OT: US President (US Dom Players only)

[Mithras]

Wait a moment, is someone seriously suggesting that the guy changed his name TO something with Barack Hussein Obama?
And further more he did this to endear himself to the american voters?
Is anyone else spotting something wrong with this?

Oh and on Tifone's point... well I'm hardly an authority on the matter but it seems fairly obvious that not everything that is written in holy texts can be true as they are often contradictory, for example:
You are told to love your neighbour, but at the same time you are told that god destroyed a whole city because the men fancied other men. Oh and it (god, to aviod genderism issues) killed an innocent woman for watching the destruction. So if you have a neighbor who happens to be gay then you naturally don't like them very much because you don't want the neighborhood turned into a crator, but on the other hand you've gotta love them... bit of a pickle.
oh and to derail further, who's bright idea was it to lump the old testament in with the new one... we could have had a moderately peacefull western religion if we'd just left some of the old stuff out

Disclaimer... if this offends pm me and I'll remove the offending bit promise.

[AdmiralZhao]

It's not contradictory Mithras; the line about loving your neighbor was from MA Yaweh, while the city destroying was from EA Yaweh.

[Mithras]

Originally Posted by AdmiralZhao

It's not contradictory Mithras; the line about loving your neighbor was from MA Yaweh, while the city destroying was from EA Yaweh.

Unfortunately the LA version has summons from both ages, and freespawning rednecks... Watch out Abysia!

I had to give in to temptation didn't I?

[Tifone]

Damn! And they have a Greater Paliness coming out from the Gate

AAAH!!!

EDIT: Sorry, I know that's a Vastness, but the Greater Otherness really looks like... ehm... a cr*p and seemed offensive

[Aezeal]

I'm just gonna react on NTJEdi's post (reaction on mine, both page 8) since it contains SO MUCH I disagree with.

One of the biggest and most important long term benefits would be changing taxes into a flat tax rate.

Well as a lift wing person I of course disagree with this (and in our country only the most radical right pplz would even suggest this) I'm a firm believer in incom nivellation. Government needs money (how much is irrelevant, work for either high or low taxes) so pplz need to "give" it. Most fair and social and general "good" solution is to take more from the richest... even Robin Hood understood this (and in that role seen as a "Good guy" and not as a criminal) and I guess most of us have cheered at that as kids.. I'm surprised a lot of people lost that general sense of right and wrong when they grew up.

I do see higher taxes as money vanishing... I'll provide just two personal examples.

Sure if there is more money there is more too loose but I don't really think that makes it worse.. you 2 examples are somewhat flawed and more a reason to just improve the legislation around it all and not to say taxes should be lower. Even so I still have more to say about this.
1. The single mom thing: if there was yet MORE cash for the government then maybe there could be an arrangement where she didn't loose all when getting a job but there would be more of a gliding scale (costing more money)
2. university: well nothing new just want to sy again that this whole example has nothing to do with taxes, just with inefficency in general.

So until I have the option to vote where my taxes are being spent

you alway have an option to vote where you cash goes... candidates have different opinions on it.. to bad that in the american system of campaigning even though it takes a lot of cash etc etc a lot of these points don't seem to be adressed much. It's a daydream to think you'd ever be able to vote on all topics where spending cash is concerned it would create an unworkable situation to have either polls on all subjects (yeah about 500000 a year.. this is what you have a senate for they do the job of voting if you get (about) the right person there. Or the other solution would be there would need to be a zillion different parties all with the specific differences to their programs.. which would mean about half of them would need to team up to get a majority and they'd still need to comprimise with each other.

[rabelais]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

GRRRRRRRRRRr

Do you even know what a fascist is rabelais? Or do you believe its ok to just throw around terms ignorantly? Considering your brazilian Peronist comment I'm inclined to believe the latter.

Here's the pertinent definition of fascism from dictionary.com.
"governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism"

A fascist is someone who supports such a system of government (also from dictionary.com).

Calling our present system of government - or the republican party in general fascist fails on at least 4 fronts. First, republicans are opposed to the regimentation of business by the state. Second - our system of government is a representative democracy. You might have heard of checks and balances. Since you say in one breath that Stephens can finally retire it seems you might have heard of the supreme court. Consider that the supreme court has ruled against the govt on numerous occassions (club gitmo, for example) and the congress is held by democrats - the idea that we might have a monolithic central and fascist government is .. well.. ridiculous.

Third - The very fact that the Dem party and 527's will have raised close to a BILLION dollars for this election (far in excess of any other campaign in history) pretty convincingly says that democratic activity is alive and well.

Fourth - no American I know is arguing for anything removal of your right to vote. Or a switch to dictatorship.

I said immature previously, I believe its an appropriate word. You can't just sling terms - it is inappropriate to call political opponents fascists simply because you dislike their politics. Calling people fascists is incendiary, and wrong.

Um. Breathe. Again I really shouldn't wade in, but you keep accusing me of idiocy and then using such splendid displays of illogic and grade-school level rhetoric, that I apparently can't resist.

The interesting thing about the current GOP's take on comprehensive authoritarianism is that its not so much about government controlling industry as the reverse. the whole point is to use government to engineer the socialization of risk, while maintaining the privatization of profit. Note the current financial industry bailout for examples. Thus republican scruples (ahem!) are uncompromised, since industry is pitching and the rest of us catching.

Does suppressing opposition, militarism, aggressive nationalism and racism seem to you like they don't describe the current administration?

The intentions of the administration and the current Republican party are antidemocratic, that they have no been entirely successful hardly mean that criticism of them is out of bounds until they get all their DOJ and/or talk radio jackboots in a row.

The imperial executive doesn't care about congress, to the best of its ability, ruling though executive orders and signing statements or extreme legal dubiety. Commander-in-chief is really where its at these days. Does anyone else think the Department of Homeland Security sounds like a bunch of deranged Boers went crazy at the cabinet stationary store?

The supremes got us into this mess and republicans have had the last two appointments, to describe them as a check or balance to Addington et al. is really absurd. The omni-filibuster plus joe Lieberman make democratic congressional "control" a legal fiction. Check back after February after we have 56-58 seats, not counting Holy Joe. It *might* improve, but I'm not confident. Reid is kinda a (yellow+blue= green?)-dog and a schmuck.

Obama has shut down most of the 527's on the democratic side, although they are still being heavily used on the GOP side to evade the public financing restrictions. That Obama has raised serious cash is indeed heartening, whether it will triumph in the face of vote suppression and smearing remains to be seen.

Very few people, not even Lord Voldem... Vice President Cheney or Rudy Giuliani would openly suggest limiting the franchise, they just want to make it harder for certain demographics to make their preferences binding in this time of conveniently perpetual national crisis.

I don't call them fascist because *just* because I dislike their politics... I call them fascist, because... their meta-politics are deeply authoritarian and they appear to be trending toward full-blown fascism with frightening consistency. Their behavior from november 2000 has been grotesquely antidemocratic and anti-constitutional. I will be genuinely relieved and at least a little surprised if bush/cheney leave office will no further wagging of the dog promptly on jan 20.

Besides, I tried calling them *******s for years, but that eventually just seemed wholly inadequate for the horror show they have brought upon the country and world, and unfair to mere garden variety *******s, who lack their insitutional leverage to create misery.

Chris do me a favor, send me your best idea for a MA man pretender for the doedicurus MP game... if I like your ideas I'll stop arguing with you, and if I don't like your ideas, we'll at least have something Dominions related to argue about instead. Deal?

Rabe of the Immature writing--- editing takes WAY too long!

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by lch

I am not ignorant, I am telling you to be reasonable. The man calls himself Barack Obama, he is enlisted as Barack Obama in the election, the media calls him Barack Obama, and thus it makes absolutely no sense that you insist on calling him Soetoro as if you are some kind of republican nutjob. Personally I would not care if he was named Barack Adolf Josef Hussein Bin Laden. So since I was the first to fall victim to your trolling, completely aware of it, I ask you to stop this kind of trolling right here and now.

'Be reasonable. Do it my way.'

I find it generally useful to inform others - that barack obama changed his name. So I'm afraid I shan't be following your prescription.

You may *not* be aware of the law in the United States - but when a lawyer registers to practise law, he is required *only* practise law under his registered name, and he is required to disclose any other names he may have used.

At the very least, Obama violated this law. Now, we know that Barry entered the country as Barry. But we have no knowledge did he attend college as Barry - it seems in part he did. Did he receive scholarships/acceptance as an immigrant student? We don't know. Barry won't release his records.

Furthermore, it is unlawful to run for public office under a different name. Recently here in Florida, a democrat running for office tried to change her name to something more hispanic. She was booted off the ballot by the courts for failure to abide by this law.

So, you see it very much does matter what Barry's name is. But lets not let a little matter of legality get in the way of annointing the next great democratic candidate.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by quantum_mechani

All I can say is I am slightly boggled by this point of view. Is it really worth letting innocent but unlucky people go without health care just because a few people abuse the system? I mean, abuse of the system is unfortunate but a little more taxes won't kill anyone, as opposed to the alternative. And it's not like the vast majority of people that can't afford health care don't work, either.

If you ever worked in a community health clinic you'd know it wasn't a few people. Its a never ending stream.

[Tifone]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

If you ever worked in a community health clinic you'd know it wasn't a few people. Its a never ending stream.

That's just a dodge. Rephrased question so: is it really worth letting innocent but unlucky people DIE without health care because a "never ending stream" abuses the system?
Isn't it far worse than the infamous "blaming the victim"?
Isn't the right way, improving efficiency (stopping the abuse) and help all the people in need?

[lch]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

'Be reasonable. Do it my way.'

I find it generally useful to inform others - that barack obama changed his name. So I'm afraid I shan't be following your prescription.

If you are so bold to even claim that there are legal problems, then you should have hard evidence to back that up, and I hardly think that you're able to do that, hence your claim is without reason. From what I have seen, the absolute only documented source about a differing name is a school registration as "Barry Soetoro", made by his stepfather at the time. That is hardly a binding document about a namechange, no matter what some people try to stylize it to be. Those people then go on and claim that there's no document where the name change "back" was registered, deducing a lot more smut from that false premise, when they don't even have a document where the name change "towards" Soetoro can be seen. Poor magician's trick?

So unless you do have documented evidence, other than deliberations on conspiracy- and attack sites, that Barry was more than his nickname, and you shouldn't try to answer this if you don't, your accusations are without ground and nothing more than a bad try at trolling.