Politics: Where we struggle to kneel in the muck.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Please explain how the actions of this administration (both in governing and in campaigning) have been consistent with the teachings of Christ.

World religions seminar was a few years back for me, but wasn't it Jesus who said it is everyone's duty to go jihadi on non-believers, and chop off their heads.

[Hank Chinaski]

JFK..........



You have to wonder what the Kennedys really thought of this guy. He can't play football (or fotbol), and he looks like a dork on a boat.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter

W said his favorite political philosopher is Jesus Christ. Please explain how the actions of this administration (both in governing and in campaigning) have been consistent with the teachings of Christ. "Being crucified for our sins and being president are both a lot of hard work" is not an acceptable answer.

Its called selective piety, and there's more of it in this country these days than there is good top soil.

Just take a look at these bishops calling anyone who votes for Kerry a sinner. They're cut from the same cloth as the mullahs. If I had a brick for every Catholic who has a hard on for the death penalty, but vehemently professes to oppose abortion, I could build a wall from here to Seattle. These "moral" people aren't moral at all - they're picking and choosing the morals that suit their little views of how they think society should operate. They'd have a 16 year old kid jailed for getting an abortion, or deny stem cell research, but they have no problem executing people. I don't know Jesus, but from what I've read, the first thing I think he'd deal with were he to return to Earth would be the death penalty. Oh, and I think he was against wars, contrary to the Catholic Church's horseshit policy that there can be "just wars" (Sorry, Padre, Jesus said 'turn the other cheek' at ALL times). Call me crazy... thats just how I read his views. Don't agree? Read the book. Its all in there.

All these fucking people, every last one of them, has a huge mouthful of shit about how much they oppose stem cells or abortion, but as sure as the sun rising tomorrow, every last one of these motherfuckers will do exactly the opposite when its his daughter who's knocked up or his father who has Alzheimer's. At least some of us are honest.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Gattigap
While not intimately familiar with the tenets of Wahhabiism, I actually don't think that they're so big on abortion. FWIW.

Great minds think alike.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Who is your Papi?
Rivera mortal again
Stink growing stronger

Confounding all sages
Battles of curses and kings
Warriors stride onward

S_A_M

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
You're down to 'Hussein was a bad man.' No WMD. No ties to Al Qaeda. No threat to his neighbors. But Bush won't really acknowledge any of this. You can't pass this test if you can't acknowledge the truth.

The issue is not whether the war wwas predicated on a lie. The issue is whether having the war over there is better than having it over here. Bush is at a terrible disadvantage because he can't say "I lied because I needed a pretext to take the war off our shores", but that's what he did. All these people ripping Bush for lying (of course he lied) miss the greater point. The lie was needed to make sure that the next battles with AQ take place in AQ's yard, not ours. It is significant that nothing has happened here since 9/11. That is an accomplishment.

You knew it was a lie. I knew it was a lie. The world knew it was a lie. We're past that point. Whats important is "Are you safer now because Bush used the lie to move the war?" I tend to think yes, but I also think AQ is shrewd. bin Laden knows Iraq is a head fake. He's not dicking around with idiots like Zarqawi. He's planning AQ's next attack on our shores.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
And I will reiterate for the 7th time - by "this" standard, Bush passed the test.

If this is the issue that our little national referendum this November is based on, Kerry wins.

With Colin Powell now doing the backtrack and apologia for the sake of his reputation, it is clear that Bush failed the standard but has somehow decided that persistence is more important than frankness.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by taxwonk
I'm not disagreeing with what you say. However, I think that the expenditure of supporting the people in paragraph 1 would be lower overall than the cost of paying social security to all recipients under the current system.

I agree with your assessment of paragraph2, which is why I am not running for Congress.

One of my prescriptions for social security would be on the funding side rather than the expenditure side. I think the fact that social security is funded solely from the wage base has a decided impact on our competitiveness (it's a cost business abroad often don't bear) and results in a regressive tax. I'd take the cap off and apply the tax to unearned income as well, and either use the additional funds to lower the tax rate or to remove the employer side wage tax. Of course, Moynihan fought this battle for years, with very little to show, so I'm probably not heading for Congress, either.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
And he voted for a different measure to fund the $87 billion (b) that Bush opposed. At least Kerry's method of funding the war was fiscally responsible.

If you don't see that his vote against the $87 million was nothing more than a way to get some cover from Dean, there's no reason to have any further discussion. He voted no to the bill, and would have voted no to any bill the president proposed, because he needed cover. He was one of 12 fucking senators to vote no, which indicates that the "Bush Bill," while imperfect, was a signable bill.

He was right. Living in a democracy, as we do, you're allowed to say that our leaders have screwed up, even if our troops are being shot at. I recall Republicans criticizing Clinton while our troops were in harm's way in the former Yugoslavia.

Perhaps, but that doesn't mean the candidate for president should do it in that manner. You keep confusing the average citizen, even the average senator, with the CIC.

If pointing out the truth constitutes ridicule, then you've got to blame the person who put Allawi in the situation. Bush has Allawi come to this country to campaign for him, reading a speech written by his campaign, and Kerry's to blame for pointing this out? You think no one in Iraq was going to see the Allawi puppet show on Al Jazeera if Kerry didn't point it out?

Funny, why doesn't this same rationale apply to the French? I know I know. Because when Bush does it is a failure of diplomacy, but when Kerry does it it's pointing out the truth.

No, he said the problem was that there weren't more of them. They probably agree.

He's called them the coalition of the coerced and the bribed. That speaks for itself.

If you read what he said, it's pretty simple. Once you act unilaterally, you've got to be able to justify what you've done to your own countrymen and other countries.

It's very confusing to me. What does this mean? How do you justifiy it? To whom do you justify it? What if you can justify it to your country man but not your allies?

It's not confusing. Bush is twisting his words intentionally, because after four years, that's what he's got left to run on. That and poor Mary Cheney.

Which is 1 issue more than Kerry's "I'm not Bush" platform.

He's said the war on terror involves law enforcement, which it does. Do you ever find yourself wondering why Attorney General Ashcroft, the nation's top law enforcement officer, keeps popping up in the war on terror? It's not because he's a member of the Reserves. This, again, is another straw man.

Of course it does, but it also should involve the military, and I don't believe Kerry believes this.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
I hope to see it too, but this is simply wishful thinking. Events do not indicate that Iraq will be a thriving democracy with a robust middle class any time soon. I don't know how old you are, but I'm inclined to go with the over. Perhaps Less can help us with the line.

You must be really old, because it's only 5-10 years away.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Not Me
Time for more American Jews to become Reps.

It's happening with the younger generation. The older generation will never change.

[sgtclub]

Scandal-hit Bill O'Reilly's accuser had a crush on the talk show host and voluntarily engaged in "intimate" phone talks with him, according to a former friend of the woman.
But at some point, the ex-pal said, O'Reilly's relationship with Andrea Mackris went sour - and she vowed to take her boss down in a juicy tell-all book.

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/sto...p-208987c.html

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by sgtclub
It's happening with the younger generation. The older generation will never change.

my neighborhood=lots of Jewish people who've lived here for generations=Kerry signs.

neighborhood 1/2 mile away=lots of russian immigrant Jewish people= Bush signs.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
The issue is not whether the war wwas predicated on a lie. The issue is whether having the war over there is better than having it over here. Bush is at a terrible disadvantage because he can't say "I lied because I needed a pretext to take the war off our shores", but that's what he did. All these people ripping Bush for lying (of course he lied) miss the greater point. The lie was needed to make sure that the next battles with AQ take place in AQ's yard, not ours. It is significant that nothing has happened here since 9/11. That is an accomplishment.

This sentiment combined with this one:

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
You knew it was a lie. I knew it was a lie. The world knew it was a lie. We're past that point. Whats important is "Are you safer now because Bush used the lie to move the war?" I tend to think yes, but I also think AQ is shrewd. bin Laden knows Iraq is a head fake. He's not dicking around with idiots like Zarqawi. He's planning AQ's next attack on our shores.

is what confuses me about people.

If the terrorists who attacked us weren't connected to SH and Iraq, how is it that you can say in one breath that it is significant that nothing has happened here since 9/11 and in the next say, Osama is planning his next attack on our shores?

It seems to me that Al Quaeda was going to lay low over here after pulling off 9/11 because they're not stupid. They know we're sensitive to things we weren't sensitive to before. That happens no matter who is in office and no matter how many colors are on the terrify-people-chart.

The fact is, because of the type of attacks they engage in, we are not safer over here. They're just waiting til we get lazy again. But you can't live in a constant, indefinite state of fear, despite Cheney's best efforts. That's why terrorists choose these kinds of attacks. It's very difficult to defend.

After 9/11, for like 6 months, security was tight at my building. Everyone had to be credentialed to gain access. Security was visible and posted all over -- not just at every entrance. Now, I could swipe anyone's access card and go up because security just doesn't pay attention anymore. It's all bullshit anyway. If someone wanted to blow the building up, they wouldn't be trying to get upstairs. They'd plant the bomb in the areas everyone has unlimited access to.

Bush isn't taking the war overseas. He is engaging in this war to make people feel better. He is saying, "I'm going after those damn Ay-rabs," and watching people line up behind him happy in this fiction of safety. When he wants to energize them, he scares them. When he wants to build himself up, he talks about safety. People eat it up because they're stupid.

You can't fight a worldwide network by picking one location and trying to take it over. That makes absolutely no sense. After 9/11 we had the sympathy and support of the entire world. Every country wanted to help. Bush took that and turned it all the way around. If there are terrorist cells all over the world, it seems to me that the best plan would have been to take advantage of the good will that we had from other countries after 9/11 -- use it to hunt terrorists down and destroy them. You don't destroy that good will and, at the same time, create recruits by engaging in a crusade in a country that posed no imminent threat.

I don't want to hear the SH was a bad man argument. If that was the rationale for taking him out, Bush and friends would have used it as the justification to go to war before we went to war. We took him out because Bush wanted to take him out. 9/11 was the excuse.

TM

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Bush isn't taking the war overseas. He is engaging in this war to make people feel better. He is saying, "I'm going after those damn Ay-rabs," and watching people line up behind him happy in this fiction of safety. When he wants to energize them, he scares them. When he wants to build himself up, he talks about safety. People eat it up because they're stupid.

You can't fight a worldwide network by picking one location and trying to take it over. That makes absolutely no sense. After 9/11 we had the sympathy and support of the entire world. Every country wanted to help. Bush took that and turned it all the way around. If there are terrorist cells all over the world, it seems to me that the best plan would have been to take advantage of the good will that we had from other countries after 9/11 -- use it to hunt terrorists down and destroy them. You don't destroy that good will and, at the same time, create recruits by engaging in a crusade in a country that posed no imminent threat.

I don't want to hear the SH was a bad man argument. If that was the rationale for taking him out, Bush and friends would have used it as the justification to go to war before we went to war. We took him out because Bush wanted to take him out. 9/11 was the excuse.

TM

Seb's position on this is probably his alone, at least here.

The "bush lied" part misses that everyone, the UN, Blix, everyone thought the guy had the weapons. He was bluffing and for a decade everyone bought the bluff. But even if he had the weapons, and we removed them, much of what you said is correct. The real fight is catching guys in small groups, like happens every week, still, in countries that are "mad" at us.

what is BS about "Iraq is a distraction" and "we should have waited longer then we'd have 200K troops to throw at the real problem" is that we don't need 200K troops to attack the real problem. the only possible place where even 10000 troops could be used would be maybe in Pakistan or the Philippines, and both governments, while friendly don't want our troops there.

your other point about security is also true. There is nothing to prevent someone who has the mindset and explosives from walking on a crowded DC or NY subway car tonight. Guys willing to blow themselves up are a tough problem to solve.