the fact that they spent more money than any administration has, ever. Sound conservative to you?
Geez Spidey, This post started quite a conversation!
Wellllll, HLF....
There are some of us on the right who [believe it or not] favor abolition of the death penalty and are pro-choice on the issue of abortion. Some of us even have experience relating to these issues.
And, there is a reason that Americans are a savage people. Our ancestors came to the US of A because they couldn't assimilate into polite society from whence they came, or were brought here against their collective will; witness James Oglethorpe's Georgia penal colony and the many black Africans captured by other black Africans and sold into slavery. We represent the detritus of European society who could not or would not fit into the social mores of the lands of their collective origin.
The push westward was fueled by the same thing, the inability or unwillingness to conform to societal mores. A good example of this was the colonization of Texas by Austin, the war for independence from Mexico led by Houston [a drunk], Crockett [the quintessential misfit] and Travis [a megalomaniac and my ancestor], and the establishment of the region as an independent republic. What arrogance! What hubris! We are a bellicose people. What we want, we buy if we can [Louisiana Purchase, Alaska] or we take by force of arms [the Southwest].
As far as the current debacle in Iraq, there are many conservatives [yours truly, Ron Paul] who opposed such an idiotic foreign policy blunder. The invasion of Afghanistan was a sad but necessary fact of political reality. Had we not invaded the country that allowed the Mujahedeen to metamorphose into the Taliban and provide a safe haven for Al Qaeda to plan and launch the 9/11attacks, we would have been at the mercy of every disaffected and disenfranchised Muslim on the Arab Street. Was there an element of revenge in the invasion? Probably. Could it have been avoided? Again, probably since we armed and assisted the Mujahedeen after the Soviet invasion.
This does not represent a departure from decades of American Middle East foreign policy, though. We have alternately armed and gone to war with the Taliban, Saddam, and any other political junta who we perceived could aid us in keeping the oil taps wide open. I do not deny that an assured supply of oil is a matter of national interest. The aspect of the Iraq invasion that I find most disturbing is the fact that it was couched in the rhetoric of "bringing democracy to Iraq." I would find it refreshingly honest if our president would say, "We need the oil under that godforsaken hellhole, so we are going to take it by force and regime change if necessary." Our Middle East foreign policy is, was and ever will be about oil.
Pant! Pant! Pant! Okay, I'm done now. Take me back to my room, nurse. Is it time for my Cogentin and Haldol?
You claim that you are sure that Mr Sowell took advantage of the affirmative action situation presented to him? There was no affirmative action when he went to school. He received his education in the 1950's and early 1960's. Is it so hard for yoy to understand that a black person can succeed on his or her own? Or does your liberal ideology suggest that minorities are the white man's burden?
HLF: If the medical coverage is so good in England why do so many go to India, which has a two tier system, to have surgery. Why did the parents of a youngster come here to have doctors use superglue on his brain. In reality healthcare is already rationed in England. The reason - cost.
The state of Oregon will not pay for some cancer medicine but will pay for assisted suicide.
If Canada has such a good system why do so many expectant mothers come here to give birth?
Medicine may be less expensive in Canada because the people here pay for the R&D that Canadians don't have to pay.
If this is such a bad place to live why do we have so many immigrants coming here?
The American healthcare system is broken and it needs to be fixed. Unfortunately, I am not intelligent enough to do the job. Any plan that will provide universal care at government expense will by necessity ration care. The European system is much more focused on preventative programs such as prenatal care and well baby programs than our system.
I worked with many Canadian physicians who emigrated to the US shortly after OHIP went into effect because they could not make a living in Canada. They also spoke of 3-year waits for elective surgery that are readily available in the US. I also worked for a company headquartered in Vienna, VA that provided addiction treatment services that were not to be had in Canada. The company paid an employee stationed in Ontario $30,000 per month to feed OHIP patients into our system. I know beyond a doubt that this is true and the number is accurate because I had to sign the checks.
In another job [health services consulting] I discovered that there were more MRIs and CT scanners in metro Denver than the entire nation of Canada. Wonder how long you'd have to wait in Canada for an MRI or a CT?
That said, we need to fix the system because we have so many working uninsured or underinsured that it becomes a matter of productivity. An unhealthy work force is an unproductive workforce. Also, a population that receives its primary care through the emergency room is always going to be a burden on the public health system. I believe the answer to the later problem is Medicaid managed care [HMOs] to wean Medicaid patients off the most expensive care in our current system. Medicare HMOs have worked well at managing senior healthcare costs while still achieving desirable outcomes.
If president-elect Obama is as intelligent as I believe him to be, he will not exhibit the same hubris and arrogance as did Hillary Clinton in attempting to re-design our entire healthcare delivery system in secret, without the input of physicians and insurance carriers. Any such secret plan is going to be doomed to the same fate as was hers. Any plan such as hers that would make a criminal out of a healthcare consumer for choosing to go outside the system and pay out of pocket is doomed as well.
Moreover, any system that reduces physician pay to little more than working for wages is doomed, or it must be accompanied with a system of reducing medical school tuition and malpractice insurance coverage so that a new doctor does not start his practice owing a half-million dollars and paying half his income for his malpractice premium.
HLF,
Where would American big business go if the Obliviot raises corporate taxes?
What country uses good sense in their taxation of business?
Ireland.
The Corporate tax rate is 10%.
The local workforce speaks English.
The prevailing wage is a lot lower than here.
I dunno. If I was on the board of a big American company I'd certainly entertain relocating to Ireland...if the corporate tax rate gets raised here as Barak (excuse me) Obama stated he will to help the po folk. An' Lawdy, dey needs mo free cheese.
Break America into separate provinces, fiefdoms, or whatever?
You'd better give this one a good think. What kind of military would any of them be able to afford? A pretty small force, I'd say. How long do you think it would be before one of the 'real' countries would come and absorb your little haven of goodness, equality in all things and burgeoning Birkenstock sales?
Geez, I bet you drive a Volvo.
So many things I can't respond. We need liberal troops to battle all the lies, propaganda and downright albeit innicent ignorance here! Here goes:
Canadians aren't streaming across the border to seek medical care. Lie.
Immigrants come here from crummy places, not good ones.
The rich would pay a fortune more in taxes to live in Ireland.
Ireland is suffering a meltdown similar to ours. Free market capitalism is a mess everywhere.
The corporate tax rate here is less than 10% often reaching ZERO.
What good is having 2000 MRIs in Denver if the only people accessing them are rich people to diagnose a simple headache?
What kind of a-hole person applauds low wages (as was said of Ireland)?
Thomas Sowell went to Howard University, a traditionally BLACK college so he might not have needed AA. Duh.
Conservatism is dead.
HLF has left the building.
"Canadians aren't streaming across the border to seek medical care. Lie."
If you are calling me a liar, please offer some sort of proof other than your own deluded ranting that what I say is false. Did you ever work in healthcare? Do you have personal experience in treating Canadian patients and billing OHIP for their care? Living in the Pacific Northwest, albeit a charming place does not necessarily qualify one as a healthcare policy expert.
"What good is having 2000 MRIs in Denver if the only people accessing them are rich people to diagnose a simple headache?"
Again, empty, ill thought out, ignorant rhetoric. I asks ya, I asks, how many indigent patients recieved sophisticated diagnostic testing or nuclear medicine exams such as MRIs or CT scans in Denver in 1993? How many patients paid out of pocket for those services? Do you have personal experience in the Denver healthcare market, specifically in the diagnosis of headaches in rich people? No? Don't need experience to make statements that have no basis in fact? Good God,, HLF, you're going to have to do better than that. Sharpen up those ol' debate skills and refrain from ranting about things of which you are woefully uninformed.
I'm tired. Thank you, HLF. I have not had this much fun since... well, a long time.
Good night sweet princes and princesses. may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
One doesn't need to be a chicken to recognize an egg.
Think about what you are saying. You need an operation. The Canadian system says you can wait. The operation will cost you $40K in America. You cross the border and pay cash? Riiiiiiight. Unless you're seeking a buttlift or tummy tuck, you wouldn't be in the class to be able to do that. And if the rich want to come across the border to get their toenails trimmed by a doctor, fine. That's more real treatment for the regular folks.
The propaganda about health care sounds much like when Medicare was proposed. Ronald Reagan even made a scary recording about how it was "socialism!" Now, every last one of you depdends on Medicare to pay for your aged relatives' care, the last bills usually around $100K. That's $100K you'd have to put out or watch your parents sell everything they own to pay the $3000 a month private insurance premiums, if they could even qualify. Allowed most of you to inherit more, didn't it?
And I know there are lots of you who participated in the scam where you hide the old folks' money and then put them in nursing homes on Medicaid, the program for the poor. I knew several good, upstanding, republican families that did that. Of course they bristled when I told them they were welfare cheats.
Listen to idiot Reagan get all dramatic about Medicare in 1961
Now the republicans act like it was their idea!
Hey HLF you douche spooge. I live close to Mayo Clinic. The parking lot is 85% Canadian license plates.
Eminent psychiatrist makes case that leftist thinking is a mental disorder
"Based on strikingly irrational beliefs and emotions, modern liberals relentlessly undermine the most important principles on which our freedoms were founded," says Dr. Lyle Rossiter, author of the new book, "The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness." "Like spoiled, angry children, they rebel against the normal responsibilities of adulthood and demand that a parental government meet their needs from cradle to grave."
The rantings that we have read from HLF are evidence of this.
"One doesn't need to be a chicken to recognize an egg. Think about what you are saying. You need an operation. The Canadian system says you can wait. The operation will cost you $40K in America. You cross the border and pay cash? Riiiiiiight."
I did not create this site to teach remedial healthcare policy to individuals who lack the mental capacity to comprehend it. For your information, HLF, OHIP pays for certain medical procedures in the US healthcare system that are beyond capability to provide in a reasonable time frame. Approximately 95% of the 5,500 Canadian patients with whom I had contact were funded by OHIP. In your vast healthcare experience, how many of your Canadian patients were private pay and how many were OHIP funded?
No answer? I thought not.
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