Hey Jimbow... I agree, this has gone far too long and we should end it. But I don't think that we should end the politics, just stray away from personal attacks. And this goes both ways, I did retaliate.

I don't want to make enemies with anyone on this board. FPW's books are the only fiction books that I have read since Clifford the Big Red Dog (that is fiction, right?). I am easy to get along with.

P.S. I know that you won't see this until after reading my other post first, so if you feel like going off on me, I won't take it offensive unless you turn down my peace treaty.

I can give quotes, too. Hehe.

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

I might as well finish the quote for you:

"What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness alone that gives everything its value. Heaven alone knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but "TO BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER, and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then there is not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can only belong to God."

-Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, 1780

You not only quoted it out of context, you even got the date wrong. Try December 26, 1776.

Add this one to your collection:

"Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an interolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer."

Thomas Paine, COMMON SENSE. Released in publication January 10, 1776.

I never really cared for Paine until this reading. I read it about a year ago now and began to like him. My professor tried force feeding me Thoreau but I spit it back and attacked his thinking. She was an old hippie but nice enough. We got along when we weren't talking about her dreams of chaos (thats what I thought Thoreau wanted).

Perhaps you ought to read Thoreau again. You might change your mind about him as well. Start with his pamphlet, ON CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE.

"We exhibit to mankind the remarkable spectcle of a people attacked by unprovoked enemies, without any imputation or even suspicion of offence...In our own native land, in defence of the freedom that is our birthright, and which we ever enjoyed till the late violation of it: for the protection of our property, acquired solely by the honest industry of our forefathers and ourselves, against violence actually offered, we have taken up arms. We shall lay them down when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, and all danger of their being renewed shall be removed, and not before."
-Thomas Jefferson Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms July 6, 1775

That is taken out of context. Better go back and read the whole thing. Jefferson is talking about the duly constituted government of Great Britain which established the Colonies in the first place. He is referring to what happens when the government goes out of control.

While you are at it, read the Declaration Of Independence. Think about what the words actually mean -- and apply them to the government we see around us today.

One may say, "we are the aggressors."

In the world as it is today, "we" (that is the U.S. gooferfuckedupment) ARE!

We are because we have to be.

The truth is simply this: it isn't the Moslems who came to the west to push us around, steal our resources, sneer at our customs and beliefs, depose our leaders and replace them with puppets, reshape our political institutions, or redraw our national borders to fit their own foul purposes. Nope, that's what "we" have been doing to THEM!

We shouldn't be put in the situation of having the first line of defense being our borders.

Who are you quoting there?

Its funny, in a sad sort of way. Ever since it threw off the Mongol subjugation in the 15th Century, Russia had been paranoid about the "security" of its borders. Paranoid to the extent that the security of the borders of the countries surrounding it came to be looked upon as a threat. To eliminate that imagined threat, it had to conquer those countries. But those countries had other borders . . . .

Defeat Russia? It looks more like America became Russia!

The first line of defense being our own borders was EXACTLY what men like Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, George Washington, John Hancock, and others, had in mind. Remember Jeffersons words from his first inaugural address? "... peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none ..." Looks like we have just the opposite today.

The "danger" exists. These tyrants exist. They need to be "removed" from power.

Osama Bin Laden became an enemy when the U.S. gummymint refused to pay him the 97 million dollars they owed him. Sadam Hussein was not a threat to the United States, in fact it was the U.S. gummymint that put him in power in the first place.

The only "enemies" the U.S. has are enemies created by the U.S. goofermint.

Ken V.

I have seen it both ways and my spell checker says that it can be one word. I are not a english major so I ain't care one way or another.

Perhaps your spell checker needs a spell checker. No one means NO ONE. Noone would be pronounced NOO-nee. (Or could it be an archaic English spelling describing the sun's zenith; as in high noone.) Looks like who ever programmed your spell-checker wasn't an English Major either.

True, but ethics has something to do with a lot of it. As much as politicians are slime balls, ethics factors in somewhat. But in order to cheat electronically, they have to have everyone in on it. All the people working the stands. And they are all split 50/50 with Ds and Rs. So, it would be pretty tough. Our state switched because our old Gov was documented for having dead people vote for him. And it wasn't just people that recently died either, it was a Black Sheep cheating scandel. MD is also very heavily liberal and we have a Republican Gov now. Yet no report of cheating, and trust me, if they had anything, it would pop up.

In order to cheat electronically, only the people desiring the cheating and those who do the programming need be involved. The folks working the voting booths are entirely out of the loop. They always have been.

Politicians have ALWAYS been trying to influence voting. Look up the origins of the term Gerrymander.

Ken V.

P.S. I'm not an English Major either.

P.P.S. Also Google the battle of Athens Tennessee.

And I'm the complete opposite. I don't see any of these "right-denying" things. Sensorship seems to be the major cry by the public these days but I can say what I want. Kerry can say what he wants. Call me blind, but I don't seem to see any of it. But thanks for the welcome. Everyone here seems real nice. No one has attacked me for thinking differently and I recognize and appreciate it.

Rob T.

I can say what I want as well . . . and DO! It has got me on the "NO-FLY" list. It seems that disagreeing with the Bushevics has caused me to be branded as a potential "Terrorist."

Then again, I think being on the outs with the Bush Administration is something to be proud of.

Ken V. (The merry terrorist.)

Well, he is smarter then everyone is leading on. He graduated from Yale. And don't start all this, "badly, and it was only because of whom his dad was." You don't hear me attacking Kerry's education. I'm not saying he only graduated because of his rich family. Why? Because I don't think it had anything to do with it. So Bush says words wrong. Who doesn't? And who should really care? Unless you are looking for reasons to bash someone, anunciation shouldn't be involved. I do agree, he isn't the smartest, but he isn't the dumbest, either.

It may be true that you can't fool all the people all the time, but you can always fool enough of them to rule a large country.



Ken V.

(ugh.. must have been half asleep when I spewed out that previous post. My own spelling errors are making my brain hurt. Anyway...)

How simplistic everything seems to be made from the standpoint of what is philosophically right or wrong. How easy things must be to solve the worlds problems from the safety of one's own patio (usually screened off to protect those inside from the harsh reality of the 'outside'). How righteous we must feel when given a partial equation (like 1+1+x=...) and we assume the answer is 2 when we don't even know the full story, or the value of x (or we assume that x=0 so that our arguments are not undermined). How easy it must be to pass the buck and assume management is responsible for the one employee who decides to break the rules and steal from the company that employs him. How easy it must be to use the crutch of an argumentative fallacy and base one's entire sociopolitical stance upon the existence of reams of documentation while being unable to supply that evidence when it is asked for.

Perhaps I'm more pragmatic than most, but when an individual decides to take themselves out of the equation that the rule of law governing a society, and proceeds to enact horrors upon other human beings within that society or even within another society... then they should no longer be protected by the rules of law which they so flagrantly ignore.

You murder someone, or a multitude of someone's, out of cold blood... you should no longer be protected by the laws which you broke in the first place.

You rape a child... you no longer deserve to be treated like a human being because you've shown yourself to be something antithetical to Society.

If your dog were to bite a child, it would have to be put down. However, if a human being was to bite/rape/kill a child, well... there would be those who would defend that individual's right to life and would protest the individuals execution. Why is that? It's more in a dog's nature to bite, regardless of what its biting... but when a human acts in such a base nature... well, we are hindered in any and every attempt to remove this clear and present threat to society and to our children.

Breaking the law is the decision of the individual, and the individual shouldn't cry when the laws they ignore no longer apply to them or protect them.

Views of right and wrong fit nicely upon that pedestal 'On High', but down here in the real world it's smoke and mirrors designed to make a person feel good about their own moral high ground.

Regardless, the more and more I read this thread.. the more and more I am amused by it. So by all means, cite your quotable quotes... present your documentation of partial facts and theory. It's all just pointless patio proselytizing.

What is justice, after all, but society's means of revenge upon those who wrong it?

Perhaps I'm more pragmatic than most, but when an individual decides to take themselves out of the equation that the rule of law governing a society, and proceeds to enact horrors upon other human beings within that society or even within another society... then they should no longer be protected by the rules of law which they so flagrantly ignore.

You murder someone, or a multitude of someone's, out of cold blood... you should no longer be protected by the laws which you broke in the first place.

You rape a child... you no longer deserve to be treated like a human being because you've shown yourself to be something antithetical to Society.

It sounds like you have oversimplified things yourself. You presume guilt where none has been proven. That is who the laws are there to protect. When you take away those laws the whole system breaks down and suddenly people are arrested and punished without due process. Prosecution no longer must adhere to the burden of proof. The mere defense of what many would refer to as the "scum of the earth" is what keeps the system in check and makes it work (though, admittedly, not perfectly).

And at what point of breaking the law should a person no longer be protected by those laws: misdemeanor, felony, murder, rape? And who is to set that line, you? Should you no longer be protected by the law because you were caught speeding, or perhaps stealing a loaf of bread, or maybe loitering or jaywalking? Where exactly is this line which one must cross to forfeit the protection of the law?

Your wrong. It's Conservative nature to do things the ole' fashion way.

That's what I said -- maintenance of the status-quo.

We don't go on the Daily Show and start bashing others.

KEE-RECT! It's done from the Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Liar Elder shows.

We aren't on MTv talking about how the other party is stupid.

Nope! they are on the radio talking about how the other party is EVIL.

I never understood why I was always on the defensive until a friend of mine that is a firsty and the USNA explained to me that it is just our nature. Makes a lot of sense.

The Democraps and RepubliCONs are always attacking each other. Even though when they get into office they do almost exactly the same things.

Firsty?
Ordinarily, I would think USNA would mean United States Naval Academy, but the context you use it in leaves me puzzled.

The green party is very radical. Extremely far left. They don't agree with anything that a Republican has to say.

I know what the Greens stand for. My friends and I refer to them as "watermellons" -- green on the outside, red on the inside.
As for me, I agree with a lot of what the Republicans say, but I learned a long time ago to pay attention to what politicians DO, which is why I say there isn't a ZINKY'S worth of difference between the Democraps and the RepubliCON's

You don't get the same thing from a Republican. Why? Because when it makes sense to us, we don't let our ego's get in the way. And thats a fact. We don't have radical Right Winged parties like the Green Party.

And the Democraps do what makes sense to THEM!

Sure you do.
(Referring to both letting your ego's get in the way, and radical right-wing parties.)

Republicans have that total self-assurance that can only come from minds incapable of conceiving the possibility that they could be wrong.

As with liberals, and even most moderates, conservatives are still inventing the perfect society in their minds, then trying to figure out how to shape people to fit in with it. Perhaps we should leave people the way they are, and accept whatever society comes out of it. Just let facts and people be what they are.

The radical right wing parties are the Neo-NAZI's, the KKK, and Aryan Nation. They are just as much an embarrasment to the Republicans as the Greens and Peace And Freedom folks are to the Democrats.

"Belief in the value of free markets, limited government, and individual self-reliance in economic affairs, combined with a belief in the value of tradition, law and morality in social affairs." -Dr. Thomas Dye

I don't know about so-called conservatives, but the Republican Party has never stood for those things. NEVER!

As far as "tradition" is concerned, some traditions are pretty horrid. What about the slavery that exists in America today -- is that a tradition you wish to keep? What about the tradition of tax-and-spend big government that the Federalists -- which evolved into the Whigs -- which evolved into the Republicans have always stood for. Is that a tradition you wish to keep also?

And as far as "morality" is concerned, it rather depends on what one considers to be "moral."

I do not wish to be a Guinea Pig in anybody's social experiment.

A saying that has become pretty popular at the academy is "Life, liberty and the pursuit of those who threaten it."

The greatest threat to life and liberty in this country are the Democrats and the Republicans -- I can go along with that.

I'm sorry, I don't know who David Duke is, so you lost me on that one.

David Duke was a Republican and a Grand Dragon leader of the Ku Klux Klan. (One of those radical right wing groups the Republican Party finds so embarassing.) He ran for numerous offices in Louisiana in the '80's and '90's.

Wow, what happend with you? You were fine and now you seem to have jumped all over me. Seems that I spoke too soon about the treatment.

What you wrote made absolutely no sense to me. I was just asking for a clarification.

My definition had something to do with us being the attacked. We are not the political aggressors.

Sorry, but you are wrong. September 11,2001 was a response to the U.S. government sticking its nose in places where it doesn't belong. Sooner or later, somebody was going to take a punch at that nose.

At the behest of certain politically-connected business interests, the U.S. government has been manipulating the situation in the middle east for over 60 years. What they did on September 11 is not justifiable, but if you look at both sides of the situation, it IS understandable.

We may want to attack other countries that want to destroy us, but we don't go around pointing fingers at the Ds. I didn't go into too much because I don't feel like writing a book with every post but it seems that I need to in order to please you.

Never asking of course WHY they want to "destroy" us.

The Republicans wanted to impeach Clinton for lying about sex. But Bush commits treason against the Constitution and there is nary a word said about it by the Republicans. (Or the Democrats either -- they know it would come back to bite them.)

You don't need to write a book to please me, just write a little more coherently.

Wow, you really like to put words in people's mouth. Ok, so you are a Nazi. You are a Hitler supporter. Why do I say that? Because you said that he wasn't evil and that we should have let him go into war. You said that we should have never gotten involved. You said that England should have let Hitler do what he wanted because he wasn't bad. Now, I may have put a couple words in your mouth. Go back and read what I said. I said that Hitler was evil. If you wanted to give him more time to prove it, think of how many others would have died. But to prove your point, you used a Moore technique. You chopped up the meaing of my quote to your benefit. Very sad.

And to prove your point you used a Moore technique.

LOL! You go back and read what you said before you said Hitler was evil. My point being that you don't want to actually learn what he stood for, and the arguments he used to further his agenda. (You take somebody else's word for it.) Which is why you don't recognize it when American politicians -- like George Bush -- do exactly the same thing Hitler did.

Reagan was a great president...I had a bunch of other stuff on here to tell you why he was a great President, but I deleted it. I did so because I got emotional and got close to calling you names. It disturbs me that someone could call the best president of all time "at best, mediocre." What that means is that you will refuse to believe that Reagan was a great president. You ignore everything he had done, or never learned it, so that you can call him this. I beg that you read up on him a little. Both sides. I recommend starting with Hannity's new book, Deliver us from Evil. He had a section talking about Reagan that, if you actually read it, you would feel very different about him. You will see what he was up against. Plus, there is a fact checker in the book if you think that he is just lying his way through it.

So tell me why you think Reagan was a great president. I'm sure that for everything you praise him for I can show you something which you will probably agree was NOT great -- hence the term mediocre.

I was a few weeks short of my 34th birthday when Reagan was elected. You weren't even BORN yet. I saw what he did first hand! You are just regurgitating the crapaganda spewed forth by Republican Party LICK-SPITTLES.

Call me what ever names you wish. It would only effect me if I had any respect for your opinion.

If you stay on this site I will probably gain respect for many of your views, and it is conceivable that the converse may also be true. But that hasn't happened yet -- going either way. Only time will tell. Let's give it that time -- shall we?


Ken V.

It is a popular thing to blame George H. W. Bush for not going into Baghdad in the Gulf War. He didn't exterminate Saddam when he had a chance. He didn't get rid of their WMDs back then when we knew they had them. They had used them on the Kurds. So you would trust an evil dictator's word that they got rid of them over common sense? They had them, they aren't going to disappear, and he kicked the UN out of the country before he was supposed to. What was he hidding, some embarassing pictures?

The so-called WMD's that Sadam Hussein used against the Kurds were either given or sold to him by the United States gummymint -- to help him in the war the U.S. wanted him to win against Iran.

Ken V.

We start wars because we can; its the American way. :p

BOY! Isn't THAT the truth!

Seriously, what better way to learn than to be constantly corrected.

'Nother truth!

Ken V.