To Bush supporters

Off Topic
61

“The Saudis are active in terrorist hunting…” I guess this refers to the Saud family.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahah. Sorry but thats just ridiculous. The only thing that keeps that “royal family” in power is our ability to keep them armed to the teeth, which of course protects our oil interests which means they had better turn up a terrorist or two every once in awhile. One problem, The Sa’ud family sits on top a volatile populous which could overthrow them at any given time if they appear to get too Westernized in ideology. O yeah, of course a lot of these Saudis are good ole militant Islam fellas, and they dont take too kindly to having their brothers taken off in shackles by the Sa’ud. SO we have a little problem. Terrorists can camp out in Saudi with little to no hassle. Hey if you dont believe me, heres an example. THe International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRQ), yah there one of the “charities” that funneled a majority of their dough to uhh, o yah, Bin Laden, o and their biggest contributor was al-Rajhi Banking and Investment Corp. Who are they you might ask? Its one of the richest banks in the ole Saudi kingdom with over 400 branches. But, I guess Saudi is doing their best right. Next somebody will say that we are in Iraq to “free the Iraqis.” Hey, I got a great idea, how about we free them from us before Vietnam III sets in…Vietnam II was the war o, sorry, IS the war on drugs. That was a rant.

62

" However, maybe the education system needs to focus on some new areas.’

-THe changes that need to be implemented to our educational system are many. (Its not a question of new areas, there are no new areas. Its still math, science, history etc.) One of them, IMO, is we should demand more from students, and separate the kids who really want to stay in school with those who really don’t at the age of 14.
We need to demand they read more and study more and think more.

“Doesn’t everyone realize that media has to be viewed with a jaundiced eye because it represents someones viewpoint instead of the truth?”"

No, very few people realize it. And what’s more they don’t care. It is hard trying to figure out who’s lying, who’s distorting the truth, who is telling the truth - if there is an absolute truth- etc, etc.
Having to think about serious issues, reading about them from more than 1 viewpoint, listening/viewing diff’t shows is HARD, because you have to pay attention and think.

Life isn’t black and white, and yet many Americans live their life as if it was, something is either right or wrong.
I think that’s why the 2 party system is still in place.

“I’m not trying to devalue history, but a lot of people feel good knowing some namby-pamby dates and times instead of their rights and associated duties as a citizen.”

THey don’t even know those

"Oh well, the world has always been screwed up… no use worrying about it now. "

-Not sure what that means, but we’re all screwed up, in case you haven’t noticed. Is that what you meant? We are human after all.

63

Re: media bias, one of the most troubling issues is the concentration of ownership of media outlets by a few companies.

This makes it difficult for independent voices to be heard, and for different viewpoints to be presented to the general public.

Like I said, its not that easy to go and search diff’t media sources other than the mainstream. Its annoying and time-consuming if you don’t want to do it.

And most people don’t do it, for apathy, or self-centeredness, or whatever.

64

Solution to education…

Get the government out of it…

PRIVATIZE. Then the kids that want the best will have it, and the ones that dont want to waste their time can sit on a tack and spin.

When did we stop thinking like Jefferson, Franklin and the crew and decide the government should do everything for us?

65

xMillertimex -

You make a good point. However, the Saudis are turning a lot more terrorists over to us that “a few here and there”. Regardless, they are active in hunting terrorists; and you just agreed with me in your last post. And why do you think we are in Iraq? Cuz if you think it was for free or cheap oil, your validity on this post just went down the drain. RLTW

-When in doubt, flip it to burst.

rangertab75

66

"Solution to education…

Get the government out of it…

PRIVATIZE. Then the kids that want the best will have it, and the ones that dont want to waste their time can sit on a tack and spin.

When did we stop thinking like Jefferson, Franklin and the crew and decide the government should do everything for us?"

–>The KIDS that want the best will have it? Because KIDS love school and care very much at young ages about their future and how their education may better it. Get a clue. All kids would be sitting on tacks and spinning…

Not everyone can afford great private schools. Isn’t quality education for ALL in our country’s best interest? It can be and should be argued that education is a right of ours, like health care - we are all entitled to it.

Not everyone can afford or has connections to get into Kincaid, then Yale, then Harvard…oh nevermind!

67

RSU,

Not everyone can afford great private schools. Isn’t quality education for ALL in our country’s best interest? It can be and should be argued that education is a right of ours, like health care - we are all entitled to it.

  1. Privitization will create competition which will drastically reduce prices. Competition also creates a better product, being a better education.

  2. Kids are more interested in learning and school when they receive quality education. You can see this in any high school. Go find a good teacher and find a bad teacher. Compare how the kids act in each class and compare grades.

  3. Education is not a right and neither is health care. Once it becomes a right it has very little actual value. Education needs to be valued, and there should be a separation of government and education. Especially with all this PC crap comming out with respect to what is being taught in schools. They want equal representation of ethnic groups taught in history class, even though contributions of different ethnic groups are no where near equal.

68

We are getting to the point where our two parties, Democratic aka Socialist party, or the Republican party aka socialist light are really not any different.
Buffpants nailed it. What is unique about the US of A, capitalism. Private schools prove this point, hell, even small trial voucher systems have proved this. Dont get me wrong vouchers are not going to solve it but they are better than the current system offers. Worst of all, the current system keeps the lowest social rung at the bottom and highest at the top. We are getting to the point where there will be no social mobility. IF people would look at honest statistics instead of “feel good” emotion for making their decisions at the polls we would have solved this problem by now democratically.
“The poor kids couldnt afford it”…haha hahaha. Yah okay. Keep telling yourself that one, what if we eliminated all the penalizing taxes on gas, cigarettes, car tags, blah blah blha, (to think we dumped tea for a 1% tax) poor people could and would afford it. ANd yah, I went to private school, I was in a single parent family (my dad was dead) and my mom was a social worker that made less than 18,000 a year in one of the heaviest taxed states in the Union. But, we didnt have cable or a VCR or a car or Nintendo. Of course, 92% of the poor in AMerica have a color TV, 60% own microwaves (we didnt have one of those fancy thing-a-ma-jigs either), 7.4% have COMPUTERS for CHRist sake, and 41% own a house…Im still not sure what that is, but Im sure that if I keep working hard I will know what one is one day.

As long as those socialist son of a biacthes dont tax me into submission first, and take my life, liberty or pursuit of happiness.

69

Show me in that famous little yellow piece of paper where it says, education, healthcare, food stamps, subsidized housing, and anything else that might prevent you from getting off your lazy ass is a right. I want the direct quote. And I do mean on the federal level here.

Heres my quote…
Defense must be “provided” but the preamble says government may “promote” welfare, but only ways enumerated by and allowed for in the Constitution.

Until the patient becomes involved with their care in a fiduciary manner, the demand for care is going to overwhelm the supply. You see the costs are being distorted by the government and insurance companies. And still we look to the government. This is insane. God help us all, does any politician, voter or even T-man know this nation’s founding documents, just in case they are not the same as Swedens or freakin Canada.

70

The definition of poor in this country makes for misleading statistics.

The same goes with the “hungry” statistics. Thousands of kids go hungry each year in the US…but do you know what “hungry” is? It’s missing one meal in the last month. Shit! I’m one of the hungry!

If we could just get rid of income taxes, property taxes, gas taxes, and all sorts of goofy shit like that, and get rid of welfare, then there would be very few poor people even by today’s standards. But that’s a totally different argument.

71

millertime,

Defense must be “provided” but the preamble says government may “promote” welfare, but only ways enumerated by and allowed for in the Constitution.

I might argue that “promoting welfare” might mean keeping taxes low so that people can prosper :slight_smile:

But once housing, a car, owning land, etc. becomes a right, then it is of little actual value. So that $300k investment someone made in a piece of land will plummet in value to hardly anything since land is a right.

Liberals want to punish businesses, so not only do people lose jobs, but people’s investments are also ruined. They want to make everything a right so that it is virtually worthless (wrt to money). They want to tax the rich MORE, even though they are already rediculously unfairly taxed, so you punish people that succeed.

Hmmmm, sounds like communism to me.

72

This is my response to Ranger Tab. Im getting overrun by the socialist party, but my thoughts on this.

Yes I think…
The only reason for wanting stability in the middle east is oil. Its not as direct as some would imply however. We are not there to take oil, well not really. We are there to preserve it so we can buy it. I dont have a problem with that necessarily. If we take care of the Iraq situation perfectly we can effectivly control OPEC prices through Iraq with a free market there.
The Sa’ud likes money and riches as shown by their actions within the family. It is well known how corrupt they are. More specifically, they like our money. But, they are by no means making the terrorists within their borders their top priority. This would directly threaten their regime, and “we” the US, know that. But, since oil is what is of value to us, we kind of just get to hurry up and wait. As long as the media has something to write about every once in awhile everybody will be happy. And better yet, no one will be the wiser.
Iraq is not about freedom. Not for our poliicians anyway. If it was, we would be all over the place, in fact, if you go back you can even find a certain prez talking about Clinton’s nation building activities and what a bad idea that is. Hell, its not about freedom on our end either. When it comes down to it, if you sitting in Iraq its about doing your job, taking care of your boys and getting them home. That country shouldnt be a country in the first place, it should be three, from your posts I gather you got around over at the “Sandy Sequel” but if you were unlucky and got stationed in one region then maybe you didnt see it first hand.
WMD’s. Hey, I dont like em. If the prez believed we had a reason to fear their use there, then great. I support that reasoning too. But the Iraqi freedom is the bigest load of baloney, why not Somali freedom or just about any other nation in Africa freedom. I mean we know what its really about. If they get freedom great, if we could be sure there was security in the middle east w/o a democracy we would go for that too. As long as the oil is flowing. We could avoid all this by drilling away in alaska, then the Middle east instability wouldnt directly threaten our national security. But some people thing deer or elk or whatever, are worth more than our safety…

73

To buffpants…

It may just be you and me left when the “special police” come a knocking on the door…

hah hah.

74

RE privatizing educ, the general way idea of how its going to happen, if at all, is that communitites will still pay taxes to pay for schools but parents will be able to assign the money set aside for their child at a public school to the school of their choice. BUT, this is not gospel. Its uncharted territory, and there are a lot of propositions out there. I’ll be studying them later on in the semester, but for now that’s what I know off the top of my head.
If any other teachers are reading, please elaborate.

75

Rangertab75

Bush may just have pulled a sua sponte in Iraq, but if it was for WMD’s then history shoud forgive it.

Does going into Iraq for the sake of oil really create some kind of problem here?

Just my two cents.

76

Re the posts about rights and communism, etc. Remember that the writers of the Constitution were not perfect, and they lived in a diff’t time. The most blatant examples of mistakes they made would be allowing slavery and not giving women equal rights. But they lived in a time when those were accepted norms.

BUt when you believe that no one has a right to education, health care, food, housing because its lazy SOBs who are freeloading and besides its not in the constitution…that is barbaric and inhumane. That is what goes on in 3rd world countries, not 1st world countries and especially not in the richest country on earth.

I don’t like welfare (people who don’t work cashing checks) and high taxes either. In fact, the tax code MUST be reformed. Its absolute BS that no matter how we make money, we get taxed on it.

77

Millertime: AWESOME post. Awesome.
My mom also worked her ass off while she was single, and still does, and my grand mother worked 2 full-time jobs a day for 20 years when she immigrated here. She left behind my grandfather who was dying of tuberculosis, moved here for a better life, and raised 2 kids on her own.

My father also worked 2 full time jobs, well…you get the point.

People really need to be accountable for their situation. It is ridiculous how many luxuries some poor people own in the US.
I have a friend, he’s 15 and lives in a ghetto neighborhood in Brooklyn. Single mom family, all that.
His mom is on welfare, only works part time but not everyday, yet he has 4 video game systems and is about to buy a new PS 2, two BMX bikes, 3tvs, cable etc. Name brand clothes, Nikes, etc.

Imagine if the mom worked full time w/ another job on the side, he worked part time (he will get a part ime job but wants to work at a Best Buy to get discounts), and they didn’t buy all those luxuries!
WTF?
THere is no fiscal responsibility in many families.
SOme of of it is caused by advertising of course, awa wanting to keep up with the Joneses, but that is no excuse for not working hard and trying to better your family situation.

“” ANd yah, I went to private school, I was in a single parent family (my dad was dead) and my mom was a social worker that made less than 18,000 a year in one of the heaviest taxed states in the Union. But, we didnt have cable or a VCR or a car or Nintendo. Of course, 92% of the poor in AMerica have a color TV, 60% own microwaves (we didnt have one of those fancy thing-a-ma-jigs either), 7.4% have COMPUTERS for CHRist sake, and 41% own a house…Im still not sure what that is, but Im sure that if I keep working hard I will know what one is one day.“”

78

The most blatant examples of mistakes they made would be allowing slavery and not giving women equal rights. But they lived in a time when those were accepted norms.

It is not that simple. Women were not allowed to vote because they were not land owners. Once upon a time only land owners were allowed to vote because they had something to lose. Someone with no property wouldn’t think twice about voting away rights of property owners.

So no, not allowing women to vote at that time period was NOT a mistake. It made sense and protected people.

In the modern world, not owning land is not as a definitive thing as it used to be, hence the change. And now that women are so much more involved with things, it’s obvious that they should be able to do the same as a man.

I don’t know too much about the slavery issue, so I can’t comment. I’m sure it’s not as black and white (pardon the pun) as it appears on the surface.

BUt when you believe that no one has a right to education, health care, food, housing because its lazy SOBs who are freeloading and besides its not in the constitution…that is barbaric and inhumane.

It is inhumane to have people work for themselves?

Here’s the deal. When you have failure nipping at your ass, that’s a great incentive to work harder. But, if you know that you can just go on welfare, you’ll just slack. You become a burden on society, and a family of 7 now has to pay for this bum. THAT is inhumane.

You may argue that welfare or unemployment can and has helped some legitimate cases. Well, what it should be is organizations such as churches would help out these people instead. The evil rich people love to give to charities, which could fund private programs that would help these people. But instead their tax money goes to fund poverty. That’s why we have 25 trillion dollars of poverty.

That is what goes on in 3rd world countries, not 1st world countries and especially not in the richest country on earth.

What 3rd world country is free like America is (or freer than us, apparently)?

79

I work at a public charter school here in Texas. We get the same amount of state money per student that a regular school district gets ($5000), but we can not enact property taxes. This means we get our money for facilities from private foundations. That means we have to perform in order to get money to be able to stay open. There’s pressure, but so far, so good. In fact, the Gates Foundation is going to start “franchising” our school in 2005.

80

xMillertimex -

Let’s say for the sake of argument that we DID go to war for the sole reason of oil. It is in the interest of the American people, isn’t it? We all know how much people like to bitch about paying an arm and a leg for gas. Now, I am not going to sit here and say that I went to war for cheap fucking gas…there’s more to it. I really doubt that GWB is willing to put the safety of the free world on the line for lower gas prices. RLTW

-When in doubt, flip it to burst.

rangertab75