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It's going to be Historic either way!!

  • #61
we have to ask "and what do we do with witches?"

BURN THEM!!!

...or build bridges out of them...you know to help with internal infrastructure? Would save on taxes if we used witches (which we all know are made of wood) instead of conventional petroleum based building materials

Xvart, I do agree that there must be better qualified (experience, track record, etc) female candidates out there he could have chosen, but no republican women come to mind though. Then again I am not overly well versed in politics.

It just is that in my opinion ANY woman he would have chosen still would have made me think the choice of a woman as VP was more of a political strategy to make this "an election of firsts" for both democrat and republicans. In that regards I do have to admit it was a pretty smooth choice on his part, but I still see it only as a strategy.
 
  • #62
I also think he undercut himself by only meeting her once before last week. As one of the political commentariers said: "I wouldn't even go to dinner with someone I met just once; let alone give them the keys to the country."

xvart.
 
  • #63
There's apparently a good number of people speculating that the GOP is actively trying to throw this election now. The idea is that there's no way to stop another Great Depression that's on the horizon and the GOP would prefer it to be under the Democrat's watch.

Scary either way you look at it. However, the old Great Depression wasn't that bad as long as you weren't actually involved in big industry at the time. In highschool we did one of those 'interview your grandparents about the great depression' bits and all the rural grandparents said they barely noticed.

Kinda makes me glad I dropped out of college and have a job that pays well without any extravagant ties, whereas my selection of majors would mean I'd be in the same position anyway at this rate, except, you know, $50k+ in debt after school costs.
 
  • #65
*looks at the article, makes that 'what the hell?' face, looks back*

hm.

*looks at it again, scratches head"

wha?

*walks out to his front porch, looks around for a bit, walks back in*

Wait, hold on...

*gives up, goes to bed*
 
  • #66
Conservation only applies to certain things, Neps, VFTs, blonde cheerleaders, fetuses and that sorta stuff you know... ;)

If we could find a way to drill for oil at the top of Mt Kinabalu how many dedicated CPers who "really care" would be for it if they could just get cheaper gas? What really makes anyone think drilling will lower gas prices anyway? The stock industry will still be allowed to artificially inflate prices with "speculation". We could all have an oil rig in our back yard and we'd still be paying through the nose. Once government is allowed to be in bed with big business the way it has in this country it's the nightmarish end of Machiavellis civic minded republican society. America as it stands now is the worst outcome he could forsee in a republic when he was writing 500 years ago. Machiavelli would just poop if he were here today, the republicans have gone completely the wrong direction according to his founding principles and what the founding fathers (who used his writings The Prince and Discourses as a blue print for early America) intended.
 
  • #67
I have no doubt that drilling in every possibly productive location will reduce energy prices. It'll increase supply and limit speculation. At least for for now.

The important question is whether it's worth it. In my opinion, it isn't a good idea and I've been an advocate for artificially raising energy costs, through taxes, for a long time. Before all you conservatives only a couple decades out of diapers say I'm being a typical liberal, I learned that from my deeply conservative father, who knows what conservative is all about.

The US is in deep doodoo now because of decades of cheap energy policies. My father has always seen it as more of a national security issue, since he worked in the defense industry, while it's always been more of an environmental issue to me. But it's a rare political solution we agree on.
 
  • #68
We aren't actually "low" on oil as it is, this "crisis" is a manufactured symptom of the speculation problem. Drilling more may indeed uncover more oil, we likely will have to suck this planet dry before anything is done about seriously seeking alternative energies, I'm not doubting that logic, we're lazy and complacent and nobody likes change if they don't "have to". Massive drilling efforts will still not limit speculation. Speculation is based on the idea that someday there might not be a lot of oil, but we have plenty now, having even more of what we already have plenty of will not lower speculation and hence prices won't go down. Remember that this "crisis" is entirely manufactured by the media (from the right and left) and the energy speculators and the oil compnies who swear they're going broke even if their CEOs only bring home a mere $160,000 a day (Exxon Mobile). This is a monster the energy market has created and Machiavelli warned against, and once Godzilla is storming through Tokyo do you think he's going to go back into the sea on his own accord?
 
  • #69
damn weather screwed my plans so i came home from the lake early....dang rain made it impossible to get to my hunting spots tomorrow anyway.....besides a buddy had a carpet job he wanted help with so i might as well spend my vacation making money.........

gotta laugh at the comment that McCain is a fascist yet they support Obama as he is a Marxist ......6 of one half dozen of the other, either suck.....i prefer pure capitalizm as i prefer its results.....

one MAJOR reason im against Obama is congress is democrat right now....no way in hell do i want a democratic Prez and congress just like i dont want a republican prez and congress....look how Bush f'ed us up, most of that traces back to a Repub president and Congress.....the lil guy get screwed over MUCH MUCH less if we have a republican prez and a demo congress or a demo prez and a republican congress........it goes down hill fast if they agree with each other......very lil gets through when they fight with each other and i like that........

play on......im getting up early to lay carpet so im headed to bed and prolly wont check in till tomorrow night........
 
  • #70
Have you actually read Marx? I really doubt you have, cos if you did you would see clearly that Obama does not promote any sort of revolution and dissolution of the state to a working collective. What happened in Soviet Union was not real Marxism even though they claimed they were, they may have held those ideals, like we do the constitution but like us, they didn't follow the doctrine the way it was written. And Obama has even less to do with Marxism than the soviets.
 
  • #71
he has same basic idea but getting there through democracy....its like calling McCain a fascist it aint exactly correct but its a close approximation........
 
  • #72
Obama could be considered to have socialist leanings but he is not a Marxist by any means. He does not call for revolutions by the proletariat to overthrow the bourgeoisie and true communism. In fact in all of the speeches of his I have heard I found very little Marxist theory in them and I have read a good deal of Marx's works.

Now if by Marxism you are referring to what went on in Russia in 1917 or in China in the late 1940's well those were totalitarian states and if this is what you fear then voting for McCain is a bad idea because he supports the removal of our civil liberties, which would put us in essentially the same situation. We just wouldn't have the illusion of communism forced upon us.

and for the record I never accused McCain of being a fascist, only that he was taking classic steps that allow fascism to take hold.
 
  • #73
Both assertions are completely preposterous and not nearly "close enough" at all to what these political philosophies express. It's fun to say, it get's those emotions hopping for folks on both sdes but it really is far from "the truth".

These words are slung about by people (on both sides) who have not done anything but listen to/read political commentary by commentators who don't even know what they're talking about when they use these words. If they do know the meaning they are then intentionally using them improperly and spreading disinformation. Anyone who want's to use these sorts of terms ought to at the very least read the actual texts of the ideologies they are talking about when using labels like Fascist and Marxist and any others people might like to use, those two are the most popular lately.

A quote I read the other day that I liked was:
"In Capitalism it's man exploits man, in Communism it's exactly the opposite."
 
  • #74
yah know swords for claiming yah just like to stir the political pot at the beginning of this thread you sure want things to be to the nuts accurate from the rest of us.......with hunting season winding up and carpeting jobs getting dumped in my lap left and right really aint got the the interest to do it.......i aint voting for Obama cause i dont agree with the SOB and we have a democratic congress......since we have a democratic congress im likely voting for McCain, though i DO NOT like him either, cause we have a democratic congress and dont want Obama in.........can live with McCain cause the demos in congress are going to block most of what he tries to do anyways..........if we had a Repub congress i would likely be voting Barr in November.......thats my entire political stance for the 2008 presidential elections..........
 
  • #75
one MAJOR reason im against Obama is congress is democrat right now....no way in hell do i want a democratic Prez and congress just like i dont want a republican prez and congress....look how Bush f'ed us up, most of that traces back to a Repub president and Congress.....the lil guy get screwed over MUCH MUCH less if we have a republican prez and a demo congress or a demo prez and a republican congress........it goes down hill fast if they agree with each other......very lil gets through when they fight with each other and i like that........

The most productive years are typically the ones with a president from one party and a congress from the other; unless you have a president that has a "my way or the highway" attitude.

xvart.
 
  • #76
also the best way to get us screwed............prefer nothing get done to anything.........christ the repub president and congress got us the Patriot Act and the No Child Left Behind Act...some of the worst pieces of legislation i have seen.......would prefer not to see what Obama and a democratic congress come up with.........
 
  • #77
I don't think that I hold anyone to standards that I don't hold for myself. If I seem to I apologize. I took that silly label cos someone called me a pot stirrer and I thought it was funny and certainly appropo for the times. I may advocate civil disobedience but I also advocate knowing what's what by educating yourself on "the enemy". I'm not picking on you personally man, I don't intend it to seem so. I see and hear this kind of thing quite a bit in newspaper and on TV "news" and parroted by people watching the same. Everyone should definately read more political philosophy and some of this campaign season madness might be tempered by a lot more reason (on both sides).

Let me be clear (again), I don't care who you or anyone else votes for, it's not my job to talk you out of it or into some other politician. I thought were having a discussion filled with both real opinions and some slightly skewed humor. I was enjoy it anyway! :)

One thing I'd like to ask you with the idea of wanting a Rep WH and Dem Congress and vice versa. It's clear that nothing get's done in such a situation like this which we have now (on this we agree) but does this not lead to a state of increasing nepotism where Government is turned into an insane beauracrasy wherein nothing of any real substance ever gets accomplished and eventually erodes from inside or at the best sits stalled in neutral? What then are we going to be left with and where will we go when we reach that stage?
I'm not trying to be sarcastic or clever with my question (note no winky that I try and use when i'm being sarcastic) I want to try and understand your position on this "deadlock of oposites" (what's another name for it)?
 
  • #78
You know, i wish I could say that I didn't really care who's president, but the fact is, I'm kinda sad that America hasn't quite been what I was raised to believe it was.

Really, for me, it comes down to economy and the value of the dollar. Countries are starting refuse exchange of the dollar for its worth, it's been dropping steadily and we need an effective method for preventing its slip. The penny is worth more in base materials now, Even with the zinc factor! That should say something.

I'll call myself out on possible 'post hoc ergo propter hoc' here, But Germany pre-WW2 experienced a similar dissolution economically which left them vulnerable to totalitarian takeover. I'm really worried that if the US doesn't fix their image, we're going to tick someone/several countries off big time and get screwed over on a national scale.

On an ironic note, if McCain wins and shows signs of screwing things up, me and the significant other are seriously considering ex-pating to Germany.
 
  • #79
One thing I'd like to ask you with the idea of wanting a Rep WH and Dem Congress and vice versa, it's clear that nothing get's done in such a situation like this which we have now (on this we agree) does this not lead to a state of increasing nepotism where Government is turned into an insane beauracrasy wherein nothing of any real substance ever gets accomplished and eventually erodes from inside or at the best sits stalled in neutral?

yep......thats EXACTLY what i want UNTIL we get a candidate willing to revamp most of the system from head to toe......our welfare and reservation systems are a f'ing joke, i sit and watch what the feds have done with them and continue to do.....its a freaking money pit thats doing less and less good and more and more harm every year....get me a candidate thats atleast willing to tackle that and i will do everything i can to get them in office.....so far for years though all repub and demo candidates have stated they wont touch it cause if they do they loose votes.....the demos especially.....

im a huge believer on most of the power being in the states hands(Bruce strongly disagrees with me on this) and less being in the Feds......the only thing the feds should be there to do is protect the borders of the country and the supreme court be there to settle disputes between states and see that the constitution and bill of rights are upheld.....thats it......everything else should be handled by the states......why? so i dont have idiots from LA or New York dictating what i should do in BFE Montana when they have never been in a rural part of this country in their life.......dont like that the metro area of New England thinks they can tell us what our speed limit needs to be when they have never seen a 100 mile stretch of road with no towns on it and the curvature of the earth is the only thing interrupting your view.....

look at medical marijuana.....every state its been on the ballot has passed it by a large margin yet the feds still think they can claim its illegal and prosecute.....i know for a fact the DEA has tried damn hard to get its hands on Montanas list of medical users.....so far we have had a governor that has told them to take a long walk off a short dock......whats going to happen when all 50 states pass such laws? i highly doubt the DEA are going to et go of marijuana as the fight against it is a major source of their income.......

as far as im concerned i would rather have all this handled on a state level, not a federal........a dead lock in DC is a good thing in my opinion cause all the major candidates in the last 15 years have no interest in actually fixing major problems....they fix lil ones to pander to the masses and screw up big things on a regular basis.........
 
  • #80
Thanks for the answer Rattler! Yes I will agree 100% that states have been screwed by the feds especially in regards to the 10th ammendment.

Botanica, I didn't say I don't care who's president, I definately have a choice that I'd like to see because it would be a first but that doesn't mean that I actually believe this person can/will actually accomplish anything. Rarely is any problem resolved by adding american style government to it...

A young colonel at the pentagon began moving his desk around one day. Slowly but surely over the course of a week he made his way across the room. Nobody in the office thought that much about it, there's a lot of people with eccentiricities, one guy goes around with his shoes off, one has those plastic trolls with the fuzzy hair on his desk. Well this young colonel pretty soon had his desk out in the hall. A week later it was all the way down the hall next to the bathroom. By the following Friday he'd moved his desk right into the john. Well the directors didn't know what to make of this so they appointed a commitee to decide what to do. They didn't know what to do so they appointed a second commitee to decide what to do. They didn't know what to do, so they got a psychologist and asked his oppinion. He walked down the hall and opened the door and asked the young colonel why he'd moved his desk into the bathroom. He said "Because it's the only room in the building where people know what they're doing, do it and get the hell out."

;)
 
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