Re: OT: US Pres election
 

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

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

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

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

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

Semi-related of sorts: Anybody who hasn't played The Redistricting Game yet?

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

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

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

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

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

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

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

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

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

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

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

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

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

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

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

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

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

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

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

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

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

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

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

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



I love talking points.


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

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

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

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

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

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

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

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

And as others have said prior, Voter Registration Fraud is different from Voting Fraud.
The end result of this lipstick scandal will be a mass purge of the voter registrations. Sounds very jim-crowish to me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws
http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp200...s/Oct18.html#2

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

LMFAO

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

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

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

A very good post Azselendor.

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

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

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



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

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

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

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

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


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

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


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

<3

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

No, I am not saying they were against it then. But I don't believe historical societies should be judged solely by modern standards.

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

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

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

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

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

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

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

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

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

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

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

Some of you guys are posting some incredibly good posts.

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

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

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

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

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

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

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

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


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


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

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

A well spoken post Jim,

I'm Voting Democrat

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

So he shouldn't be blamed that/because he had no real power?

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

And that's what, I'd assume, will unfortunately be the perception about the next president and his party, whoever it may be. "Usurper, he was good for nothing, he raised our taxes!" It's bad if people don't understand that it is necessary and the carefree living that they had before wasn't really viable and showed its ugly downside in the end.

Well, regardless what you do, you won't solve the climate crisis now even if you tried with all your might, you can only adapt and I hope that America will, same for global energy. As for North Korea, I see that one as a paper tiger. If there is one land that has hit rock bottom except Africa, then it's North Korea, I'd say, at least for the people that live there. I don't think they'll have the breath to continue like this that much longer.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

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

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

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What do you call the USA PATRIOT Act, then? Or maybe I misunderstood those sentences? And I may probably be biased, but it was my impression that Bush was the one that wanted the Iraq war most and it was mainly his initiative and determination to carry through with this, it wasn't somebody else who pressured him into that. We don't have to discuss that thing again, though, good that we got over it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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It is also one of the biggest limitations, if not the biggest that I know of, of those constitutional rights that you seemed to be so aware of. Does it only take some nicely packaged words to sway your principles?

So you come across as somebody who is totally unprotected against manipulation by the media. Maybe a simplistic black and white view on things, too, but I don't want to exaggerate too much into this.

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

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

I dislike this altruistic perception of the USA as a worldwide police force. I simply cannot keep up this image in my mind anymore. There are dozens of warlords in Africa that committed and still commit far greater atrocities than Saddam ever did, and they're still alive, they're still doing this. Why doesn't the self-declared peace force get to work there? And as I said earlier, I am quite uncertain if the quality of live in Iraq has really improved and if you can call it "prospering" now. Maybe in the long term. Much later.

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


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

These are the facts and they cannot be denied.

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

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

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I was only hinting at it by my "I admit I'm getting polemical" sentence earlier, but to get this straight across, no, I am not interested in attacking you personally. I mostly want to get you to think. I am not somebody who is reasonably convinced by conspiracy theories, but at the same time I don't trust the media or politicians too much. I still hope that I can come to my own conclusions about things, and I hope that they're right. Better than just letting others do the thinking for me and adopt their position undigested.

Something that, and here unfortunately I might come across as a heretic in a medieval "there is only one truth, and it's our truth, no questions" society, is still disputed territory. As far as I know, the FBI still did not find any direct link of the 9/11 suicide bombers and Bin Laden. Except some videos with muffled voices. You get lots of those after each of these kinds of attacks, I guess. I remember that I defaced my own websites some years ago for a week or so. A few weeks later, I found a russian cracker site on the web that claimed that they hacked my site and defaced it. :P

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Very well said. :)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Oh dear, sorta kinda bad news for Obama. Read Looks like he is a socialist. Signed the paper work any ways.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

I didn't say that. Idiot, no. Incompetent, yes. As in "unfit for president". I'd invite him to a BBQ, he seems like an amicable guy, but as for what he's done as a president, a lot of things were nothing short of a disaster.

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

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

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

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

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

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


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

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

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

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

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Atrocities,

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

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

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

Nothing to fear, really. ;)

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

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

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

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

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

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

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

The small things can be very significent.

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

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