The next 4 years

[sunfrog]

What will the next four years bring?

[Garrett]

That's almost humorous.

[darkhorse]

Grooaann!!!

Four more long years...

My reaction can be summed up as follows: :sick:

Here's my call on the election results: the ignorant masses have elected an ignorant leader. This surely is the triumph of ignorance over truth, backwardness over progressiveness, ignobility over nobleness!

What direction will this great country go for the next four years? The answer can only be: backwards!

Anyway, history will make its own judgments, and, in my opinion, history has already made its judgment on George W. Bush!

[Garrett]

Yoda has already said it: "...please get a freakin' grip..."

[darkhorse]

Only exercising my right to free expression, bud! You got a problem with that?

Or is one of the items on the Republican agenda the revocation of the right to free speech?

I know... it's wartime, and we all have to shut up, fall in line and follow the leader as he leads us like lemmings over a cliff!

All I'm saying is that this is a sad day in America!

[Garrett]

Only exercising my right to free expression, bud! You got a problem with that?


Nope, I'm only exercising my right to free expression.

[darkhorse]

Nope, I'm only exercising my right to free expression.
Well, we can agree to disagree, then! That's what makes America great!

[Yoda]

Does anyone doubt that darkhorse is Django?

Anyway, sunny, The deficits aren't the largest history. I've mentioned this to you before. You're ignoring inflation. Even so, the most sensible way to quantify the size of the deficit is to measure it relative to the size of the economy.

I don't know what the next four years will bring, but I expect it will bring increased stabilization in Afghanistan (which is quickly becoming an unbridled success), and (hopefully) stablization and successful elections in Iraq. I also expect we'll see continued economic growth comparable to the high level we've seen over the last 18 months.

All the rhetoric about moving backwards isn't really in line with the facts, especially economically. I don't suspect that'll stop Django: The Resurrection and others of his political persuasion from repeating it, though.

[sunfrog]

Yoda has already said it: "...please get a freakin' grip..."

I've got something he can grip. Lolololol
Hi Yoda, I don't hate you, just your kind.

[darkhorse]

Hats off to you, Yoda--you and your kind have won the election! Fair means or foul, it doesn't much matter now! Still, like I said, history is a harsher judge than the American people--I'm pretty sure of that! And I seriously doubt that history will look back on G.W. with fond memories!

Anyway, I don't have to join in with the right-wing celebrations, do I? Unless I'm compelled, by the Patriot Act, to grin and bear it, I'd prefer to abstain!

Incidentally, what is "Django"?

[sunfrog]

Does anyone doubt that darkhorse is Django?.
Really?? Hi Darkhorse glad to see you're still bothering the Mofos. :)

Anyway, sunny, The deficits aren't the largest history. I've mentioned this to you before. You're ignoring inflation. Even so, the most sensible way to quantify the size of the deficit is to measure it relative to the size of the economy.
Your imaginary numbers game won't even work in algerbra class Yoda. But maybe you voted for hellboy because you don't think he did anything wrong. Hhmm..


I don't know what the next four years will bring, but I expect it will bring increased stabilization in Afghanistan (which is quickly becoming an unbridled success), and (hopefully) stablization and successful elections in Iraq.
You mean temporary puppet government that nobody likes and will probably create civil wars and another murderous dictator down the line don't you?


All the rhetoric about moving backwards isn't really in line with the facts, especially economically. I don't suspect that'll stop Django: The Resurrection and others of his political persuasion from repeating it, though. You'll see Yoda, in 20 years you'll look back and you'll weep at what you've done. Then you'll start drinking, end up in jail, and become a minister. :)

[Garrett]

Incidentally, what is "Django"?

It's a so-so western from the late 60s.

[Yoda]

Hats off to you, Yoda--you and your kind have won the election! Fair means or foul, it doesn't much matter now! Still, like I said, history is a harsher judge than the American people--I'm pretty sure of that! And I seriously doubt that history will look back on G.W. with fond memories! I look forward to history's judgement of George W. Bush. You know, there's a liberal who used to post on this board (Steve), who put it better than I: what's history going to remember: is it going to remember faux scandals like Halliburton, or is it going to remember that two oppressed societies were set free and given a chance to establish democracies? It's seems very far-fetched to me that history books 50 years from now talking about how horrible it was that we removed multiple tyrannical governments from power.

But, I'm content to wait and see.

[darkhorse]

It's a so-so western from the early 60s.
I see. I should check it out one of these days. But why would Yoda claim that I am a so-so western from the early 60s? Last time I checked, I'm pretty sure I wasn't that. In fact, my doctor reassured me that I wasn't a so-so western from the early 60s. He told me to get plenty of exercise and watch my diet, but he made no allusions to any westerns from the 60s.

[darkhorse]

I look forward to history's judgement of George W. Bush. You know, there's a liberal who used to post on this board (Steve), who put it better than I: what's history going to remember: is it going to remember faux scandals like Halliburton, or is it going to remember that two oppressed societies were set free and given a chance to establish democracies? It's seems very far-fetched to me that history books 50 years from now talking about how horrible it was that we removed multiple tyrannical governments from power.

But, I'm content to wait and see.

Okay, Yoda. I'm willing to bet good money that history will remember G.W. in less flattering terms.

Will history remember him for the so-called liberation of two oppressed societies--Afghanistan and Iraq--or for the enslavement of one oppressed society--the United States?

Time will tell...

[Yoda]

Your imaginary numbers game won't even work in algerbra class Yoda. But maybe you voted for hellboy because you don't think he did anything wrong. Hhmm.. What, you're not familiar with the concept of inflation? Don't take my word for it. Look it up. You can check everything I'm saying about the deficit. Or you can continue to delude yourself. I think I know which you'll end up choosing. :)


You mean temporary puppet government that nobody likes and will probably create civil wars and another murderous dictator down the line don't you? Oh yeah, civil war. That'd be the end. I can't think of any powerful, prosperous nations which had to endure a civil war. Oh, wait...

Sorry, but if your chief complaint about the war is based on the premature, unsubstantiated claim that the country will regress into dictatorship, then you really don't have any argument. I could just as well pretend that everything there will improve and be sunny and happy for ever and ever. I recognize, however, that the ultimate outcome is in doubt. I'm not going to join you in satiating a partisan desire with kneejerk declarations. It's simply too soon to judge the success or failure of the attempted democratization going on in Iraq.

[OG-]

I'm just as angry about the election as the next democrat is, but it is much better to try to be optimisitic about the future than bitch and whine about the past.

[Yoda]

Will history remember him for the so-called liberation of two oppressed societies--Afghanistan and Iraq--or for the enslavement of one oppressed society--the United States? Maybe your idea of liberty differs from mine, but in mine, a government which can (technically) look at which books I've checked out of the library isn't anywhere near comparable to a government which allows you to, say, be enslaved and forced to pick cotton.

Or, think of it this way: if we were really "oppressed," you probably wouldn't be able to say so.

[jrs]

My input: Kerry is a pain in the ass, so things are alright by me.

[Sedai]

Only exercising my right to free expression, bud! You got a problem with that?

Not at all, except you don't have any "right" to do anything on a privately owned site, "bud". Read up on free speech before carelessly wielding it as a weapon. Also, even if you did have that right, so would the person you are trying to bag on, and they could say whatever they wanted to, as well. But, as stated, this is a privately owned site.

Or is one of the items on the Republican agenda the revocation of the right to free speech?

It's funny, but extremists (left and right) pose more of a threat to free speech than Republicans in general, as well as freely being able to smoke cigarettes, and other things that are none of their business.

I know... it's wartime, and we all have to shut up, fall in line and follow the leader as he leads us like lemmings over a cliff!

It is, however, your choice to do this if you wish. I wouldn't follow anyone off a cliff.

All I'm saying is that this is a sad day in America!

Ya, I had a real rough time going to grab a mocha this morning, and heading into work, where I get to earn a living so I can buy neat things, like food.

Try this for a change. How about you huddle under some rubble, counting the minutes until it's safe enough for you to go scrounge around looking for food, which you haven't had in 4 days.

Hopefully that will put things into perspective...

I am no fan of GW Bush, or the repubs, but it's uninformed attitudes like this that hurt the Dems every time. I notice a lack of things for them to blame this year. Hopefully they take a good long look at themselves and prepare for 2008...

[Richard Hell]

Okay, Yoda. I'm willing to bet good money that history will remember G.W. in less flattering terms. Will history remember him for the so-called liberation of two oppressed societies--Afghanistan and Iraq--or for the enslavement of one oppressed society--the United States?

You know what; sad to say, but yes they probaly will. History all ways seems to be used as a tool for negative comments against people, and when some individuals use it to make bad comments about someone, as if they or other historic figures, has never made any mistakes, makes me sick. Instead of useing history that way they need to use as of recorrecting mistakes, and learning from it. But what would have Kerry done different. Probally the same as Bush. If you ask me I would have been better off using my one vote to put Nader down, like the crazy girl in Idaho with a tin hat, did. The election was as fair as it could have been, why do you think Kerry conceded.


Only exercising my right to free expression, bud! You got a problem with that?

I do, aslong as you continue to down play other rights to express what they feel. You remind me something about my brother, always using freedom of speech as leverage to get out trouble. Don't get me wrong Im all for freedom of speech and all that rich stuff, but it's all how you use it, choose your atitude, you know what I mean. Its all how you use your own words to create positive knowledge not negative down play( do that and will see how much respect you get around this forum).

Or is one of the items on the Republican agenda the revocation of the right to free speech?

Hmp... lets look back into history sense you preach about how people look back on it. Alright, do you rember a small group of people forced to do hard slavery labor, under grueling circumstances, and nearly beaten to death if not. Do you rember another special group of people who helped put something in called the Imancipation Proclaimation, in to set thoose people free. Do you know who those people were? Republicans. Before you go on useing words like kind and different, towards me, I would like to point out I'm a Democrat. You need to research a bit more before asuming all republican's are bad.


I know its wartime, and we all have to shut up, fall in line and follow the leader as he leads us like lemmings over a cliff!

Have you ever been a war situation?
Right around here is were you realy need to shut up. Don't preach about the problems of war and falling into line, as if were being led over a cliff; If you have never expierenced any of it. If Kerry was elected we'd be staying in Iraq. Not that Bushs decsions havent effected us in a negative way. I think Trey Park and Matt Stone said it best, whe the said " I know I have to vote between a Douche and a Turd Sandwich because I have to realize the those are the choices usualy handed to me".

All I'm saying is that this is a sad day in America!

O just shut up and suck it up little boy/girl. I believe it was my teacher of art who told me this " if you want to make a change stop whineing about it like a b@#$ and get up and do something about it". If you have a problem about the way things are runed, then maybe if you get up and strive for the change in the way things are going maybe then it would be better for future generations. Do you think womens sufferage was won over so easily. Even after Susan B. Anthony made her speech infront of court for voteing in a both illegaly, they cared, no. It took people like her to fuel the ambition for future generations to keep going. So dont sit there and whine about it, and be pissed make a change.


Screw P.Diddy, he only started voting four years ago. Alot of the celebtirys preach on about doing something, and voteing but half them are only going with the trend.

[gummo]

I'm just as angry about the election as the next democrat is, but it is much better to try to be optimisitic about the future than bitch and whine about the past.

I'm with ya there OG

[Garrett]

"You know, nothing in the world irritates me more than celebrities giving me political advice. I just don't think that anyone whose career is founded on lip-synching, ball-throwing, car-driving, or tit-shaking has any more a clue about the state of the world than I do."

Another, more liberal, acquaintance said this:
"Hey, fellow 48% of America! John Kerry had the good grace to shut up and concede, so maybe we should, too. It's just, you know, a whole bunch of us voted for the guy to be our leader, so it might be a nice show of faith to follow his leadership in this one instance."

[Anonymous Last]

Only exercising my right to free expression, bud! You got a problem with that?

Or is one of the items on the Republican agenda the revocation of the right to free speech?

I know... it's wartime, and we all have to shut up, fall in line and follow the leader as he leads us like lemmings over a cliff!

All I'm saying is that this is a sad day in America!

I understand that a lot of Americans are taking this election hard. But it's over and we have to move on. Now don't get me wrong I am not a republican but there is no such thing as free speech on a message board.
We are here to talk about the topics that seem fit. One of these fine mods have the power and can ban us at anytime for anything we say.
I know that I have gone too far with my speech when I no longer am able to log in.

[Anonymous Last]

Not at all, except you don't have any "right" to do anything on a privately owned site, "bud". Read up on free speech before carelessly wielding it as a weapon. Also, even if you did have that right, so would the person you are trying to bag on, and they could say whatever they wanted to, as well. But, as stated, this is a privately owned site.
I guess I should read the thread all the way through to make sure no one else had it covered.

[gummo]

I know that I have gone too far with my speech when I no longer am able to log in.


(((((((((Anonymous Last)))))))))

please don't ever get yourself banned, I will miss you very much.

[darkhorse]

Maybe your idea of liberty differs from mine, but in mine, a government which can (technically) look at which books I've checked out of the library isn't anywhere near comparable to a government which allows you to, say, be enslaved and forced to pick cotton.

Or, think of it this way: if we were really "oppressed," you probably wouldn't be able to say so.
There are degrees of oppression. It's true that in America, the oppression is not quite as pronounced as it is in some other parts of the world, but when your civil liberties are undeniably placed at risk by the Patriot Act, when the government seeks to silence the opposition through intimidation, when a substantial proportion of the populace feels as threatened from their own government as it does from the terrorist threat, when government policies exacerbate the divide between the haves and the have-nots, these are all forms of oppression. They are more subtle and less obvious than Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard or Hitler's SS, but they are undeniable. A government that subtly terrorizes its own people to ensure the wealth and power of a priveleged elite is not the proponent of a free society.

[Anonymous Last]

(((((((((Anonymous Last)))))))))

please don't ever get yourself banned, I will miss you very much.

Thanks, gummo that was touching.

[darkhorse]

Not at all, except you don't have any "right" to do anything on a privately owned site, "bud". Read up on free speech before carelessly wielding it as a weapon. Also, even if you did have that right, so would the person you are trying to bag on, and they could say whatever they wanted to, as well. But, as stated, this is a privately owned site.
I respect privacy rights and the right to private property, but what you are saying is bordering on ludicrous. Sure, we have to agree to certain conditions in order to participate in this website--conditions that are clearly spelled out in the agreement we sign when we join. But that's it. You have no more right to silence me for freely (and legitimately) expressing myself in this forum than you would have the right to murder me if I happened to be in your house. You see, I have the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and, furthermore, the right to freedom of speech even if I happen to be in private property. You, on the other hand, have no legal right to silence me, and by attempting to do so, you would be infringing on my legal rights, and (I'm not sure, but I think) I would have the right to sue you if you did! Not that I would go that far, of course. Anyway, the gist of my message here is simple: if I am standing in private property, in no way does that fact suspend my legal rights or civil liberties. The reason for that is obvious: all private property in the United States is under the jurisdiction of the US government, which enforces its laws equally on all citizens (theoretically) regardless of property ownership. Of course, this isn't necessarily the case in practice, but that's the theory.


It's funny, but extremists (left and right) pose more of a threat to free speech than Republicans in general, as well as freely being able to smoke cigarettes, and other things that are none of their business.
Very true: I don't deny that extremism is an abuse of free speech. Are you suggesting I fall in that category? If so, would I be attempting rational discourse with you at all?


It is, however, your choice to do this if you wish. I wouldn't follow anyone off a cliff.
Neither would I: that's my point.


Ya, I had a real rough time going to grab a mocha this morning, and heading into work, where I get to earn a living so I can buy neat things, like food.

Try this for a change. How about you huddle under some rubble, counting the minutes until it's safe enough for you to go scrounge around looking for food, which you haven't had in 4 days.

Hopefully that will put things into perspective...

I am no fan of GW Bush, or the repubs, but it's uninformed attitudes like this that hurt the Dems every time. I notice a lack of things for them to blame this year. Hopefully they take a good long look at themselves and prepare for 2008...
Fortunately, I've never been in quite as dire a situation as the one you describe, but, believe me, there are many, many people in this great country who are in similar (if not quite that bad) situations thanks to the policies of President Bush. It's a question of degree.

[Yoda]

There are degrees of oppression. It's true that in America, the oppression is not quite as pronounced as it is in some other parts of the world, but when your civil liberties are undeniably placed at risk by the Patriot Act, when the government seeks to silence the opposition through intimidation, when a substantial proportion of the populace feels as threatened from their own government as it does from the terrorist threat, when government policies exacerbate the divide between the haves and the have-nots, these are all forms of oppression. They are more subtle and less obvious than Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard or Hitler's SS, but they are undeniable. A government that subtly terrorizes its own people to ensure the wealth and power of a priveleged elite is not the proponent of a free society. Yes, a government that does that is practice a subtle form of oppression. The question is whether your description of America is an accurate one. Can you provide any non-anecdotal evidence that it is? What reason do you have to believe that a "substantial proportion of the populace feels as threatened from their own government as it does from the terrorist threat"?

Preemptively, I'd point out that many hold a very twisted view of the Patriot Act, and what it's actually capable of. Most actions still require some level of court approval, from what I understand, and all actions still require some sort of notification, though it can be delayed under some circumstances. Quite a far cry from the picture most opponents face.

In regards to intimidation (which I presume refers to voter intimidation); surely you heard the dozens of news stories about Bush/Cheney signs being stolen, campaign offices being broken into, shot at, stolen from, etc? Clearly, there are always outliers, and they should be rebuked at every turn, but their mere existence can't really be helped, and in this particular election, it seemed there were more incidents working against the party in power than for it.

[r3port3r66]

"faux scandals" he-he, faux scandals he-he!

[Yoda]

NOW is there any doubt that darkhorse is Django? He's doing everything but signing his posts "Uday" at this point.


I respect privacy rights and the right to private property, but what you are saying is bordering on ludicrous. Sure, we have to agree to certain conditions in order to participate in this website--conditions that are clearly spelled out in the agreement we sign when we join. But that's it. You have no more right to silence me for freely (and legitimately) expressing myself in this forum than you would have the right to murder me if I happened to be in your house. You see, I have the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and, furthermore, the right to freedom of speech even if I happen to be in private property. You, on the other hand, have no legal right to silence me, and by attempting to do so, you would be infringing on my legal rights, and (I'm not sure, but I think) I would have the right to sue you if you did! Not that I would go that far, of course. Anyway, the gist of my message here is simple: if I am standing in private property, in no way does that fact suspend my legal rights or civil liberties. The reason for that is obvious: all private property in the United States is under the jurisdiction of the US government, which enforces its laws equally on all citizens (theoretically) regardless of property ownership. Of course, this isn't necessarily the case in practice, but that's the theory. You've seriously misunderstood what freedom of speech is all about. There is nothing "ludcrious" from a legal standpoint about the owner of a forum banning one of its members. It may be rude, cowardly, or illogical in various cases (if there's no good reason for doing so), but it is in no way a violation of anyone's rights.

I think the confusion here is revealed in your analogies; a forum is not like a piece of land. It is more like a megaphone owned by someone else. They can take it back whenever they want. You can keep talking without it, but your rights are in no way being infringed upon simply because the owner will not let you use their property to amplify what you're saying.

[darkhorse]

You know what; sad to say, but yes they probaly will. History all ways seems to be used as a tool for negative comments against people, and when some individuals use it to make bad comments about someone, as if they or other historic figures, has never made any mistakes, makes me sick. Instead of useing history that way they need to use as of recorrecting mistakes, and learning from it. But what would have Kerry done different. Probally the same as Bush. If you ask me I would have been better off using my one vote to put Nader down, like the crazy girl in Idaho with a tin hat, did. The election was as fair as it could have been, why do you think Kerry conceded.
I disagree. History makes its own judgments, bad or good. On the whole, it usually makes sound judgments. The point is that from the perspective of history, when your emotions have cooled and you have distanced yourself from events a bit, you can see the facts more clearly. Like I said, I'm willing to bet that history's judgment of the Bush presidency will be less than flattering.


I do, aslong as you continue to down play other rights to express what they feel. You remind me something about my brother, always using freedom of speech as leverage to get out trouble. Don't get me wrong Im all for freedom of speech and all that rich stuff, but it's all how you use it, choose your atitude, you know what I mean. Its all how you use your own words to create positive knowledge not negative down play( do that and will see how much respect you get around this forum).
I honestly don't see how I have downplayed anyone else's right to free speech. Correct me if I'm wrong.


Hmp... lets look back into history sense you preach about how people look back on it. Alright, do you rember a small group of people forced to do hard slavery labor, under grueling circumstances, and nearly beaten to death if not. Do you rember another special group of people who helped put something in called the Imancipation Proclaimation, in to set thoose people free. Do you know who those people were? Republicans. Before you go on useing words like kind and different, towards me, I would like to point out I'm a Democrat. You need to research a bit more before asuming all republican's are bad.
Lincoln was a Republican, I don't deny that. So was Eisenhower. I respect these great men and their ideals and accomplishments. But, on the other hand, Nixon was a Republican too. So was McCarthy. So is George W. Bush. The question in my mind is this: is Bush more like Lincoln and Eisenhower, or more like Nixon and McCarthy? I'll leave that for you to decide.


Have you ever been a war situation?
Right around here is were you realy need to shut up. Don't preach about the problems of war and falling into line, as if were being led over a cliff; If you have never expierenced any of it. If Kerry was elected we'd be staying in Iraq. Not that Bushs decsions havent effected us in a negative way. I think Trey Park and Matt Stone said it best, whe the said " I know I have to vote between a Douche and a Turd Sandwich because I have to realize the those are the choices usualy handed to me".
Hey... okay... if you want to start insulting me, it's your choice! All I can say is that your words are more revealing than you might think! Anyway, I agree that Kerry would not be in a hurry to leave Iraq, but only out of a sense of moral responsibility--finishing the job that Bush started, the mess that Bush created by his irresponsible invasion. I seriously think that Kerry's policies, as he espoused them, were very, very significantly different from Bush's--diametrically opposite, in fact.


O just shut up and suck it up little boy/girl. I believe it was my teacher of art who told me this " if you want to make a change stop whineing about it like a b@#$ and get up and do something about it". If you have a problem about the way things are runed, then maybe if you get up and strive for the change in the way things are going maybe then it would be better for future generations. Do you think womens sufferage was won over so easily. Even after Susan B. Anthony made her speech infront of court for voteing in a both illegaly, they cared, no. It took people like her to fuel the ambition for future generations to keep going. So dont sit there and whine about it, and be pissed make a change.

Screw P.Diddy, he only started voting four years ago. Alot of the celebtirys preach on about doing something, and voteing but half them are only going with the trend.
Hey, okay... I'm not sure what you are trying to prove here, but I won't hold it against you!

[darkhorse]

I understand that a lot of Americans are taking this election hard. But it's over and we have to move on. Now don't get me wrong I am not a republican but there is no such thing as free speech on a message board.
We are here to talk about the topics that seem fit. One of these fine mods have the power and can ban us at anytime for anything we say.
I know that I have gone too far with my speech when I no longer am able to log in.
Do you seriously believe that? I mean... come on! Are you saying that because this message board is private property, my basic civil liberties are suspended? I'm not talking about offensive material or pornography--I'm talking about the right to express yourself. What you're saying is that every time I walk onto someone else's private property, I have no rights. What that means is that the owner of the property can do what he likes--murder me, steal from me, silence me, imprison me--and I would have no legal recourse. That literally is absurd!

[Yoda]

Do you seriously believe that? I mean... come on! Are you saying that because this message board is private property, my basic civil liberties are suspended? I'm not talking about offensive material or pornography--I'm talking about the right to express yourself. What you're saying is that every time I walk onto someone else's private property, I have no rights. What that means is that the owner of the property can do what he likes--murder me, steal from me, silence me, imprison me--and I would have no legal recourse. That literally is absurd! Yep, that's absurd. And it bears no correlation to what we're talking about. If you walk onto someone's property, they do not have the right to do anything they want with you. They do, however, have the right to kick you off, which is exactly what banning someone from a forum is: kicking them off your property.

[darkhorse]

Yes, a government that does that is practice a subtle form of oppression. The question is whether your description of America is an accurate one. Can you provide any non-anecdotal evidence that it is? What reason do you have to believe that a "substantial proportion of the populace feels as threatened from their own government as it does from the terrorist threat"?
Sure, I can describe several such examples from recent and not-so-recent history. First, from not-so-recent history: the McCarthy communist trials are a classic example of such subtle oppression. From recent history: the Patriot Act is accomplishing the same thing. Racial profiling and the arrest and detention of terrorist suspects without trial is a subtle form of oppression and intimidation, under the name of security. The economic policies of the current administration are similar examples--the obscene tax breaks and financial handouts afforded to big corporations at the expense of middle-class taxpayers--that is undeniably a subtle form of oppression.

Preemptively, I'd point out that many hold a very twisted view of the Patriot Act, and what it's actually capable of. Most actions still require some level of court approval, from what I understand, and all actions still require some sort of notification, though it can be delayed under some circumstances. Quite a far cry from the picture most opponents face.
The fact that, under the provisions of the Patriot Act, terrorist suspects can be detained indefinitely without a trial, in no way requires court approval, from what I understand. Correct me if I'm wrong.

In regards to intimidation (which I presume refers to voter intimidation); surely you heard the dozens of news stories about Bush/Cheney signs being stolen, campaign offices being broken into, shot at, stolen from, etc? Clearly, there are always outliers, and they should be rebuked at every turn, but their mere existence can't really be helped, and in this particular election, it seemed there were more incidents working against the party in power than for it.
Voter intimidation is a part of it, but not the whole story. See above for a better idea of what I am referring to. But the second part of your post is completely bizarre. I don't deny that there were a few cases of what you describe, but to suggest that the GOP were victims of harassment is a sorry distortion of the facts!

[Tolstoy]

What will the next four years bring?

A nice foundation for peace in Israel, one which hopefully in 4 years if the dems do win the next election will already be set in place and they cant screw it up.

Continued upward swing in the economy. Biggest reason Im happy for Bushs win, Democrats cant claim an economic resurrgence as their own this time around.

Continued efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq to hopefully bring peace to those lands. My biggest pet peeve about the vast majority of the vocal dems is that one of their big arguments was that USA was just going to go in and leave, and now that they arent leaving they blast them for that. There really is no winning for Bush, people are going to blast anything he does ever since the day he ran for president. Blind hatred against someone hardly makes you worth listening to.

Would have been nice to see gay marriage go through, but Ill sacrifice that for the abortion issue, and stem cell research got a huge boost in california with a 3 billion research fund (not too sure about details).

And a whole ton of people screaming and screaming at anything that he does. The media will continue their complete bastardization of honest reporting. And another republican will come in and sweep the 2008 election. Democrats are just so boring and bland now-a-days. Their really isnt a single democrat worthy of being president and there are numerous republicans. Kerry even had to go outside his party lines to try and get his vice president. And with a sub-50 approval rating for Bush, it just goes to show that the democrats are screwed for a very long time.

The only upside I could see to Kerry winning is that it would basically eliminate any chance of Hillary Clinton running for president, but now there is a chance we are going to have to put up with her for a couple months duringv her campaign in 08.

McCain / Giulliani for 08 couldnt be beat (as it stands now).

[Henry The Kid]

Well, here we go.

First of all, expect immediate major economic upturn. MAJOR.

However, expect in about 50 years a rather large depression if Bush doesn't cut spending, which he must do.

Expect more heavy-handed foreign policy, and more compromising of any chance the UN has of ever becoming a relevant body in foreign politics. If we don't want to go in on our own on these wars, we have to start realizing that ignoring the UN, while it feels good(they do nothing, let's be honest), is damaging to the idea that there will EVER be a chance of the UN becoming beneficial.

Don't expect Roe vs. Wade to be repealed.

Expect more infringements, or attempts on infringements, on your rights.

Expect major political shifts. Expect the democrats to start changing a lot of things.

Expect the Republicans to continue becoming less like Republicans.

Expect the liberals to keep painting Bush as the worst president in history.

Expect Bush not to be the worst president in history.

Expect the conservatives to call him a great president.

Expect Bush not to be a great president.

Expect mistakes.

Expect good decisions that will be overlooked.

Expect a continuing partiality to faith in the United States.

Expect more polarization if I'm wrong about major political shifts.

Expect this country to continue on its descent downwards, as that is the natural order of things.

Expect nothing. This, too, will pass. That one's for Yoda.

[darkhorse]

You've seriously misunderstood what freedom of speech is all about. There is nothing "ludcrious" from a legal standpoint about the owner of a forum banning one of its members. It may be rude, cowardly, or illogical in various cases (if there's no good reason for doing so), but it is in no way a violation of anyone's rights.
It would definitely infringe the right of someone to express themselves freely. Sure, the forum administrator has the right to ban someone for indecorous conduct in violation of the agreement signed to upon joining the forum. But, like I said, we all have the right to free expression in this forum, as much as anywhere else, because this forum is subject to the laws of the United States. You might be owner of the forum, but that doesn't mean that you can legitimately violate a forum member's constitutional right to free speech (within the guidelines prescribed by you upon joining the forum) any more than you had the right to murder someone in your own home. Technically, it would be illegal to do so--again, correct me if I'm wrong. But that's my take on the facts.

I think the confusion here is revealed in your analogies; a forum is not like a piece of land. It is more like a megaphone owned by someone else. They can take it back whenever they want. You can keep talking without it, but your rights are in no way being infringed upon simply because the owner will not let you use their property to amplify what you're saying.
The forum is a website. A website is analogous to a piece of land. Furthermore, you claim that the forum is private property, which brings to mind the analogy of a plot of land. Sure, it can apply to a megaphone too, but less obviously. The point is simple: the forum is a venue for discussion. When you own a venue in which people are invited to join in the discussion, that makes you a host, as much as the administrator. It also obliges you to certain responsibilities. You don't have the right to arbitrarily trample on the constitutional rights of others. You don't have the right to arbitrarily silence them simply because you might disagree with them. Sure, that would be disagreeable to you, but if you do exercise power illegally, that would destroy your credibility, besides making you culpable by law. Sure, I'm using extreme language here to make my case over something relatively minor, but the facts are what they are. Point is, you have an obligation to the forum members to exercise your authority as forum owner responsibly and not arbitrarily or illegally. By choosing not to abide by these obligations, you will find yourself, sooner or later, in a tough situation of your own making. Trust me on this one. Anyway, ultimately, the choice is yours to make!

[darkhorse]

Well, here we go.

First of all, expect immediate major economic upturn. MAJOR.
I'd expect a significant economic upturn... but major? Not so sure about that. I'll believe it when I see it.


However, expect in about 50 years a rather large depression if Bush doesn't cut spending, which he must do.
No question about that. I believe the applicable term is "drunken sailor", as coined by McCain.


Expect more heavy-handed foreign policy, and more compromising of any chance the UN has of ever becoming a relevant body in foreign politics. If we don't want to go in on our own on these wars, we have to start realizing that ignoring the UN, while it feels good(they do nothing, let's be honest), is damaging to the idea that there will EVER be a chance of the UN becoming beneficial.
Scary stuff.

Expect the liberals to keep painting Bush as the worst president in history.

Expect Bush not to be the worst president in history.
This is kind of funny. I wouldn't say that Bush is the worst president in history, but he's not exactly one of the best.

Expect the conservatives to call him a great president.

Expect Bush not to be a great president.
This is funny too!

[sunfrog]

It's simply too soon to judge the success or failure of the attempted democratization going on in Iraq.

But I wanna make a thread about it. :( There's a lot of different groups in Iraq and the majority are...? Yeah, look that up and tell me everythings going to be rosy.

What, you're not familiar with the concept of inflation?
I remember that arguement. If you take 1942 dollars and add this or that to it. Whatever. How about if you take Mexican Pesos and blah blah blah. You're stretching.

I'm just as angry about the election as the next democrat is, but it is much better to try to be optimisitic about the future than bitch and whine about the past.
That's the craziest thing I've heard today.

Not at all, except you don't have any "right" to do anything on a privately owned site, "bud".
Too bad for you Yoda doesn't believe in censorship. That's something we do agree on. Except for the rap music part and he might win that one.

It's funny, but extremists (left and right) pose more of a threat to free speech than Republicans in general,
Have a cig whilst you research the Patriot Act.

Try this for a change. How about you huddle under some rubble, counting the minutes until it's safe enough for you to go scrounge around looking for food, which you haven't had in 4 days.

Hopefully that will put things into perspective...

I am no fan of GW Bush, or the repubs, but it's uninformed attitudes like this that hurt the Dems every time. I notice a lack of things for them to blame this year.
Like the people in Iraq you mean?
Read the poll questions if you don't know what to complain about.

Do you rember another special group of people who helped put something in called the Imancipation Proclaimation, in to set thoose people free. Do you know who those people were? Republicans.
Republicans in those days weren't the same as the ones these days. Watch PBS or the History Channel.

If you have a problem about the way things are runed, then maybe if you get up and strive for the change in the way things are going maybe then it would be better for future generations.
By voting and posting our opinoins on message boards? Maybe we should inform people on how much Bush sucks since they don't seem to know.

John Kerry had the good grace to shut up and concede, so maybe we should, too.
Maybe you should go to another thread if you don't like this one. It's similar to changing the channel.

Now don't get me wrong I am not a republican but there is no such thing as free speech on a message board.
We are here to talk about the topics that seem fit. One of these fine mods have the power and can ban us at anytime for anything we say.
I know that I have gone too far with my speech when I no longer am able to log in.
Yoda won't ban you unless you're a snert. We've had millions of arguements and sometimes he was really pissed but I'm not banned. He's on the record as being against censorship, ask him.

[Sedai]

I respect privacy rights and the right to private property, but what you are saying is bordering on ludicrous. Sure, we have to agree to certain conditions in order to participate in this website--conditions that are clearly spelled out in the agreement we sign when we join. But that's it. You have no more right to silence me for freely (and legitimately) expressing myself in this forum than you would have the right to murder me if I happened to be in your house. You see, I have the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and, furthermore, the right to freedom of speech even if I happen to be in private property. You, on the other hand, have no legal right to silence me, and by attempting to do so, you would be infringing on my legal rights, and (I'm not sure, but I think) I would have the right to sue you if you did! Not that I would go that far, of course. Anyway, the gist of my message here is simple: if I am standing in private property, in no way does that fact suspend my legal rights or civil liberties. The reason for that is obvious: all private property in the United States is under the jurisdiction of the US government, which enforces its laws equally on all citizens (theoretically) regardless of property ownership. Of course, this isn't necessarily the case in practice, but that's the theory.

This retort has absolutely nothing to do with what I said. Who said anything about private property? I don't see any property around here. If I may reiterate, this is a privately owned website, and your ability to post here has nothing to do with the United States government. Also, at no time did I attempt, or plan to attempt to silence you. Please do not attribute stances or ideals to me that I have not personally articulated. You are free to do whatever you want, but you still have to follow the rules. This also goes for entities and events on public property in the United States.

If the KKK went to an NBA game, and attempted to stand on the court and talk to the crowd about burning some crosses, could they just claim to be excercising their right to free speech, and not be removed?

How about the right of the owner of an establishment to refuse service to anyone? If, by some chaos theory driven random courtroom fiasco, this website was declared a piece of private property, over which the US government had jurisdiction, could not the owner of this public meeting establishment, not refuse service to you?

Ludicrous?

Not by a long shot.

*Thinking I have had this conversation before on this website*

[darkhorse]

A nice foundation for peace in Israel, one which hopefully in 4 years if the dems do win the next election will already be set in place and they cant screw it up.
I'm not so sure about that one... if Bush's intervention in mid-east affairs in any way approximates his intervention in Iraq, peace would not be one of the things I would be expecting.

Continued upward swing in the economy. Biggest reason Im happy for Bushs win, Democrats cant claim an economic resurrgence as their own this time around.
I'm certainly optimistic and I hope this happens, but I seriously doubt we're going to see much more than a bubble of resurgence.

[HellboyUnleashed]

such a negative poll. why not anything good. Bush is a good president. you all dont give him enough credit for what he has done in the last four years. we did find weapons of mass destruction, saddam huessien is a weapon of mass destruction. And he has made this country very safe. granted there shouldnt have had to be a tragedy to bring us around to this stuff, but he took charge and said its gonna be so tight in our airports and other major places that air cant get out without going through security. But you realize that the terrorists have done the impossible, they have rallied our entire nation to back on cause and along with many other countries, thats impossible with how many people with different ideas we have in the coalition we are in. so really we both hate and love the terrorists. we hate them because they killed over 2000 of us i think but we love them because they have united us as one nation instead of many different groups on one subject. now the next step is to unite everyone as one for many other ideas that are not right, like abortion or some thing.

[Sedai]

Have a cig whilst you research the Patriot Act.



Read the poll questions if you don't know what to complain about.

I have read the patriot act.

Also, at what point was I complaining? I don't understand what you mean. I noted a lack of things for the Dems to blame this year.

Also, I see Yoda already covered the property thing. Darkhorse please explain how a virtual forum that exists in cyberspace is analagous to a piece of land.

[darkhorse]

This retort has absolutely nothing to do with what I said. Who said anything about private property? I don't see any property around here. If I may reiterate, this is a privately owned website, and your ability to post here has nothing to do with the United States government. Also, at no time did I attempt, or plan to attempt to silence you. Please do not attribute stances or ideals to me that I have not personally articulated. You are free to do whatever you want, but you still have to follow the rules. This also goes for entities and events on public property in the United States.

If the KKK went to an NBA game, and attempted to stand on the court and talk to the crowd about burning some crosses, could they just claim to be excercising their right to free speech, and not be removed?

How about the right of the owner of an establishment to refuse service to anyone? If, by some chaos theory driven random courtroom fiasco, this website was declared a piece of private property, over which the US government had jurisdiction, could not the owner of this public meeting establishment, not refuse service to you?

Ludicrous?

Not by a long shot.

*Thinking I have had this conversation before on this website*
Hey, you're putting words in my mouth. If you read half of what I posted above, I am the first to admit that the forum owner has the right to legitimately exercise his discretionary powers in the case of the violation of forum rules, such as, for example, the posting of obscenity, etc. Your analogy of the KKK applies to that. But to arbitrarily deny the right of a forum member to freely express himself within the prescribed rules of the forum amounts to trampling on their civil liberties. It is tantamount to silencing someone simply because you happen to disagree with them. That is wrong. It is also in violation of their constitutional rights and civil liberties. You made the analogy to the restauranteur who exercises the right to refuse service arbitrarily to someone. My understanding of this principle is that it applies to people who violate established standards of conduct in the establishment in question. In this case, it would apply to the rules governing the forum. However, a restauranteur who exercises that right to discriminate against certain people based on their opinions, for example, or, perhaps, their ethnicity... well, my point is that I wouldn't be terribly keen to patronize that kind of restaurant, if you catch my drift. And I'm pretty sure that many other people wouldn't either. So, to sum up, this is a tricky issue, far from being clear-cut. A great deal of vagueness here, but the simple fact is that an immoral action is an immoral action, however you may try to justify it. And to silence someone arbitrarily simply because you happen to disagree with them is an immoral action. There's no way around that. It would be a stain on your record.

[Sedai]

such a negative poll. why not anything good. Bush is a good president. you all dont give him enough credit for what he has done in the last four years. we did find weapons of mass destruction, saddam huessien is a weapon of mass destruction. And he has made this country very safe. granted there shouldnt have had to be a tragedy to bring us around to this stuff, but he took charge and said its gonna be so tight in our airports and other major places that air cant get out without going through security. But you realize that the terrorists have done the impossible, they have rallied our entire nation to back on cause and along with many other countries, thats impossible with how many people with different ideas we have in the coalition we are in. so really we both hate and love the terrorists. we hate them because they killed over 2000 of us i think but we love them because they have united us as one nation instead of many different groups on one subject. now the next step is to unite everyone as one for many other ideas that are not right, like abortion or some thing.


Yes, please set down all the rules for how I should think. I was having trouble doing it myself. I figure 20 or so thought laws, just so folks won't forget.

I think I am getting it:

people with different ideas = bad

rank and file drone-like hivemind = good

[HellboyUnleashed]

you no what? i think Bush is a great president and my dog could govern better than kerry if he won. and i hate it when people dont nessesarily like kerry but hate bush and just vote for kerry because they dont want to see bush in office again.

[Sedai]

Hey, you're putting words in my mouth. If you read half of what I posted above, I am the first to admit that the forum owner has the right to legitimately exercise his discretionary powers in the case of the violation of forum rules, such as, for example, the posting of obscenity, etc. Your analogy of the KKK applies to that. But to arbitrarily deny the right of a forum member to freely express himself within the prescribed rules of the forum amounts to trampling on their civil liberties. It is tantamount to silencing someone simply because you happen to disagree with them. That is wrong. It is also in violation of their constitutional rights and civil liberties. You made the analogy to the restauranteur who exercises the right to refuse service arbitrarily to someone. My understanding of this principle is that it applies to people who violate established standards of conduct in the establishment in question. In this case, it would apply to the rules governing the forum. However, a restauranteur who exercises that right to discriminate against certain people based on their opinions, for example, or, perhaps, their ethnicity... well, my point is that I wouldn't be terribly keen to patronize that kind of restaurant, if you catch my drift. And I'm pretty sure that many other people wouldn't either. So, to sum up, this is a tricky issue, far from being clear-cut. A great deal of vagueness here, but the simple fact is that an immoral action is an immoral action, however you may try to justify it. And to silence someone arbitrarily simply because you happen to disagree with them is an immoral action. There's no way around that. It would be a stain on your record.

You still misunderstand me, but you also make a good point about the restaurant. If the owner was to just arbitrarily kick people out, the business would suffer, but that would be his choice, another constitutional concept. The effect would be that he goes out of business and would have to deal with the negative effects. However, I still insist, the owner of said property can arbitrarily kick someone off their property, if this was a piece of property, which it isn't, just for being their. that is their right as the owner of the property.

It also feel that would be morally shadey, to say the least, but talking hard facts here, he has the right to do it, and free speech does not come into play. I don't see Yoda as someone who would ban someone for disagreeing with him, people do it every day.

Just trying to stay focused here.

[Sedai]

you no what? i think Bush is a great president and my dog could govern better than kerry if he won. and i hate it when people dont nessesarily like kerry but hate bush and just vote for kerry because they dont want to see bush in office again.

I didn't vote for Kerry captain assumptive-pants.

[sunfrog]

such a negative poll. why not anything good. Bush is a good president. you all dont give him enough credit for what he has done in the last four years. we did find weapons of mass destruction, saddam huessien is a weapon of mass destruction.
I like this post, and Tolstoy's and Henry The Kid's. They're not in denial like Yoda

[Anonymous Last]

-murder me, steal from me, silence me, imprison me--and I would have no legal recourse. That literally is absurd!
Trust me…you’re talking to the wrong guy about this. But I feel ya!

Yoda won't ban you unless you're a snert. We've had millions of arguements and sometimes he was really pissed but I'm not banned. He's on the record as being against censorship, ask him. [/b]
I have respect for this board and the people on it.
If I ever say anything wrong or offensive to anyone they can talk to me or PM me, because deep down inside to the core of it all...I'm really a nice guy.

Besides it's not Yoda I was worried about. It's the mods...


they're CrAzY!

[Sedai]

I'm really a nice guy.

We already knew that AL :D

Besides it's not Yoda I was worried about. It's the mods...


they're CrAzY!

That we knew too! ;)

[Anonymous Last]

you no what? i think Bush is a great president and my dog could govern better than kerry if he won. and i hate it when people dont nessesarily like kerry but hate bush and just vote for kerry because they dont want to see bush in office again.
This will not work. I tried to get my dogs on welfare and the mean lady with zero speaking skills at the welfare office said no.

I'm just sayin'.

[TheMatrix]

GO BUSH!!!! HE GAVE KERRY A GOOD COUNTRY @$$ WHOOPIN!!! :)
Bush is a great guy he has done more for this country than anyone gives him credit for and Kerry is a great senator but he doesnt have the expierience to govern a country, trust me on this one. if he becomes the president next election and does better than Bush, then and only then i will retract my previous comments.

[darkhorse]

Trust me…you’re talking to the wrong guy about this. But I feel ya!
Hey, nothing personal! lol! I guess I got a bit carried away.

That said, here's my "official statement" on Kerry vs. Bush:

John F. Kerry is a genuine hero in the true sense of the word. That's my personal opinion. This guy has done more for this country just running for president than Bush did in the four years of his first presidency. Kerry is a decorated war hero who displayed the same moral integrity and courage in his run for the presidency that he did when he testified before the senate protesting the Vietnam War. The fact that he came so close to the prize is a testament to his character. Here is a man who truly deserves to be president, again, in my opinion. I will miss his presence in the media, because his campaign for the Oval Office gave me hope in a dark time. God bless him! I salute his courage! He entered into an arena that was clouded with fear and chaos and turned it into something very, very good and hopeful for America, even if he fell short of the final prize.

George W. Bush, on the other hand, is an average Joe who has, for some inexplicable reason, been given all the breaks in life, even though, in my opinion, he is completely undeserving of them! He is a mediocre personality at best--mediocre in leadership, mediocre in character and definitely mediocre (and banal) in his rhetoric. He is mediocre in intellect and education and mediocre in his political agenda. He doesn't strike me as a particularly bad or evil man, just as a mediocre, banal, undeserving one. He has been given the gift of a second term in office--a gift that, in my opinion, he definitely does not deserve. Here's hoping that he doesn't make a complete mess of things (as he has done with Iraq). Here's hoping that four years down the line, we still have a country to go to the polls! Here's to being optimistic and hopeful for America!

Fact is, I'm still recovering from the shock of seeing Kerry lose the presidency. I guess it just goes to show how far-reaching the shockwaves of 9/11 are. Because, let's face it, if it weren't for 9/11 and its repurcussions, there is no way that Bush would ever have been re-elected. Again, that's my opinion. I honestly believed that Kerry was a shoo-in for the job. I guess I underestimated what corporate backing and advertizing blitzes can do and how a candidate's credentials can be so totally overshadowed by his media image. This is really, really sad, in my opinion.

[nebbit]

What will the next four years bring?

Hey little sunfrog, where have you been :( nice to see you back :D

[Tolstoy]

Expect more heavy-handed foreign policy, and more compromising of any chance the UN has of ever becoming a relevant body in foreign politics. If we don't want to go in on our own on these wars, we have to start realizing that ignoring the UN, while it feels good(they do nothing, let's be honest), is damaging to the idea that there will EVER be a chance of the UN becoming beneficial.


I, for one, hope that the USA continues to defy the UN. It is a worthless organization for dealing with war issues. How many wars since WWII have actually went through the UN for approval?

As a relief organization and perhaps a human rights organization it can have its place. It has shown its complete ineptness in dealing with the Israeli issue, dealing Israel basically as many resolutions as every other country in the world combined basically. Its pathetic and it is just an official front for the antisemetism that still exists today around the world.

Any organization with France and Russia having veto powers is worth nothing for getting anything done.

[Henry The Kid]

I, for one, hope that the USA continues to defy the UN. It is a worthless organization for dealing with war issues. How many wars since WWII have actually went through the UN for approval?

As a relief organization and perhaps a human rights organization it can have its place. It has shown its complete ineptness in dealing with the Israeli issue, dealing Israel basically as many resolutions as every other country in the world combined basically. Its pathetic and it is just an official front for the antisemetism that still exists today around the world.

Any organization with France and Russia having veto powers is worth nothing for getting anything done.


That's absolutely ridiculous. As sympathetic as I am for Israel, their practices are more than worthy of a lot of these resolutions. While Palestine may be the chief aggressors, to call Israel innocent is incredibly naive.

And furthermore, you completely missed my point. If we EVER want the UN to actually DO something, then we can't keep defying it so much. Guess what, we can't go saving all the countries in the world on our own. We need an international body(where all countries send troops) that can handle those things. Our foreign policy needs some serious revamping, as we're sending ourselves farther down a road that we won't be able to walk back on.

The UN has some problems, but if your democracy is so precious to you, a strong UN is the only way it will ever be achieved. We can't take the whole world. Stop talking party lines, and think about it. We did some good in Iraq yes, but what about the hundreds of other countries that still need to be liberated? I believe in a hands-off foreign policy, with a strengthened UN.

[7thson]

Here's hoping that he doesn't make a complete mess of things (as he has done with Iraq). Here's hoping that four years down the line, we still have a country to go to the polls!
Iraq was a complete mess before the war, and although it is still not close to recovering it is headed in the right direction. You cannot turn a country around in a few years it will take a long time.



Because, let's face it, if it weren't for 9/11 and its repurcussions, there is no way that Bush would ever have been re-elected.
You may very well be right, so I see it has at least turned around...we cannot blame 9/11 on Bush but we can blame Bush on 9/11.


I guess I underestimated what corporate backing and advertizing blitzes can do and how a candidate's credentials can be so totally overshadowed by his media image.
This just is not true..not this time around. While ads may have swayed some voters one way or another most people knew who they were voting for the moment Kerry was nominated, not many changed their minds. I am going by polls I have seen, and while polls can be wrong, the numbers I saw relating to this were just too staggering to dismiss.

[chicagofrog]

Its pathetic and it is just an official front for the antisemetism that still exists today around the world.

been a while since i heard such baloney! :eek:
i know there are guys like that outside, but i hoped i would never meet them, neither in real life nor on the web! when i say "guys like that", what i've got in mind are those schmuks that call *anything*, *anyone* etc that doesn't agree with Israel's politics "antisemitism". bull bull bull, and get over WW2!
any soldier capable of following fascist orders and kill a kid or whomever armed with stones and replying with a gun, doesn't deserve to be called "human", Jew or not.
There's NO ffuucckking sacred race, gosh!

how can one be so dumb in the 21st century?

i think and shout "free Palestinia"! and no, i'm no antisemit.
i can be a fan of W. Allen and have J. S. Foer and J. Heller as two of my fave writers. and Minimal Compact as one of my fave bands.
but i don't give a ***** anyway what Jewish extremists think about me.
and i'm not saying there are no Palestinian terrorists deserving what they deserve... but in Brittany, i'm against the French, in Scotland, i'm against the English and in Palestinia, well... the opposite view is PRO-COLONIALISM, and again, colonialists of all countries, Chinese in Tibet, Russians in Tchetchenia and Israelis in Palestinia,
GO HOME!

And anyone calling himself a defensor of democracy but condemning any other opinion that's not American or Israeli (or in favor of them), bravo!!! :mad: just cuz it's French and Russian, it's evil? great, smart, intelligent... not to wonder Bush won again.

but hei, i guess someone just had had a bad day...

[Anonymous Last]

been a while since i heard such baloney! :eek: ...

Whoa! What the devil was all that?

[Sedai]

Hey, nothing personal! lol! I guess I got a bit carried away.

That said, here's my "official statement" on Kerry vs. Bush:

John F. Kerry is a genuine hero in the true sense of the word. That's my personal opinion. This guy has done more for this country just running for president than Bush did in the four years of his first presidency. Kerry is a decorated war hero who displayed the same moral integrity and courage in his run for the presidency that he did when he testified before the senate protesting the Vietnam War. The fact that he came so close to the prize is a testament to his character. Here is a man who truly deserves to be president, again, in my opinion. I will miss his presence in the media, because his campaign for the Oval Office gave me hope in a dark time. God bless him! I salute his courage! He entered into an arena that was clouded with fear and chaos and turned it into something very, very good and hopeful for America, even if he fell short of the final prize.

George W. Bush, on the other hand, is an average Joe who has, for some inexplicable reason, been given all the breaks in life, even though, in my opinion, he is completely undeserving of them! He is a mediocre personality at best--mediocre in leadership, mediocre in character and definitely mediocre (and banal) in his rhetoric. He is mediocre in intellect and education and mediocre in his political agenda. He doesn't strike me as a particularly bad or evil man, just as a mediocre, banal, undeserving one. He has been given the gift of a second term in office--a gift that, in my opinion, he definitely does not deserve. Here's hoping that he doesn't make a complete mess of things (as he has done with Iraq). Here's hoping that four years down the line, we still have a country to go to the polls! Here's to being optimistic and hopeful for America!

Fact is, I'm still recovering from the shock of seeing Kerry lose the presidency. I guess it just goes to show how far-reaching the shockwaves of 9/11 are. Because, let's face it, if it weren't for 9/11 and its repurcussions, there is no way that Bush would ever have been re-elected. Again, that's my opinion. I honestly believed that Kerry was a shoo-in for the job. I guess I underestimated what corporate backing and advertizing blitzes can do and how a candidate's credentials can be so totally overshadowed by his media image. This is really, really sad, in my opinion.


Well said on the media points. I also believe that the rich and savvy (re member the nasa display at the Superbowl?) marketing people for the GOP were a big part of Bush's victory. Unfortunately, media image is what many of the populace plays in to, and I guess I expected them to play into this.

Kerry, however, did not conduct himself well during the later months of this year, and I feel that had a major impact on why he lost. He jumped on too many badwagons during his run, and can only blame himself and the party he belongs to for these actions. He did not stay true to himslelf, and I am finding many hard core liberals I am friends with are agreeing with this point.

I think the biggest mistake the Dems made after the 2000 election was to blame everything but themselves for the loss. There were sketchy issues for them to point the finger at, but doing so hurt them in the long run, because they didn't analyze things within their party that could have also been to blame. They didn't set massive change in motion for themselves, they just sat and whined about things. This year, they have no choice but to start dissecting what went wrong within the Democratic party, and can go about affecting change, hopefully for the better. One only need to peruse the liberal websites (such as Alternet) to corroberate my claims.

You see, the Democrats need to be able to beat the GOP, no matter what the GOP does, or how much money they spend on marketing, by having a rock solid platform, and a candidate that stays true to himself. Kerry did not do this, it is quite clear. His media pandering was quite obvious, and his waffling on certain issues such as abortion and gay marriage tarnished his integrity in the eyes of both supporters and non-supporters. I supported Kerry through a good part of the yer, only to bail on him once he started hitting below the belt. Bush may come across as a simpleton, and I just can't agree with him on many issues, but at least he was himself. If more than half out population is indeed stupid, as so many here are claiming, then these stupid people saw exactly this: One guy stuttering through his speeches and debates. but being himslef, and another man trying to put up a front, and that is what they voted on.

Shame on Kerry for deviating from the path he could of won this election on, and shame on the democratic party for allowing it to happen. Hopefully they will spend the next four years thinking about it.

[chicagofrog]

His media pandering was quite obvious, and his waffling on certain issues such as abortion and gay marriage tarnished his integrity in the eyes of both supporters and non-supporters

Sedai is right here. and i'm not talking about MY opinion in fact, but what i heard is the opinion of many people i know.
it may be that Bush made a better campaign, like some TV channels say.
but would it have change the mind of 3,5 millions? made others vote that maybe didn't?
I think it was inevitable any ways. Take the population of those states without big cities, without the international and alternative culture of NY, Hollywood and an area Chicago-Madison-Twin Cities, without all those foreigners from Europe etc... and what do you get? well, all those red states on the map.

Hence... some American friends of mine agreed with my idea of getting an independent West Coast, and an independent North-East.
but then, who would be president(s) there?

[Caitlyn]

Besides it's not Yoda I was worried about. It's the mods...


they're CrAzY!


http://community.the-underdogs.org/smiley/angry/elaugh.gif

[Caitlyn]

Hey, nothing personal! lol! I guess I got a bit carried away.



I see some things never change...

[Anonymous Last]

I see some things never change...

What the hell just happened? Did he leave a Django Zorro mark that my newbie eyes can not see?

[Caitlyn]

What the hell just happened? Did he leave a Django Zorro mark that my newbie eyes can not see?


No, just a bit of a "blast from the past"… ;)

[darkhorse]

Iraq was a complete mess before the war, and although it is still not close to recovering it is headed in the right direction. You cannot turn a country around in a few years it will take a long time.
Actually, that's not really the case. Iraq may have been under Saddam Hussein's tyrannical regime, but it was far from a "complete mess". Interestingly, Iraq had the highest literacy rate in the Islamic world. It was a progressive, secular society (relatively speaking) in which women had tremendous status and rights (again relatively speaking). It was the diametric opposite of Afghanistan's Taliban regime, a provincial theocracy governed by militant chauvinists. However, after years of economic sanctions followed by a senseless military invasion, Iraq is now a wasteland and a battleground comparable with Lebanon or Kosovo.


You may very well be right, so I see it has at least turned around...we cannot blame 9/11 on Bush but we can blame Bush on 9/11.
Well said! Bang on the nose! However, at the same time, I really think that Bush has to bear some of the responsibility for 9/11. The criminal negligence of his administration prior to September 11, 2001 is, in part, what made 9/11 happen.


This just is not true..not this time around. While ads may have swayed some voters one way or another most people knew who they were voting for the moment Kerry was nominated, not many changed their minds. I am going by polls I have seen, and while polls can be wrong, the numbers I saw relating to this were just too staggering to dismiss.
I'm not really so sure that most people knew exactly who they were voting for. The Bush campaign invested millions of dollars in ad campaigns which were designed to distort Kerry's record and undermine his image in the eyes of voters. They turned a conscientious war hero into a wishy-washy flip-flopper. That was a complete distortion. It's the same thing that Bush did to McCain in the 2000 primaries. Bush engaged in a whispering campaign that suggested that McCain was unfit for command because of his POW stint in Vietnam. Bush basically has a very capable media team at his disposal and he pulls out all the stops when it comes to personally attacking his opponents in all sorts of underhanded ways (in my opinion).

[darkhorse]

Well said on the media points. I also believe that the rich and savvy (re member the nasa display at the Superbowl?) marketing people for the GOP were a big part of Bush's victory. Unfortunately, media image is what many of the populace plays in to, and I guess I expected them to play into this.
Agreed, and this is sad. You cannot have an honest democratic process when the public is insufficiently informed to deal with a media blitz of the scale of the 2004 Bush campaign (and, for that matter, the Democratic campaign). It's instructive to look at the polls before and after the Presidential debates. Before the debates, Kerry was lagging far behind. Clinton (while campaigning for Kerry) admitted that he believed that Kerry was finished at the time. However, 3 debates later, Kerry was leading in the polls. The first debate was enough to give Kerry a significant boost. That tells you a lot--when the public saw Kerry, the real man, they were on his side. However, by the time election day rolled around, Bush had regained his lead, thanks to further media ad campaigns--enough to scrape by with a narrow win.

Kerry, however, did not conduct himself well during the later months of this year, and I feel that had a major impact on why he lost. He jumped on too many badwagons during his run, and can only blame himself and the party he belongs to for these actions. He did not stay true to himslelf, and I am finding many hard core liberals I am friends with are agreeing with this point.
I think he had a pretty consistent position throughout. His position was rampantly distorted by the Bush campaign, though. But, like I said, look at his standing in the polls before and after the Presidential debates--that pretty much says it all, especially with regard to the role of the media in these elections.

I think the biggest mistake the Dems made after the 2000 election was to blame everything but themselves for the loss. There were sketchy issues for them to point the finger at, but doing so hurt them in the long run, because they didn't analyze things within their party that could have also been to blame. They didn't set massive change in motion for themselves, they just sat and whined about things. This year, they have no choice but to start dissecting what went wrong within the Democratic party, and can go about affecting change, hopefully for the better. One only need to peruse the liberal websites (such as Alternet) to corroberate my claims.
Actually, I personally think that, even though Kerry lost the election, this year's Presidential campaign was a massive success for the Dems. If you look at where things stood just a year or so ago and compare that with now, I think you will catch my drift. A year or two ago, the political arena was clouded with fear and uncertainty. The opposition had, in effect, been intimidated into silence. People were afraid to speak their mind. Bush was all over the media. But now, even though they lost, the Dems have shown us that they were able to put forward a serious, legitimate challenge to Bush's presidency. This year's campaign has, effectively, levelled the political playing field (for the future)--one that was seriously leaning in favor of the Republicans after 9/11. I don't deny that Bush did a good job dealing with a major crisis, but he also ruthlessly exploited a national tragedy for personal and political gain. It is hard to offset that kind of political imbalance in one electoral season. It will require more work by the Democrats if they hope to take the next election. By the way, I speak as an Independent who is primarily motivated by social justice.

You see, the Democrats need to be able to beat the GOP, no matter what the GOP does, or how much money they spend on marketing, by having a rock solid platform, and a candidate that stays true to himself. Kerry did not do this, it is quite clear. His media pandering was quite obvious, and his waffling on certain issues such as abortion and gay marriage tarnished his integrity in the eyes of both supporters and non-supporters. I supported Kerry through a good part of the yer, only to bail on him once he started hitting below the belt. Bush may come across as a simpleton, and I just can't agree with him on many issues, but at least he was himself. If more than half out population is indeed stupid, as so many here are claiming, then these stupid people saw exactly this: One guy stuttering through his speeches and debates. but being himslef, and another man trying to put up a front, and that is what they voted on.
I don't think Kerry was putting up a front. I think he was pretty sincere and honest in his statements. The whole waffling allegation was a GOP attempt to confuse the public, in my opinion--a public lacking a significant attention-span (thanks to the prevalent influence of TV)--and, consequently, not entirely equipped to deal with complex issues. The GOP had a pretty easy strategy when it came to simplifying complex political issues--they levelled the old and tried flip-flopping allegation at the opposition. The fact that you bought into it proves its effectiveness. About hitting below the belt--the GOP had been aiming most of their shots below the belt from the very beginning. Kerry was obligated to respond in kind simply to survive, politically, and to avoid being branded as wishy-washy, which would have been politically deadly for him in his bid for presidency against a wartime President.

Shame on Kerry for deviating from the path he could of won this election on, and shame on the democratic party for allowing it to happen. Hopefully they will spend the next four years thinking about it.
I don't think Kerry deviated from the path. I think he did a great job, considering what he was up against. The fact is that Bush was able to garner substantial political support from his base thanks to four years of dirty politics. It is hard for the dems to compete in such a biased playing field, but I think they have done an excellent job in levelling the playing field for the future. Here's hoping that Kerry hits the comeback trail in four years to sweep the electorate!

[Golgot]

Ah, Djangle bells. How seasonal.

Some intriguing points as always Djangs, but must you always undermine them by only paying lip service to counter opinions? As with this example (and too many others to count already):

You may very well be right, so I see it has at least turned around...we cannot blame 9/11 on Bush but we can blame Bush on 9/11.

Well said! Bang on the nose! However, at the same time, I really think that Bush has to bear some of the responsibility for 9/11. The criminal negligence of his administration prior to September 11, 2001 is, in part, what made 9/11 happen.

Yes. I guess you must. :shrugging-smilie-that-Nebbit-really-must-track-down-and-proffer-unto-the-masses:

[SamsoniteDelilah]

Does this take Django out of the running for "Gone But Not Forgotten", then?

[Sedai]

Darkhorse: I didn't buy into anything. I was citing the left-ish websites that are all chiming in about the sad state of the party. This is the view of their most staunch supporters in the press. I support neither the republicans nor the democrats...

Re: Django - Darkhorse is most certainly Django, from what I can tell, but this is good debate, so don't ban him! ;)

[7thson]

Actually, that's not really the case. Iraq may have been under Saddam Hussein's tyrannical regime, but it was far from a "complete mess". Interestingly, Iraq had the highest literacy rate in the Islamic world. It was a progressive, secular society (relatively speaking) in which women had tremendous status and rights (again relatively speaking). It was the diametric opposite of Afghanistan's Taliban regime, a provincial theocracy governed by militant chauvinists. However, after years of economic sanctions followed by a senseless military invasion, Iraq is now a wasteland and a battleground comparable with Lebanon or Kosovo.



Maybe not complete, but pretty close, and unless you have seen what it was like there first hand maybe you are just misled. You see I look at things from a different point of view. Is it better for the everyday citizen? I have first hand experience and I know that it is. Is the economy and the infastructure more screwed up now then it was before? Hell yes it is, but that is because it needed to be torn down and rebuilt. There was no room for it in a free country which Iraq hopefully will be someday. Except for the palaces Iraq was pretty much always a wasteland, I have been from border to border the dirt is the same now as it was 100 years ago. Wasteland yes, but not because of the war.

[Richard Hell]

Republicans in those days weren't the same as the ones these days. Watch PBS or the History Channel.

Hey, did you read his post about republicans, notice he said is with a plural, not singular. Ill admit that Bush ideals on how the United States should be runned, are abit well stupid. But to state that republican(s) are aginst such ideals like freedom of speech and other rights, is plain out dumb.

[Aniko]

Does this take Django out of the running for "Gone But Not Forgotten", then?

A wolf in sheeps' clothing is still a wolf (and still here). I think he should be taken out of the running...but then I'm a wee bit bias. ;D


Perhaps your question should be made into a poll for those who have voted for him to decide.

[Richard Hell]

A wolf in sheeps' clothing is still a wolf (and still here). I think he should be taken out of the running...but then I'm a wee bit bias. ;D


Perhaps your question should be made into a poll for those who have voted for him to decide. I say we switch him with someone, but is dark horse real him.

[starrdarcy]

i'm dissapointed that bush will be here another 4 years. Has any guess what country Bush might invade next? North Korea? Syria? Iran?

[Henry The Kid]

i'm dissapointed that bush will be here another 4 years. Has any guess what country Bush might invade next? North Korea? Syria? Iran?

I think Argentina. We'll see who they'll be crying for.

[Richard Hell]

I think Argentina. We'll see who they'll be crying for.


canada

[Equilibrium]

Does anyone doubt that darkhorse is Django?

Anyway, sunny, The deficits aren't the largest history. I've mentioned this to you before. You're ignoring inflation. Even so, the most sensible way to quantify the size of the deficit is to measure it relative to the size of the economy.

I don't know what the next four years will bring, but I expect it will bring increased stabilization in Afghanistan (which is quickly becoming an unbridled success), and (hopefully) stablization and successful elections in Iraq. I also expect we'll see continued economic growth comparable to the high level we've seen over the last 18 months.

All the rhetoric about moving backwards isn't really in line with the facts, especially economically. I don't suspect that'll stop Django: The Resurrection and others of his political persuasion from repeating it, though.
Hey, I've been good.:)

[moviefan20]

I am a proud republican. I am glad that Bush won,and he deserved it. If America wanted a change then Kerry would've won by a Landslide. Yeah, we might have a huge deficit, we are at war, our jobs are going overseas...but like i said, if American want a HUGE change then Kerry would be president right now. :rolleyes:

[blibblobblib]

Well, we can agree to disagree, then! That's what makes America great!
Could it be?......Is it SHE?.....

[susan]

i'm dissapointed that bush will be here another 4 years. Has any guess what country Bush might invade next? North Korea? Syria? Iran?

the entire middle east (except israel, but who knows)

[7thson]

Canada

[darkhorse]

Some intriguing points as always Djangs, but must you always undermine them by only paying lip service to counter opinions? As with this example (and too many others to count already):
Assuming this is addressed to me: well, what I'm doing is offering my own counter-arguments. That's the whole point of debate, right? Each party proffers their arguments. To repeat the opposing point of view would be redundant, would it not?

[darkhorse]

Maybe not complete, but pretty close, and unless you have seen what it was like there first hand maybe you are just misled. You see I look at things from a different point of view. Is it better for the everyday citizen? I have first hand experience and I know that it is. Is the economy and the infastructure more screwed up now then it was before? Hell yes it is, but that is because it needed to be torn down and rebuilt. There was no room for it in a free country which Iraq hopefully will be someday. Except for the palaces Iraq was pretty much always a wasteland, I have been from border to border the dirt is the same now as it was 100 years ago. Wasteland yes, but not because of the war.
Okay, here's a summary of the facts as I see them:

BEFORE: Iraq is a functioning society with most of its infrastructure intact. True, it is ruled by a ruthless despot, but it has operational social institutions. It has one of the highest literacy rates in the Islamic world, it is a secular society (as opposed to Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iran, etc. which are militantly Islamic and ruled by Islamic law). Women in Iraq have a high social standing (again, as opposed to Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, etc., where they are actively oppressed). It has significant prosperity and potential prosperity from its oil revenue.

AFTER: Chaos reigns. Guerilla militias routinely engage in street warfare, kidnappings, beheadings, etc. The infrastructure is in ruins. The army is disbanded. There is little or no security or stability in the nation. Lives are routinely destroyed. It has become a haven for terrorism, especially the Al Quaeda, which had no significant presence in Iraq prior to the deposition of Saddam. It is, in effect, a stone age society.

That's the state of conditions in Iraq--or, at least, my understanding of the same. What does this tell you--that the nation is on the road to a stable, democratic society? More likely, it will go the route of Afghanistan. And, in fact, Afghanistan is an eerily parallel scenario.

Let me explain:

After the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, the Afghan resistance, or Mujahedin, was funded and sponsored by the CIA. One of the most significant figures among the Mujahedin was none other than... Osama bin Laden. That's right... the architect of 9/11, no less. This wealthy young Saudi prince abandoned his affluent lifestyle in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and fled to Afghanistan in an idealistic quest to fight for Islam against the occupying Soviet forces in Afghanistan. And, I repeat, Osama bin Laden and his Mujahedin resistance fighters were funded by the CIA and the Reagan and Bush (Sr.) administrations, no less. After the Soviets left Afghanistan, the country came under the control of the Taliban, the militant, brutally chauvinistic Islamic fundamentalists. This Taliban regime became the base of operations for the Al Quaeda as they plotted acts of terrorism against the world at large.

Iraq as it stands today looks scarily similar to Afghanistan way back when. What will happen when the US finally withdraws its forces? Well, the insurgents are already at large. Al Quaeda already has a foothold in the land (where, previously, it had none). Here's my take on the scenario. Sorry if it sounds scary, but I'm just trying to be straightforward, not scare anyone. After the US withdraws, the militants, backed by Al Quaeda, take over the country (much as the Mujahedin/Taliban took over Afghanistan after the Soviets withdrew) and form an Islamic fundamentalist regime (much like the Taliban in Afghanistan). Iraq then becomes the new base of operations for the Al Quaeda and, pretty soon, we will see Al Quaeda leaders from all over moving to Iraq to settle. Some years hence, Osama bin Laden emerges from one of the hills in the wilds of Afghanistan's northwest frontier province and travels to Iraq to take residence in one of Saddam's palaces. So, thanks to George W. Bush's misguided invasion of Iraq, he literally hands Iraq over to Al Quaeda on a plate, while completely rationalizing and justifying (in the Islamic mind) the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. What happens next? Nuclear holocaust? God alone knows.

Sorry if all this sounds scary. Admittedly this is a worst-case scenario, but it is, in my opinion, very, very plausible, if you really look at events in the recent past.

[darkhorse]

Canada
Operation Canadian Bacon! Have you seen that movie? lol!

[nebbit]

Assuming this is addressed to me:

:yup:

[chicagofrog]

Vermont and Maine ARE Canadian anyway!

[7thson]

True, it is ruled by a ruthless despot, but it has operational social institutions.
Freedom is more important than anything. Not much more to say I guess.

[starrdarcy]

I am a proud republican. I am glad that Bush won,and he deserved it. If America wanted a change then Kerry would've won by a Landslide. Yeah, we might have a huge deficit, we are at war, our jobs are going overseas...but like i said, if American want a HUGE change then Kerry would be president right now. :rolleyes:
Did you know that there was thousands od americans moving over here since bush tokk to office, there was commentary on a news channel that asked americans if they were going to move to canada, alot seem to want to. They seem to like our progressive politics in canada.

[darkhorse]

Here are some very interesting statistics I came across while surfing the internet. These are comparisons between exit polls and actual poll results in states leaving a paper trail vs. states using electronic voting. The results speak eloquently for themselves... what do you think?

http://img103.exs.cx/img103/4526/exit_poll.gif

[gummo]

Did you know that there was thousands od americans moving over here since bush tokk to office, there was commentary on a news channel that asked americans if they were going to move to canada, alot seem to want to. They seem to like our progressive politics in canada.


Many left before the election. Now even more are leaving... I heard they have to stay for a year in the states, then come to Canada (i don't understand). I also heard they are taking "refugee status" hehehe... They better not steal all our jobs.

[nebbit]

Here are some very interesting statistics I came across while surfing the internet. These are comparisons between exit polls and actual poll results in states leaving a paper trail vs. states using electronic voting. The results speak eloquently for themselves... what do you think?

:sleep:

[darkhorse]

You take statistics as the ones I cited above, then you add them to reports such as this one (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6418513/)...

and then...

well, I'll leave you to come to your own conclusions...

[Yoda]

Exit polls are notoriously unreliable. They were way off in the last election, too, giving Al Gore huge leads in places that Bush ended up winning, or at least losing tightly.

As for the machine in Ohio...perhaps you missed the part where it was stated, in no uncertain terms, that no other malfunctions were found.

You should go back to the "people are stupid" rationalization. It makes a lot more sense than the less-than-subtle accusations of cheating.

[Yoda]

However, a restauranteur who exercises that right to discriminate against certain people based on their opinions, for example, or, perhaps, their ethnicity... well, my point is that I wouldn't be terribly keen to patronize that kind of restaurant, if you catch my drift. And I'm pretty sure that many other people wouldn't either. So, to sum up, this is a tricky issue, far from being clear-cut. A great deal of vagueness here, but the simple fact is that an immoral action is an immoral action, however you may try to justify it. And to silence someone arbitrarily simply because you happen to disagree with them is an immoral action. There's no way around that. It would be a stain on your record.Yes, exactly. It would be immoral. It would be rude. But it wouldn't be ILLEGAL.

I already explained this using your own analogy: you say a forum is like a piece of property, and that clearly you cannot be killed for being on someone else's property. That's true. However, you CAN be kicked off of someone else's property, and for any reason the owner so chooses. Banning someone from a forum is the virtual equivalent of that.

[darkhorse]

Exit polls are notoriously unreliable. They were way off in the last election, too, giving Al Gore huge leads in places that Bush ended up winning, or at least losing tightly.

As for the machine in Ohio...perhaps you missed the part where it was stated, in no uncertain terms, that no other malfunctions were found.

You should go back to the "people are stupid" rationalization. It makes a lot more sense than the less-than-subtle accusations of cheating.
Okay, firstly, for the record, I haven't made any sorts of allegations here at all.

Secondly, discrepancies in poll results and electoral results are natural and acceptable.

HOWEVER... all I'm saying here is look at the trends. They look awfully suspicious and awfully consistent to be accounted by statistical error.

Again... no accusations. At the same time, though, the numbers look a bit fishy. Again, personal opinion.

[Yoda]

Sure, I can describe several such examples from recent and not-so-recent history. First, from not-so-recent history: the McCarthy communist trials are a classic example of such subtle oppression. From recent history: the Patriot Act is accomplishing the same thing. Racial profiling and the arrest and detention of terrorist suspects without trial is a subtle form of oppression and intimidation, under the name of security. The economic policies of the current administration are similar examples--the obscene tax breaks and financial handouts afforded to big corporations at the expense of middle-class taxpayers--that is undeniably a subtle form of oppression. I was referring to recent examples, mainly, and this began as a complaint with the current administration.

Regarding economic policies: what is "obscene" about the tax breaks? Tax relief was given to all brackets, and before you claim that they were inordinately aimed at the rich, know that they were not only proportional (thus necessitating that those who pay more get more back), but know also that the top 1% pay almost a THIRD of all income taxes in this country.


The fact that, under the provisions of the Patriot Act, terrorist suspects can be detained indefinitely without a trial, in no way requires court approval, from what I understand. Correct me if I'm wrong. I believe you are wrong. Could you point me to the part of the Patriot Act that allows for that? Can you tell me how you've come to believe these things? Is it hearsay, mainly?


Voter intimidation is a part of it, but not the whole story. See above for a better idea of what I am referring to. But the second part of your post is completely bizarre. I don't deny that there were a few cases of what you describe, but to suggest that the GOP were victims of harassment is a sorry distortion of the facts! How is that a distortion of the facts? We have multiple documented instances of Bush/Cheney campaign headquarters being broken into, shot at, or even forcibly entered in broad daylight. People removing lawn signs repeatedly have been caught on tape. Someone burned a Swastika into a Bush/Cheney supporters's front lawn. Where's the distortion?

[Yoda]

Okay, firstly, for the record, I haven't made any sorts of allegations here at all.

Secondly, discrepancies in poll results and electoral results are natural and acceptable.

HOWEVER... all I'm saying here is look at the trends. They look awfully suspicious and awfully consistent to be accounted by statistical error.

Again... no accusations. At the same time, though, the numbers look a bit fishy. Again, personal opinion.Come on. You're not fooling anyone with this "well, gee, draw your own conclusions" stuff. You are, in fact, making accusations, and are only technically stopping short of doing so to avoid having to truly defend the claim.

Yes, let's look at the trends: they show that exit polls are unreliable. They were unreliable this election, with the Republicans in the White House, and they were unreliable last election, with the Democrats in the White House. You know what that leads me to believe? The same thing EVERY POLLSTER IN THE FREE WORLD SAYS: that exit polls are unreliable.

[darkhorse]

Yes, exactly. It would be immoral. It would be rude. But it wouldn't be ILLEGAL.

I already explained this using your own analogy: you say a forum is like a piece of property, and that clearly you cannot be killed for being on someone else's property. That's true. However, you CAN be kicked off of someone else's property, and for any reason the owner so chooses. Banning someone from a forum is the virtual equivalent of that.
The point I'm trying to make is this:

Firstly, this is a forum--a venue for discussion. Not a restaurant. In a forum, people should be allowed to voice their opinions freely, as long as they are not guilty of posting profanity or obscenity. Censorship is about maintaining a decorous atmosphere for a free and open exchange of ideas. To censor a voice because the opinions expressed by them happens to be disagreeable to you... well, that isn't simply rude. And it's more than immoral. It is fundamentally wrong. It goes against the whole point of having a forum in the first place and it amounts to sending the message to the forum at large that if your opinion is disagreeable to the moderator, you are in danger of being banned from the forum. So temper your opinions... or else. It is a threat, of sorts. It amounts to making an example of one person for the express purpose of intimidating others into submission.

I don't want to take this to extremes, but what comes to my mind is the opening scene from the movie The Untouchables with Al Capone, played by Robert DeNiro, making a speech to his mob circle, and then arbitrarily bludgeoning one of his goons to death with a baseball bat. The objective being to scare the crap out of his other goons--to scare them all into submission and to strenghthen his position as mob boss.

I don't want to equate you with Al Capone, Yoda (take that with a pinch of salt), but arbitrarily banning someone from your forum has a similar effect (of course, to a lesser degree).

My point is: this is a forum--a venue for discussion, debate and the exchange of ideas. It's a great place for people to broaden their horizons. If you have faith in your own ideas and the courage to confront new and different ideas from your own preconceptions--if you have the courage to allow your own horizons to be broadened--you shouldn't ban people arbitrarily simply for honestly expressing their opinions. Feel free to challenge them if you disagree with them (without launching personal attacks against them). But this is an appeal to you, Yoda, in all humility--an appeal to allow your forum members to discuss ideas and opinions in a free and open fashion without having their ideas regulated by a "thought police" of sorts! I guarantee that you will be surprised with the results, and that you will find such an environment--one that promotes open, healthy discussion--highly educational and amazingly refreshing and stimulating. Conversely, an environment that stifles the free and open exchange of ideas will inevitably become stale and oppressive.

Perhaps you are right in that you cannot be legally challenged for banning someone from your forum. I don't have a sufficient legal background to comment on that, one way or another. Furthermore, I wouldn't seriously waste my time pursuing legal recourse on something as minor as that--it would be an unnecessary waste of my time and money. However, at the same time, it would be tragic to see a brilliant opportunity for communication and understanding go to waste because of unnecessary censorship. So all I'm saying is that I hope you will choose to have the courage to allow the free and open exchange of ideas (short of profanity or obscenity) without unnecessarily stifling it through arbitrary censorship.

Thanks for putting up with my somewhat longwinded response!

[Yoda]

I do not disagree with any of that. I only disagree with your initial claims about legality.

[nebbit]

The problem is, that you, DARKHORSE whoever, is that in the past you Haven't practice what you preach :rolleyes:

[darkhorse]

I was referring to recent examples, mainly, and this began as a complaint with the current administration.
Well, I did cite recent examples, but the first example was cited to provide some perspective.

Regarding economic policies: what is "obscene" about the tax breaks? Tax relief was given to all brackets, and before you claim that they were inordinately aimed at the rich, know that they were not only proportional (thus necessitating that those who pay more get more back), but know also that the top 1% pay almost a THIRD of all income taxes in this country.
There is a reason for tax brackets. Let me put it this way. Let's say, for argument's sake, the income tax rate is a flat rate of 33%. In that case, someone earning $100/- would pay $33/- (a third of their income) and take home $67/-. On the other hand, someone earning $100,000,000/- would pay $33,000,000/- in taxes and take home $67,000,000/- in net income. Now if we changed the tax rate to 50% across the board, the guy earning $100/- would be taking home a measly $50/- while the guy earning $100,000,000/- would still be taking home $50,000,000/-, which, by any measure, would be way more than anyone really needs to live well. Now if we institute a tax bracket system so that the guy earning $100/- pays 0 taxes, while the guy earning $100,000,000/- pays 50% or even 33% of his income in taxes, it just seems more fair to most people. You are right--the wealthier you are, the more taxes you pay, but, at the same time, your take-home pay is way more than you need. On the other hand, someone with a middle-class income may pay less by way of taxes in raw numbers, but the fact is that he needs his money more. The point is that an income tax bracket system is simply more fair. Now, when the government starts giving large corporations huge tax concessions, coupled with financial giveaways (or grants), while the masses of people are either being laid off in huge numbers or losing income because their new jobs, on average, pay thousands of dollars less than their old jobs, it strikes me as obscene. I don't know about you, though. That's just my personal opinion.


I believe you are wrong. Could you point me to the part of the Patriot Act that allows for that? Can you tell me how you've come to believe these things? Is it hearsay, mainly?
Here is some information about the USA Patriot Act:
[The Patriot act] allows the FBI to monitor everything from e-mail to medical records to library accounts, providing frightening access to once private information. They can now legally wiretap phones, break into homes and offices, and access financial records without probable cause.

The Patriot Act broadens terrorism to include "domestic terrorism" which could potentially be used to target activist groups within the country speaking out against Bush's treacherous deeds.

The Patriot Act also disregards attorney-client privilege and authorizes government surveillance of previously confidential discussions.

Immigrants can be detained indefinitely based on suspicion alone, and the Patriot Act aids the excessive amounts of deportations that are taking place.
Here is some information about Patriot Act II:
... this bill would grant the government the right to detain someone indefinitely without ever disclosing their identity, allowing the person to ultimately disappear. It would also broaden local police's ability to spy on "terrorist" groups, including domestic religious and political organizations. The government could take sweeping "anti-terrorist" action, like obtaining an individual's financial and library records without a warrant and allowing wiretaps without a court order. ... if you engage in civil disobedience, the government would have the right to strip you of your citizenship ...

Here (http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.pdf) is a link to the USA Patriot Act in pdf format.

How is that a distortion of the facts? We have multiple documented instances of Bush/Cheney campaign headquarters being broken into, shot at, or even forcibly entered in broad daylight. People removing lawn signs repeatedly have been caught on tape. Someone burned a Swastika into a Bush/Cheney supporters's front lawn. Where's the distortion?
I would be interested in seeing the documentation first-hand. Sounds exaggerated to me.

[darkhorse]

Come on. You're not fooling anyone with this "well, gee, draw your own conclusions" stuff. You are, in fact, making accusations, and are only technically stopping short of doing so to avoid having to truly defend the claim.
I said what I said. Beyond that, it's just you drawing your own inferences. I provide the evidence and you draw the obvious conclusion--but that's you drawing your own conclusions, not me putting words in your mouth!

Yes, let's look at the trends: they show that exit polls are unreliable. They were unreliable this election, with the Republicans in the White House, and they were unreliable last election, with the Democrats in the White House. You know what that leads me to believe? The same thing EVERY POLLSTER IN THE FREE WORLD SAYS: that exit polls are unreliable.
Not quite that simple. The statistics clearly show that in cases where the ballots were cast on paper, leaving an audit trail, the exit polls match up, more or less, with the electoral results. On the other hand, in cases where the ballots were cast electronically, leaving no audit trail, there consistently appears to be a significant buffering of the Bush ballot. This appears to be especially the case in the important battleground states listed above: Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, New Mexico, etc. That's very, very fishy in my opinion! The margins of difference are way beyond statistical error and always seem to be substantially, if not hugely, in Bush's favor. Add to that the fact that this discrepancy seems to appear primarily in the cases where the ballots were cast electronically. Add to that the MSNBC report that cites documented cases in which the electronic ballotting system buffered the Bush vote by pretty significant margins... like I said, I'll leave it to you to make your own judgments!

[darkhorse]

I do not disagree with any of that. I only disagree with your initial claims about legality.
I'm not trying to threaten you with a lawsuit, if that's what you're afraid of! I'm not that petty! All I'm saying is that I see it as a violation of my civil liberties! But hey, I don't take it personally!

[darkhorse]

The problem is, that you, DARKHORSE whoever, is that in the past you Haven't practice what you preach :rolleyes:
I read that as a comment based on heresay and gossip, not necessarily on fact!

Ever seen that old Monty Python sketch about the Spanish Inquisition, nebbit?

To quote Michael Palin (in his role as Cardinal Ximinez):

"NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as: fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope, and nice red uniforms - Oh damn!"

http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/paulfitz/spanish/tt2.jpg

lol! I still get a kick out of that one!

[nebbit]

I read that as a comment based on heresay and gossip, not necessarily on fact!

Ever seen that old Monty Python sketch about the Spanish Inquisition, nebbit?

To quote Michale Palin:

"Nobody expects the Spanish Inqisition! Our chief weapon is surprise! And fear!... Our two chief weapons are surprise and fear! And ruthless efficiency! ... Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as fear, surprise and ruthless efficiency! And nice red uniforms!... " etc., etc.

lol! I still get a kick out of that one!

Ooooooo I am worried :p

You are still boring no matter what name you use :bored:

[darkhorse]

Ooooooo I am worried :p

You are still boring no matter what name you use :bored:
Well, if I'm so boring, then don't waste your time talking to me!

[darkhorse]

By the way, here (http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/paulfitz/spanish/t1.html) is a link to the complete text of Monty Python's hilarious Spanish Inquisition sketch, with photgraphs! Enjoy!

[nebbit]

Well, if I'm so boring, then don't waste your time talking to me!

I find your long posts boring, I am interested in why you keep coming back, you very rarely discuss movies, infact you seem to not like many. :p

I also like Monty Python :)

[susan]

this is all well documented stuff...i've seen it all over the internet, there is really no reason to repeat it here, is there?

[darkhorse]

I find your long posts boring, I am interested in why you keep coming back, you very rarely discuss movies, infact you seem to not like many. :p
Sure, I like movies. And my tastes are kind of esoteric. But I also like a good political discussion sometimes, and, it looks like there are plenty of others who enjoy the same... Yoda, Golgot and others.

I also like Monty Python :)
Yeah... they're hilarious!

[darkhorse]

this is all well documented stuff...i've seen it all over the internet, there is really no reason to repeat it here, is there?
Well, sure, if I'm called upon to provide documented evidence to support my assertions... I try to post a link to substantiate my claims, mostly, though!

[nebbit]

I also like a good political discussion sometimes, and, it looks like there are plenty of others who enjoy the same... Yoda, Golgot and others.

Yes but you always want to be right :(

[Henry The Kid]

Clinton Advice Spurned. Looking for a way to pick up swing voters in the Red States, former President Bill Clinton, in a phone call with Kerry, urged the Senator to back local bans on gay marriage. Kerry respectfully listened, then told his aides, “I’m not going to ever do that.”



Reflection on the election(woot! I made a rhyme!) has led me to some interesting thoughts. For a northern pro-choice democrat, I can't believe how many votes Kerry got. He ran a horrible campaign(principles can't exist, you basically have to sacrifice every belief you have), but as a person, I kinda like the guy.

[darkhorse]

Yes but you always want to be right :(
Everybody does! I don't debate with the intention of losing.

[darkhorse]

I want to get back to the whole electoral count issue. If the statistics I posted above are anything to go on, in my opinion, this warrants an investigation. There have already been documented cases that clearly demonstrate that so-called "computer errors" have, in some cases, given Bush thousands of votes more than were actually cast. If, in some way, it can be proven that there was wide-spread electoral fraud with respect to the electronic voting system, then this could potentially be a huge scandal--big enough to make Watergate look like a childish prank. If the democrats have any guts at all, they would demand a full investigation into the electronic vote counting system and the possibility of fraud. They should insist upon it, in my opinion. Electoral fraud is an impeachable offense.

[susan]

as far as i know, there has already been steps for an investigation

here (http://forum.therandirhodesshow.com/index.php?act=ST&f=87&t=34711)

[darkhorse]

That's good to see! Let's see what this leads to.

It's pretty amazing--that report cites dozens of documented cases of "computer glitches" (emphasis on the quotes) that seem to have suspiciously buffered the Bush electorate, then adds:

We are literally receiving additional reports every minute and will transmit additional information as it comes available. The essence of democracy is the confidence of the electorate in the accuracy of voting methods and the fairness of voting procedures. In 2000, that confidence suffered terribly, and we fear that such a blow to our democracy may have occurred in 2004.

This is mind-blowing! What is the scale of something like this in the electronic electoral system?

[darkhorse]

Welcome to Votergate!

Here are some further links that address this controversial issue:

http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=news_crime&Number=293078189

http://www.infowars.net/Pages/Nov_04/041104_votes.html

http://www.makethemaccountable.com/caro/Comment_040229_VotingMachineFraud.htm

http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=935&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

http://www.opednews.com/thoreau_110404_diebold.htm

http://michiganimc.org/feature/display/7644/index.php

http://nuclearfree.lynx.co.nz/ohio.htm

http://blackboxvoting.org/

http://www.ejfi.org/Voting/Voting-20.htm

http://www.nbc4i.com/politics/3894867/detail.html

http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2004/981

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/10/30/elec04.election.worries/

http://66.39.111.188/cgi-bin/UltraBoard/UltraBoard.cgi?action=Read&BID=1&TID=8500&SID=338

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1105-23.htm

http://www.washingtondispatch.com/spectrum/archives/000715.html

http://www.theneworleanschannel.com/politics/3895899/detail.html

http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=news_politics&Number=293077503#Post293077503

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4598911,00.html

http://stolenelection2004.com/

http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/11/05/loc_warrenvote05.html

http://michiganimc.org/feature/display/7644/index.php

http://www.newbernsj.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=18297&Section=Local

http://www.newsnet5.com/politics/3892837/detail.html

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/content/news/epaper/2004/11/05/a29a_BROWVOTE_1105.html

http://www.wsoctv.com/news/3892151/detail.html

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/shared/news/politics/stories/11/05flavote.html

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=90&ItemID=6573

http://www.washingtondispatch.com/article_10500.shtml

http://www.alternet.org/election04/20416/

[7thson]

ZZZ & zzz

[nebbit]

ZZZ & zzz

Ditto :sleep:

[Golgot]

Ditto :sleep:

O ye of little attention spans ;)

This stuff is quite interesting...

Even more surprising are the changes in votes per party that occurred on November 2nd. Counties using e-touch voting machines in Florida showed an average vote gain of 29% for Republicans and a 23.8% increase for Democrats. However the counties that used optical scan vote machines showed drastic differences. Republicans gained by 128.45% in counties using optical scan voting machines while Democrats had a -21% loss (yes, that is negative 21%). Some districts in Florida showed gains over 400% while one, Liberty County, gained over 700% for Republicans.

If those stats are correct, then that's a very very (very) dubious-looking pattern.

Some nice stuff in their again Djangs.

Which just makes it more of a shame that...

You always want to be right :(

Everybody does! I don't debate with the intention of losing.

Many people debate with dual aims in mind: convincing others of their arguements, but also testing the validity of those arguments along the way (to see if they're correct).

You start with a conclusion and make everything try to fit that. That's the prob you've got Djangles.

[Golgot]

And talking of one of those debaters who's prepared to re-assess his own standpoint, i'll just have another knock on the door of young yoda, and see if he wants to come out and play ;)...

I don't know what the next four years will bring, but I expect it will bring increased stabilization in Afghanistan (which is quickly becoming an unbridled success), and (hopefully) stablization and successful elections in Iraq. I also expect we'll see continued economic growth comparable to the high level we've seen over the last 18 months.

All the rhetoric about moving backwards isn't really in line with the facts, especially economically. I don't suspect that'll stop Django: The Resurrection and others of his political persuasion from repeating it, though.

I take it that you're talking solely about the economy and Afghanistan when you talk about "the rhetoric about moving backwards" yeah? Coz iraq can quantifiably be said to be moving backwards at the mo, as we've touched on in other threads. We'll see what happens with Falluja, but my suspicion is that even an unparalled military success there won't deal with all the insurgency issues that are tying up the military and preventing recontruction work form progressing etc etc.

(Incidently, i think you should possibly bridle your "unbridled" 'rhetoric' with respect to Afghanistan, but yeah, that little multilateral intervention is going well in many ways ;). But you won't be mentioning it as a parallel with iraq again will you? It would be so embarrassing, what with me having just told Django how you can change your position when it's turns out to be on dubious ground ;) :p :rolleyes: :and-other-smilies-of-an-impish-and-mischievous nature: :))

[darkhorse]

O ye of little attention spans ;)

This stuff is quite interesting...
Little attention spans is only too true, sadly.



If those stats are correct, then that's a very very (very) dubious-looking pattern.

Some nice stuff in their again Djangs.
I totally agree (though I don't understand why you insist on calling me "Djangles" and "Djangs"!

Many people debate with dual aims in mind: convincing others of their arguements, but also testing the validity of those arguments along the way (to see if they're correct).

You start with a conclusion and make everything try to fit that. That's the prob you've got Djangles.
Well, I guess I'm somewhat competitive when it comes to debating. The way I tend to debate is to put forward propositions that I believe to be accurate and valid. I may be wrong, and if I'm wrong, feel free to correct me. But you can be certain of one thing: If I personally don't believe something to be valid or true, I won't endorse it. This applies to the statistics and links I have posted above: I believe them to be reliable and accurate. Which is why I have posted them.

[darkhorse]

Let's face it, folks. The numbers stink. Assuming they are valid. And there is no reason not to believe they are, especially when Congressmen John Conyers, Jr., Jerrold Nadler and Robert Wexler have seen fit to draft a letter (http://forum.therandirhodesshow.com/index.php?act=ST&f=87&t=34711) to the Comptroller General of the United States urgently requesting an investigation into these allegations.

Again, I repeat--this is serious stuff. It warrants an investigation into what is potentially an impeachable offense. The Bush administration should not be permitted to get away with a flagrant violation of the democratic process--if that is what they are guilty of! That would be an undeniable tragedy--it would be an assassination of the ideals this country stands for.

It would, in essence, amount to a coup d'Etat.

I refer to what Seymour Hersh, the legendary investigative reporter who covered the Abu Ghraib prison scandal for the New Yorker, said in a recent interview when discussing his book Chain of Command : The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib--he stated in no uncertain terms that the Pentagon had been taken over by a small cabal of fanatics intent on pursuing a militant neocon agenda at all costs. He explicitly likened this scenario to a coup d'etat.

This is scary stuff. I only hope that the Democrats seriously pursue this investigation instead of wringing their hands in despair. A president who tampers with the electoral system undeniably deserves impeachment, if he is guilty.

[darkhorse]

Some more fascinating links:

http://www.newstarget.com/002076.html

http://www.newstarget.com/000255.html

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2598159

[darkhorse]

This morning, on NBC's Meet the Press with Tim Russert, Russert interviewed the so-called "architect" of the Bush campaign victory--Karl Rove, also known as "Bush's brain".

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/rove.jpg http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2004/ALLPOLITICS/02/05/bush.charleston.ap/vert.bush.rove.ap.jpg http://rightweb.irc-online.org/images/ind/header-image_rove.jpg

The discussion, at one stage, addressed the issue of moral values and how, apparently, the public favored Bush over Kerry on the issue of moral values. Apparently, it turns out that moral values was the most important issue in deciding this election--22% of the electorate cited moral values as the deciding factor in the exit polls. On this issue, Bush received 80% of the vote and Kerry received 18%.

Now how ironic is that? Here is a president who takes a nation into war under a false pretext. Here is a president whose #1 campaign contributor in 2000 was Enron corporation and Kenneth Lay (former CEO of Enron).

http://www.soc.ucsb.edu/faculty/sutton/Design/Assets/images/Ken%20Lay.jpg http://www.mickeymantle.org/bushlay.jpg http://www.courttv.com/graphics/press/mugshots2_sm.jpg

How, in God's name, could he possibly make the claim of being more moral than John Kerry--a war hero, whose entire campaign for the Presidency centered around issues of personal conscience?

It's pretty obvious to anyone who pays any sort of attention to the political scene that Bush has no conscience whatsoever--and this fact is all the more apparent in the campaign he has waged for president. Furthermore, it is even more apparent that Karl Rove, the "mastermind" responsible for orchestrating the Bush campaign, has even less of a conscience than Bush.

That's exactly why there needs to be a serious investigation into the possibility of electoral fraud in the '04 elections, centered around the electronic counting machines. The evidence strongly suggests that something underhanded is going on here.

[darkhorse]

Check this out, foks:

Evidence Mounts That The Vote May Have Been Hacked (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm)

And this is totally wild:

This is some actual data comparing voter registration to actual votes cast in some Florida precincts (http://www.rubberbug.com/temp/Florida2004chart.htm)

[dillskies88]

john kerry is just as immoral as george bush so you can kiss my ass

[darkhorse]

Here is a mind-blowing citation from the article I have linked to above:

While all of this may or may not be evidence of vote tampering, it again brings the nation back to the question of why several states using electronic voting machines or scanners programmed by private, for-profit corporations and often connected to modems produced votes inconsistent with exit poll numbers.

Those exit poll results have been a problem for reporters ever since Election Day.

Election night, I'd been doing live election coverage for WDEV, one of the radio stations that carries my syndicated show, and, just after midnight, during the 12:20 a.m. Associated Press Radio News feed, I was startled to hear the reporter detail how Karen Hughes had earlier sat George W. Bush down to inform him that he'd lost the election. The exit polls were clear: Kerry was winning in a landslide. "Bush took the news stoically," noted the AP report.

But then the computers reported something different. In several pivotal states.

Conservatives see a conspiracy here: They think the exit polls were rigged.
[Emphasis mine]

Dick Morris, the infamous political consultant to the first Clinton campaign who became a Republican consultant and Fox News regular, wrote an article for The Hill, the publication read by every political junkie in Washington, DC, in which he made a couple of brilliant points.

"Exit Polls are almost never wrong," Morris wrote. [Emphasis mine] "They eliminate the two major potential fallacies in survey research by correctly separating actual voters from those who pretend they will cast ballots but never do and by substituting actual observation for guesswork in judging the relative turnout of different parts of the state."

He added: "So, according to ABC-TVs exit polls, for example, Kerry was slated to carry Florida, Ohio, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, and Iowa, all of which Bush carried. The only swing state the network had going to Bush was West Virginia, which the president won by 10 points."

Yet a few hours after the exit polls were showing a clear Kerry sweep, as the computerized vote numbers began to come in from the various states the election was called for Bush.

How could this happen?

On the CNBC TV show "Topic A With Tina Brown," several months ago, Howard Dean had filled in for Tina Brown as guest host. His guest was Bev Harris, the Seattle grandmother who started www.blackboxvoting.org from her living room. Bev pointed out that regardless of how votes were tabulated (other than hand counts, only done in odd places like small towns in Vermont), the real "counting" is done by computers. Be they Diebold Opti-Scan machines, which read paper ballots filled in by pencil or ink in the voter's hand, or the scanners that read punch cards, or the machines that simply record a touch of the screen, in all cases the final tally is sent to a "central tabulator" machine.

That central tabulator computer is a Windows-based PC.

"In a voting system," Harris explained to Dean on national television, "you have all the different voting machines at all the different polling places, sometimes, as in a county like mine, there's a thousand polling places in a single county. All those machines feed into the one machine so it can add up all the votes. So, of course, if you were going to do something you shouldn't to a voting machine, would it be more convenient to do it to each of the 4000 machines, or just come in here and deal with all of them at once?"

Dean nodded in rhetorical agreement, and Harris continued. "What surprises people is that the central tabulator is just a PC, like what you and I use. It's just a regular computer."

"So," Dean said, "anybody who can hack into a PC can hack into a central tabulator?"

Harris nodded affirmation, and pointed out how Diebold uses a program called GEMS, which fills the screen of the PC and effectively turns it into the central tabulator system. "This is the official program that the County Supervisor sees," she said, pointing to a PC that was sitting between them loaded with Diebold's software.

Bev then had Dean open the GEMS program to see the results of a test election. They went to the screen titled "Election Summary Report" and waited a moment while the PC "adds up all the votes from all the various precincts," and then saw that in this faux election Howard Dean had 1000 votes, Lex Luthor had 500, and Tiger Woods had none. Dean was winning.

"Of course, you can't tamper with this software," Harris noted. Diebold wrote a pretty good program.

But, it's running on a Windows PC.

So Harris had Dean close the Diebold GEMS software, go back to the normal Windows PC desktop, click on the "My Computer" icon, choose "Local Disk C:," open the folder titled GEMS, and open the sub-folder "LocalDB" which, Harris noted, "stands for local database, that's where they keep the votes." Harris then had Dean double-click on a file in that folder titled "Central Tabulator Votes," which caused the PC to open the vote count in a database program like Excel.

In the "Sum of the Candidates" row of numbers, she found that in one precinct Dean had received 800 votes and Lex Luthor had gotten 400.

"Let's just flip those," Harris said, as Dean cut and pasted the numbers from one cell into the other. "And," she added magnanimously, "let's give 100 votes to Tiger."

They closed the database, went back into the official GEMS software "the legitimate way, you're the county supervisor and you're checking on the progress of your election."

As the screen displayed the official voter tabulation, Harris said, "And you can see now that Howard Dean has only 500 votes, Lex Luthor has 900, and Tiger Woods has 100." Dean, the winner, was now the loser.

Harris sat up a bit straighter, smiled, and said, "We just edited an election, and it took us 90 seconds."

On live national television. (You can see the clip on www.votergate.tv.) And they had left no tracks whatsoever, Harris said, noting that it would be nearly impossible for the election software – or a County election official - to know that the vote database had been altered.

Which brings us back to Morris and those pesky exit polls that had Karen Hughes telling George W. Bush that he'd lost the election in a landslide.

Morris's conspiracy theory is that the exit polls "were sabotage" to cause people in the western states to not bother voting for Bush, since the networks would call the election based on the exit polls for Kerry. But the networks didn't do that, and had never intended to.

According to congressional candidate Fisher, it makes far more sense that the exit polls were right - they weren't done on Diebold PCs - and that the vote itself was hacked.

- Thom Hartmann, November 6, 2004, CommonDreams.org

[darkhorse]

john kerry is just as immoral as george bush so you can kiss my ass
That is a pretty arbitrary statement. I have provided hard evidence to substantiate my claims. Can you do the same?

[Yoda]

You're out of your mind, man. Have you looked at some of those links you've posted? They are not from reputable news sources. The last ("Common Dreams") contains dozens of anti-Bush, anti-religious articles. It has an agenda. I think you're forgetting that ANYONE can put up a website. Did you know, for example, that there's a site centered around the idea that FDR knowingly allowed Pearl Harbor to take place? If I linked you to that, would that constitute "hard evidence," as you claim to have provided here?

The voter registration data isn't fishy at all, because the entire theory behind Bush's strength has been that he's rallied a great many Democrats to his side based on issues of national security. The only way the data would be "fishy" is if you concluded that people vote almost perfectly along party lines.

[darkhorse]

You're out of your mind, man. Have you looked at some of those links you've posted? They are not from reputable news sources. The last ("Common Dreams") contains dozens of anti-Bush, anti-religious articles. It has an agenda. I think you're forgetting that ANYONE can put up a website. Did you know, for example, that there's a site centered around the idea that FDR knowingly allowed Pearl Harbor to take place?

The voter registration data isn't fishy at all, because the entire theory behind Bush's strength has been that he's rallied a great many Democrats to his side based on issues of national security. We've known this for some time.

In other words, none of this is anywhere near "hard evidence." It is hackery, plain and simple. There's a reason no reputable source has touched it with a ten-foot pole.
I don't deny that there is a great deal of hackery on the internet, which is what undermines its credibility as a news source. However, there are also a number of very credible news sources online as well. I have tried to isolate news sources that seem pretty credible to me. The numbers posted in these articles seem to be pretty credible too.

That said, let me ask you, Yoda, how credible a news source do you esteem the Fox News network to be?

Anyway, here is a list of some of the news sources I have cited. They look pretty credible to me!


CNN.com:
Worries grow over new voting machines' reliability, security (http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/10/30/elec04.election.worries/)
MSNBC.com:
Machine glitch gave Bush extra Ohio votes (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6418513)
The Guardian Unlimited:
Group Finds Voting Irregularities in South (http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4598911,00.html)
Michigan Independent Media Center:
Outrage in Ohio: Angry residents storm State House in response to massive voter suppression and corruption (http://michiganimc.org/feature/display/7644/index.php)
PalmBeachPost.com:
Broward machines count backward (http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/content/news/epaper/2004/11/05/a29a_BROWVOTE_1105.html)
Software flaw found in Florida vote machines (http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/shared/news/politics/stories/11/05flavote.html)
The Washington Dispatch:
Should America Trust the Results of the Election? (http://www.washingtondispatch.com/article_10500.shtml)
Palm Beach County Logs 88,000 More Votes Than Voters (http://www.washingtondispatch.com/spectrum/archives/000715.html)
The New Orleans Channel.com:
Voting Group Finds Irregularities In Southern States (http://www.theneworleanschannel.com/politics/3895899/detail.html)
AlterNet:
Exit Polls Right, Tallies Wrong? (http://www.alternet.org/election04/20416/)

[Yoda]

There is a reason for tax brackets. Let me put it this way. Let's say, for argument's sake, the income tax rate is a flat rate of 33%. In that case, someone earning $100/- would pay $33/- (a third of their income) and take home $67/-. On the other hand, someone earning $100,000,000/- would pay $33,000,000/- in taxes and take home $67,000,000/- in net income. Now if we changed the tax rate to 50% across the board, the guy earning $100/- would be taking home a measly $50/- while the guy earning $100,000,000/- would still be taking home $50,000,000/-, which, by any measure, would be way more than anyone really needs to live well. Now if we institute a tax bracket system so that the guy earning $100/- pays 0 taxes, while the guy earning $100,000,000/- pays 50% or even 33% of his income in taxes, it just seems more fair to most people. You are right--the wealthier you are, the more taxes you pay, but, at the same time, your take-home pay is way more than you need. On the other hand, someone with a middle-class income may pay less by way of taxes in raw numbers, but the fact is that he needs his money more. The point is that an income tax bracket system is simply more fair. This is a straw man; I'm not arguing for a flat tax. I'm not arguing for the abolition of progressive taxation. I'm saying that the wealthy pay an absurdly large amount of taxes even after the latest round of cuts, and thus characterizing the tax cut as some kind of "giveaway" is ridiculous.

I'd also point out that it's not the government's job to take any money above what they need to live. That'd be, you know, Communism. So the mere fact that rich people have more money than they need to survive is not, in and of itself, an injustice.


Now, when the government starts giving large corporations huge tax concessions, coupled with financial giveaways (or grants), while the masses of people are either being laid off in huge numbers or losing income because their new jobs, on average, pay thousands of dollars less than their old jobs, it strikes me as obscene. I don't know about you, though. That's just my personal opinion. I still don't know what "huge tax concessions" you're referring to, and I don't see how you can complain about a loss of jobs, yet simultaneously favor the exorbitant taxation of corporations which provide said jobs. I made this same point to you numerous times while you were using your past screen names, and never got a satisfactory answer to it.



Here is some information about the USA Patriot Act:

Here is some information about Patriot Act II: What's your source? All you're providing is one person's opinion/interpretation

Here (http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.pdf) is a link to the USA Patriot Act in pdf format. Out of curiousity, have you read it?


I would be interested in seeing the documentation first-hand. Sounds exaggerated to me.

Swastika Burned Into Grass On Bush-Cheney Supporter's Lawn (http://www.channel3000.com/politics/3776992/detail.html)
Protestors Ransack Bush/Cheney Headquarters In Orlando (http://www.local6.com/politics/3785861/detail.html)
Bush-Cheney Campaign Headquarters Burglarized (http://www.komotv.com/stories/33333.htm)
Bush's campaign office in Spokane burglarized, vandalized (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002059735_webbushoffice11.html)
Shots fired at Bush Tenn. headquarters (http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20041005-024050-1855r.htm)
Vandals hit local Bush campaign office (http://www.thedmonline.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/09/28/4159114fb65ba)
And from just yesterday...


Vandals Hit GOP Headquarters in N.Carolina (http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/story.jsp?id=2004110605110001897037&dt=20041106051100&w=APO&coview=)

[Yoda]

I said what I said. Beyond that, it's just you drawing your own inferences. I provide the evidence and you draw the obvious conclusion--but that's you drawing your own conclusions, not me putting words in your mouth! Don't play dumb. You've stated your opinion, and you've led the horse to water. You cannot feign innocence when it drinks.


Not quite that simple. The statistics clearly show that in cases where the ballots were cast on paper, leaving an audit trail, the exit polls match up, more or less, with the electoral results. On the other hand, in cases where the ballots were cast electronically, leaving no audit trail, there consistently appears to be a significant buffering of the Bush ballot. This appears to be especially the case in the important battleground states listed above: Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, New Mexico, etc. That's very, very fishy in my opinion! The margins of difference are way beyond statistical error and always seem to be substantially, if not hugely, in Bush's favor. Add to that the fact that this discrepancy seems to appear primarily in the cases where the ballots were cast electronically. Add to that the MSNBC report that cites documented cases in which the electronic ballotting system buffered the Bush vote by pretty significant margins... like I said, I'll leave it to you to make your own judgments! I'd like to see evidence of this. I happen to know off-hand that most voters in Ohio used punchcards, which contradicts what you're saying above.

Also, you've not addressed the fact that exit polls were inaccurate last time, as well, with a different party in the White House. This is all reeking of rationalization, Django.

I'm not trying to threaten you with a lawsuit, if that's what you're afraid of! I'm not that petty! All I'm saying is that I see it as a violation of my civil liberties! But hey, I don't take it personally! I couldn't care less whether or not you're threatening me with a lawsuit (though it should be noted that you DID threaten one under your old username), because you have no legal standing whatsoever. The implication that being banned without reason would be a violation of your civil liberties is completely removed from reality. Ask a lawyer, if you don't believe me.

[Yoda]

I don't deny that there is a great deal of hackery on the internet, which is what undermines its credibility as a news source. However, there are also a number of very credible news sources online as well. I have tried to isolate news sources that seem pretty credible to me. The numbers posted in these articles seem to be pretty credible too. Yes, there are credible news sources online. And you haven't linked to any of them so far in making your case.

That said, let me ask you, Yoda, how credible a news source do you esteem the Fox News network to be? That's completely irrelevant, as I haven't made any counterargument based on a cite from them. I do know, however, that they tend to run the same basic stories as the other major news networks. If they are biased, it is in their editorial content and news commentary; the stories themselves are almost indistinguishable from Fox to MSNBC to CNN.

[Yoda]

Anyway, here is a list of some of the news sources I have cited. They look pretty credible to me!



CNN.com: Worries grow over new voting machines' reliability, security (http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/10/30/elec04.election.worries/)
MSNBC.com:
Machine glitch gave Bush extra Ohio votes (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6418513)
The Guardian Unlimited: Group Finds Voting Irregularities in South (http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4598911,00.html)
Michigan Independent Media Center: Outrage in Ohio: Angry residents storm State House in response to massive voter suppression and corruption (http://michiganimc.org/feature/display/7644/index.php)
PalmBeachPost.com: Broward machines count backward (http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/content/news/epaper/2004/11/05/a29a_BROWVOTE_1105.html)
Software flaw found in Florida vote machines (http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/shared/news/politics/stories/11/05flavote.html)
The Washington Dispatch: Should America Trust the Results of the Election? (http://www.washingtondispatch.com/article_10500.shtml)
Palm Beach County Logs 88,000 More Votes Than Voters (http://www.washingtondispatch.com/spectrum/archives/000715.html)
The New Orleans Channel.com: Voting Group Finds Irregularities In Southern States (http://www.theneworleanschannel.com/politics/3895899/detail.html)
AlterNet: Exit Polls Right, Tallies Wrong? (http://www.alternet.org/election04/20416/)
Did you even read half of those, or did you just skim the headlines? AlterNet is not a news agency, but a collection of columns, all with a liberal slant. The Guardian/New Orleans Channel stories are copies of each other, and do not back the group's findings. The MSNBC piece refers to the Ohio vote tallying error which I've already addressed (it claims that it was fixed, did not effect the election at all, and that no other instances were found). The first Washington Dispatch is an editorial, for crying out loud, and the second piece says that the county in question "appears to have accounted for the discrepancy."

Not a single one of those, as far as I can see, provides the "hard evidence" you claim to have. You can't make accusations of widespread election fraud on such flimsy grounds.

[Yoda]

I'll try to reply to your posts later, Gol. For some reason, I still feel compelled to reply to Uday when he trots one of his inane theories.

[Golgot]

I totally agree (though I don't understand why you insist on calling me "Djangles" and "Djangs"!

It really is quite upsetting that some of us seem to know you better than you know yourself Uday. Why not stop this childish pretense, eh?

Well, I guess I'm somewhat competitive when it comes to debating. The way I tend to debate is to put forward propositions that I believe to be accurate and valid. I may be wrong, and if I'm wrong, feel free to correct me. But you can be certain of one thing: If I personally don't believe something to be valid or true, I won't endorse it. This applies to the statistics and links I have posted above: I believe them to be reliable and accurate. Which is why I have posted them.

yeah, well that's an example of the problem. To be honest, i wouldn't build an argument on what you've presented. The stats concerning large percentile switches depending on voting machinery used, if true, suggests definite dubious practice. But i don't know the web/news source in question, and at the very least i'd want multiple investigations by other, more prestigious/tried-and-tested, news sources which verified the claims/stats before i could believe it.

Unfortunately, you seem to know what you believe already, and are just looking for a way to prove it. This means you're always building houses of cards, whose main foundation is your belief-prior-to-proof.

Now, if you'd mentioned some of the examples of pre-election shenanigans (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?t=9017) (;)), to back up your suggestion that there may be dubiousness afoot, then at least you'd have some current, relevant substance to your argument, rather than the traditional Bush-is-an-evil-lizard-why-can't-everyone-see approach. :rolleyes:

[Golgot]

I'll try to reply to your posts later, Gol. For some reason, I still feel compelled to reply to Uday when he trots one of his inane theories.

Oh how i've noticed :rolleyes: ;)

I'm still here whenever you want a more rigorous political opponent ;) :)

[darkhorse]

This is a straw man; I'm not arguing for a flat tax. I'm not arguing for the abolition of progressive taxation. I'm saying that the wealthy pay an absurdly large amount of taxes even after the latest round of cuts, and thus characterizing the tax cut as some kind of "giveaway" is ridiculous.
My point is that the reason that the wealthy pay a huge amount of taxes is that they earn a huge amount of money! Someone earning $100/- a week can only pay a maximum of $100/- in taxes (if he paid 100% income tax!) while his take-home pay would be zilch. On the other hand, someone earning $100,000/- a week could pay $25,000/- in taxes and still take home $75,000/-. So my point is that your statement is out of context.

I'd also point out that it's not the government's job to take any money above what they need to live. That'd be, you know, Communism. So the mere fact that rich people have more money than they need to survive is not, in and of itself, an injustice.
Communism is "A theoretical economic system characterized by the collective ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members." (Dictionary definition). What I am suggesting is nowhere near communism. Perhaps it leans towards the socialistic welfare state a bit. My point is that the government has to take a role in social welfare, and that means taxing the populace fairly and instituting certain programs (like medicare, social security, etc.) which are designed to help the downtrodden in society. This is a moral obligation of government and society, a moral obligation that conservatives like Karl Rove and G. W. Bush conveniently ignore when it suits them, preferring, instead, to give obscene tax breaks and no-bid contracts to the likes of Enron and Halliburton!

I still don't know what "huge tax concessions" you're referring to, and I don't see how you can complain about a loss of jobs, yet simultaneously favor the exorbitant taxation of corporations which provide said jobs. I made this same point to you numerous times while you were using your past screen names, and never got a satisfactory answer to it.
Well, it's simple mathematics, really. When the government cuts taxes across the board, it's a simple fact that corporations making huge revenues end up saving huge amounts of money in taxes, while middle-class families end up saving only a few dollars. In many cases, these middle-class families have to endure layoffs and jobs with lower wages. All this sums up to obscene "tax concessions" to wealthy corporations. Sure, these corporations provide the jobs, but they also don't think twice about ruthlessly exploiting the labor market to suit their own ends. Furthermore, it is a fact that the government literally gives away hundreds of billions of dollars every year to large corporations as free grants.

What's your source? All you're providing is one person's opinion/interpretation
It is a fairly accurate summary of a huge and complex document.

Out of curiousity, have you read it?
I have read parts of it, skimmed through other parts.



Swastika Burned Into Grass On Bush-Cheney Supporter's Lawn (http://www.channel3000.com/politics/3776992/detail.html)
Protestors Ransack Bush/Cheney Headquarters In Orlando (http://www.local6.com/politics/3785861/detail.html)
Bush-Cheney Campaign Headquarters Burglarized (http://www.komotv.com/stories/33333.htm)
Bush's campaign office in Spokane burglarized, vandalized (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002059735_webbushoffice11.html)
Shots fired at Bush Tenn. headquarters (http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20041005-024050-1855r.htm)
Vandals hit local Bush campaign office (http://www.thedmonline.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/09/28/4159114fb65ba)
And from just yesterday...


Vandals Hit GOP Headquarters in N.Carolina (http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/story.jsp?id=2004110605110001897037&dt=20041106051100&w=APO&coview=)

You are aware that these news sources are no more or less credible than the news sources that I have cited, right?

[Yoda]

My point is that the reason that the wealthy pay a huge amount of taxes is that they earn a huge amount of money! Someone earning $100/- a week can only pay a maximum of $100/- in taxes (if he paid 100% income tax!) while his take-home pay would be zilch. On the other hand, someone earning $100,000/- a week could pay $25,000/- in taxes and still take home $75,000/-. So my point is that your statement is out of context. You're arguing with a phantom. Again: I have not been arguing against progressive taxation.


Communism is "A theoretical economic system characterized by the collective ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members." (Dictionary definition). What I am suggesting is nowhere near communism. Perhaps it leans towards the socialistic welfare state a bit. My point is that the government has to take a role in social welfare, and that means taxing the populace fairly and instituting certain programs (like medicare, social security, etc.) which are designed to help the downtrodden in society. Again, no one's arguing with that. We just have a different definition of what consistutes "fair" taxation. In my book, it's not fair when the top 1% pays almost a third of all income taxes.

This is a moral obligation of government and society, a moral obligation that conservatives like Karl Rove and G. W. Bush conveniently ignore when it suits them, preferring, instead, to give obscene tax breaks and no-bid contracts to the likes of Enron and Halliburton! You have not even remotely demonstrated how the tax breaks are obscene. EVERYONE is paying less taxes now, and despite the recent cuts, the wealthy still pay exorbitant amounts of the income tax.

Also, no contract was award to Enron (in case you didn't remember, they were both exposed and prosecuted under Bush), and Halliburton did not, in fact, receive a "no-bid" contract. They received an expansion and an extension of an existing government contract which was awarded after a competitive bidding process under the Clinton administration. Such bidding processes take months, by the way.

Well, it's simple mathematics, really. When the government cuts taxes across the board, it's a simple fact that corporations making huge revenues end up saving huge amounts of money in taxes, while middle-class families end up saving only a few dollars. In many cases, these middle-class families have to endure layoffs and jobs with lower wages. Where's the causation? You're implying that the middle-class families endure layoffs BECAUSE of the tax breaks -- why? Employment has picked up substantially since the latest round of tax cuts.

All this sums up to obscene "tax concessions" to wealthy corporations. Sure, these corporations provide the jobs, but they also don't think twice about ruthlessly exploiting the labor market to suit their own ends. Furthermore, it is a fact that the government literally gives away hundreds of billions of dollars every year to large corporations as free grants. Feel free to list examples, thought I'd point out that the government gives away hundreds of billions of dollars to many organizations. That's really just an argument to stop giving the government so much damn money to begin with. It's not the most efficient of organizations, as I'm sure you've noticed.

It is a fairly accurate summary of a huge and complex document. That's not what I asked. I asked you for its source.

I have read parts of it, skimmed through other parts. So, you're trusting the summaries of others, then?

You are aware that these news sources are no more or less credible than the news sources that I have cited, right? Um, yes, they are. They're all from news agencies. More importantly, they're all news reports describing events, as opposed to editorials. Your links consisted of op-ed pieces and non-sequiturs.

[darkhorse]

Don't play dumb. You've stated your opinion, and you've led the horse to water. You cannot feign innocence when it drinks.
I simply stated certain facts. Like I said, you draw the obvious conclusion.


I'd like to see evidence of this. I happen to know off-hand that most voters in Ohio used punchcards, which contradicts what you're saying above.
Ohio Counties to Adopt Diebold Voting Machines Voting-Machine Maker Gave $200,000 in Soft Money To Republican National Committee (http://www.gristforthemill.org/010418diebold.html)
The interesting thing (in response to the point you raised) is that the same company, Diebold, manufactures both the electronic touch-screen systems as well as the optical scan readers that read the punch-card ballots.

Also, you've not addressed the fact that exit polls were inaccurate last time, as well, with a different party in the White House. This is all reeking of rationalization, Django.
Of course, there will be a margin of statiscal error between the exit polls and the final results. However, the sorts of results that we are seeing here are way beyond the realm of statistical error. Besides, there appears to be a consistent bias in the results in favor of Bush. Surely, the reasonable assumption would be that some would lean in Bush's favor and some in Kerry's. In fact, the fact that the final results are so much in Bush's favor has led conservatives to suggest that the exit polls have been rigged! However, Dick Morris, a Republican consultant and Fox News regular, claims that:

"Exit Polls are almost never wrong . . . They eliminate the two major potential fallacies in survey research by correctly separating actual voters from those who pretend they will cast ballots but never do and by substituting actual observation for guesswork in judging the relative turnout of different parts of the state."

I couldn't care less whether or not you're threatening me with a lawsuit (though it should be noted that you DID threaten one under your old username), because you have no legal standing whatsoever. The implication that being banned without reason would be a violation of your civil liberties is completely removed from reality. Ask a lawyer, if you don't believe me.
My point is that I don't want to turn this into a legal issue. This forum is kind of like CNN's Crossfire: you are the MoFo Tucker Carlson, Yoda, speaking for the right while Golgot is the spokesman for the left. I, on the other hand, am like Jon Stewart telling both of you to get a grip!

[dillskies88]

hey ******* why dont you just shut the hell up because john kerry lost and theres not a damn thing you can do about it and im sick of hearing your ****. shut the hell up about it. its over cry me a river build me a bridge.

[darkhorse]

You're arguing with a phantom. Again: I have not been arguing against progressive taxation.

Again, no one's arguing with that. We just have a different definition of what consistutes "fair" taxation. In my book, it's not fair when the top 1% pays almost a third of all income taxes.
Again, my point is not to address progressive taxation, it is to refute your claim that "it's not fair when the top 1% pays almost a third of all income taxes". I'm trying to demonstrate to you that it is extremely fair. Try re-reading what I posted above.

You have not even remotely demonstrated how the tax breaks are obscene. EVERYONE is paying less taxes now, and despite the recent cuts, the wealthy still pay exorbitant amounts of the income tax.
The tax breaks are obscene, very simply, because in a time of recession, thanks to the Bush tax cuts, the wealthy received millions of dollars in tax write-offs while, at the same time, thousands of people were getting laid off from work.

Also, no contract was award to Enron (in case you didn't remember, they were both exposed and prosecuted under Bush), and Halliburton did not, in fact, receive a "no-bid" contract. They received an expansion and an extension of an existing government contract which was awarded after a competitive bidding process under the Clinton administration. Such bidding processes take months, by the way.
Enron was the #1 financial contributor to the 2000 Bush campaign and in Bush's prior gubernatorial races. The fact that they were exposed and prosecuted had nothing to do with Bush, even though he was in power at the time. Enron was indicted under a judicial process, not by the executive branch of government. About Halliburton:
FBI Investigates Halliburton's No-Bid Contracts (http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/103004Z.shtml)
Halliburton's Deals Greater Than Thought (http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/082903B.shtml)
Pentagon Probes Halliburton's Iraq Contracts (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62570-2004Oct25.html)
FBI Investigates Halliburton's No-Bid Contracts (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6911-2004Oct28.html)
Army staffer: Halliburton case ‘worst abuse’ (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6356265/)

Where's the causation? You're implying that the middle-class families endure layoffs BECAUSE of the tax breaks -- why? Employment has picked up substantially since the latest round of tax cuts.
I'm not implying any causation. That's just you putting words in my mouth! I'm suggesting that it is obscene for huge corporations to be getting massive tax writeoffs at the same time that thousands of people were getting laid off from work. Sure, employment has picked up since the latest round of tax cuts--but, what you neglect to mention is that these new jobs, on average, pay thousands of dollars less than the old jobs, to say nothing of compromises in benefits.

Feel free to list examples, thought I'd point out that the government gives away hundreds of billions of dollars to many organizations. That's really just an argument to stop giving the government so much damn money to begin with. It's not the most efficient of organizations, as I'm sure you've noticed.
My point, again, is that while the government is giving huge grants to private corporations, it is cutting back on benefit programs like Medicare and Social Security, which benefit the poor and downtrodden. Like I said, this is obscene.

That's not what I asked. I asked you for its source. So, you're trusting the summaries of others, then?
I thought it would be more useful and clearer to post a summary of the document with a link to the actual document for anyone who wished to corroborate the statements made in the summary. I, myself, have corroborated the statements in the summary, and I find them to be accurate.

Um, yes, they are. They're all from news agencies. More importantly, they're all news reports describing events, as opposed to editorials. Your links consisted of op-ed pieces and non-sequiturs.
In other words, your news sources are credible because they are all conservative news sources (like, for example, the "highly credible" Fox News Network *sarcasm here*) whereas my news sources are lacking in credibility because they all have a "liberal slant" to them, according to you.

[darkhorse]

[/list]Did you even read half of those, or did you just skim the headlines? AlterNet is not a news agency, but a collection of columns, all with a liberal slant. The Guardian/New Orleans Channel stories are copies of each other, and do not back the group's findings. The MSNBC piece refers to the Ohio vote tallying error which I've already addressed (it claims that it was fixed, did not effect the election at all, and that no other instances were found). The first Washington Dispatch is an editorial, for crying out loud, and the second piece says that the county in question "appears to have accounted for the discrepancy."

Not a single one of those, as far as I can see, provides the "hard evidence" you claim to have. You can't make accusations of widespread election fraud on such flimsy grounds.
I have read these articles, and skimmed through others. I disagree with your dismissive assessment of my sources. Again, it's pretty obvious that you tend to be dismissive of any news sources that fail to fall into the label of "conservative"--you call them "liberal" and claim that they are lacking in credibility. That's the Fox News mentality, that equates credibility in the news media with spewing insults and accusations while perpetuating the bizarre theory that there is a "liberal conspiracy" in the media and that any media body that does not agree with Fox News is a part of this "liberal conspiracy". This is the same sort of thinking that led Dick Cheney to be dismissive of the Washington Post! Again, the theory being that it is a "liberal" media institution and, therefore part of the "liberal conspiracy" in the media and, so, unreliable and devoid of credibility. I'm sorry, but you cannot dismiss the facts as easily as that.

[darkhorse]

hey ******* why dont you just shut the hell up because john kerry lost and theres not a damn thing you can do about it and im sick of hearing your ****. shut the hell up about it. its over cry me a river build me a bridge.
Have you, by any chance, read the disclaimer that you have to agree with when you join this forum? It clearly states that the forum does not permit forum members to post profanity or obscenity. Yoda, why haven't you banned this guy for violating the forum rules?

[dillskies88]

look im sorry for the profanity but im really getting sick of hearing about the election im not saying bush is better kerry but the elections over and theres nothing you can do about it so its pointless to argue.

[dillskies88]

so im going to put down my sword and not come back to this thread again.

[dillskies88]

i apologize to you darkhorse and sorry we started out on bad terms.

[Golgot]

This forum is kind of like CNN's Crossfire: you are the MoFo Tucker Carlson, Yoda, speaking for the right while Golgot is the spokesman for the left. I, on the other hand, am like Jon Stewart telling both of you to get a grip!

:rotfl:

I thought you said Jim Lehrer at first. That would've been even funnier. :)

Excuse the interruption... do carry with your unbiased arbitrating... :rolleyes:

[Yoda]

I simply stated certain facts. Like I said, you draw the obvious conclusion. I draw the conclusion you insinuate. Like I said, you're playing dumb. It's very transparent.


Ohio Counties to Adopt Diebold Voting Machines Voting-Machine Maker Gave $200,000 in Soft Money To Republican National Committee (http://www.gristforthemill.org/010418diebold.html)
The interesting thing (in response to the point you raised) is that the same company, Diebold, manufactures both the electronic touch-screen systems as well as the optical scan readers that read the punch-card ballots. Both domestic and international teams were monitoring the election. I think I'll trust their assessment over yours.


Of course, there will be a margin of statiscal error between the exit polls and the final results. However, the sorts of results that we are seeing here are way beyond the realm of statistical error. Besides, there appears to be a consistent bias in the results in favor of Bush. Surely, the reasonable assumption would be that some would lean in Bush's favor and some in Kerry's. In fact, the fact that the final results are so much in Bush's favor has led conservatives to suggest that the exit polls have been rigged! However, Dick Morris, a Republican consultant and Fox News regular, claims that: Exactly; why isn't the debate about the exit polls themselves? The exit polls are not regulated nor monitored in any official way, whereas the election tallies are. They have a greater history of inaccuracy, and less in the way of checks and balances. They also consist of relatively small sample sizes, and were similarly inaccurate during the last election. Why, then, have you concluded that the problem is with the election, and not with the exit polls?

[Richard Hell]

So is this guy (Dark Horse) Django

[nebbit]

So is this guy (Dark Horse) Django

:yup:

[Yoda]

Again, my point is not to address progressive taxation, it is to refute your claim that "it's not fair when the top 1% pays almost a third of all income taxes". I'm trying to demonstrate to you that it is extremely fair. Try re-reading what I posted above. I didn't say it was unfair (though it's not very hard to make the case that it is -- and that it's also counterproductive). What I said was that it's ridiculous to call the cuts "obscene" when a) they benefitted EVERYONE, b) spurred economic growth which resulted in improved hiring, and c) the wealthy still pay a massive percentage of taxes. If you don't have a direct counterargument to these three things, then you're simply wasting my time.


The tax breaks are obscene, very simply, because in a time of recession, thanks to the Bush tax cuts, the wealthy received millions of dollars in tax write-offs while, at the same time, thousands of people were getting laid off from work. But the purpose of the tax breaks was to spur economic growth, and subsequently hiring. And it did just that.

Let me see if I follow your logic here: everyone got a reduction in taxes. Some people, though, got more back, on virtue of having paid a great deal more to begin with. You say this is "obscene." When asked why, the reason you give is that it happened while people were losing their jobs. However, as I've pointed out, the tax cut demonstrably spurred job growth. So how, exactly, do you have a leg to stand on here? Your argument seems to revolve around the fact that it SOUNDS bad from a PR standpoint to say "tax breaks for millionaires," and not on any economic reality.

Enron was the #1 financial contributor to the 2000 Bush campaign and in Bush's prior gubernatorial races. The fact that they were exposed and prosecuted had nothing to do with Bush, even though he was in power at the time. Enron was indicted under a judicial process, not by the executive branch of government. Yes, but the executive branch has an awful lot of de facto power that it does not have in a judicial sense. And in the past you've never hesitated to blame Bush for things that have happened "on his watch," whether you could tie it to his policies or not.

Enron contributed a great deal to the Democratic party, as well. Virtually every major business contributes heavily to political campaigns, and most of them do so to both sides, to hedge their bets.


About Halliburton:


FBI Investigates Halliburton's No-Bid Contracts (http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/103004Z.shtml)
Halliburton's Deals Greater Than Thought (http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/082903B.shtml)
Pentagon Probes Halliburton's Iraq Contracts (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62570-2004Oct25.html)
FBI Investigates Halliburton's No-Bid Contracts (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6911-2004Oct28.html)
Army staffer: Halliburton case ‘worst abuse’ (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6356265/)
Oh, I'm well aware that an investigation is in the works. That doesn't change what I said, however, nor does it justify your reductionist version of events.


The deal with Halliburton is relatively straightforward: they were hired for government work through a competitively bidded contract process under the Clinton administration. They were hired for work similar to the Iraq reconstruction they're now engaging in. We needed a company ready to rebuild on short notice, and they were already prepared to do so, having done similar work for the government in the past at competitive prices. This decision made even more sense when you consider that a competitive bidding process would've forced a delay in military operations; it's not something you can do overnight.


I suppose, given your complaints, that you're aware of a more suitable company for the job? Do tell.



Sure, employment has picked up since the latest round of tax cuts--but, what you neglect to mention is that these new jobs, on average, pay thousands of dollars less than the old jobs, to say nothing of compromises in benefits. What's your source on the "pay thousands of dollars less" claim? Show me verifiable data.

I thought it would be more useful and clearer to post a summary of the document with a link to the actual document for anyone who wished to corroborate the statements made in the summary. I, myself, have corroborated the statements in the summary, and I find them to be accurate. You're still not answering my question: where did you get that summary? This is the third time I've asked.

In other words, your news sources are credible because they are all conservative news sources (like, for example, the "highly credible" Fox News Network *sarcasm here*) whereas my news sources are lacking in credibility because they all have a "liberal slant" to them, according to you. Um, none of them are conservative news sources; most of them are websites for local news stations, and appear to have virtually NO editorial content whatsoever. Can you give me a single reason as to why they would be characterized as "conservative," other than the fact that they bear out what I was saying before?


Also, your sources are not lacking credibility because of a liberal slant; one of them was, but the others simply did not say what you said they did. Most of them made mention of accusations, or of concerns, not of actual "hard evidence" of fraud, which is what you claimed.

[Yoda]

I have read these articles, and skimmed through others. I disagree with your dismissive assessment of my sources. Again, it's pretty obvious that you tend to be dismissive of any news sources that fail to fall into the label of "conservative"--you call them "liberal" and claim that they are lacking in credibility. That's the Fox News mentality, that equates credibility in the news media with spewing insults and accusations while perpetuating the bizarre theory that there is a "liberal conspiracy" in the media and that any media body that does not agree with Fox News is a part of this "liberal conspiracy". This is the same sort of thinking that led Dick Cheney to be dismissive of the Washington Post! Again, the theory being that it is a "liberal" media institution and, therefore part of the "liberal conspiracy" in the media and, so, unreliable and devoid of credibility. I'm sorry, but you cannot dismiss the facts as easily as that. I don't see a single relevant argument in the above paragraph. I haven't mentioned Fox News at all, nor have I called more than two of the dozen or so links you've provided "liberal." Of the sources you provided, a handful were actually just opinion pieces, and the rest did not actually constitute anything near "hard evidence" of voter fraud.

You're beating up on weak arguments that no one is actually making.

[r3port3r66]

You're beating up on weak arguments that no one is actually making.

Isn't this where we left off months ago?!

[Yoda]

Yeah, it is. And frankly, I have plenty of reason to ban him under this name, too, as I did under the last few he tried to sneak back under. The fact that he's falling back into all his old habits like clockwork doesn't exactly encourage me not to, either.

[nebbit]

Ban him, just because he is using another name doesn't mean he can come back......am I wrong. :p

[Piddzilla]

So is this guy (Dark Horse) Django

I think it's John Kerry... Horse.. Kerry.. Get it?

[Caitlyn]

It's your "house" Yoda… legally you can kick Django out anytime you please… and there is not a damn thing he can do about it… except whine… :p

[darkhorse]

lol! Yeah, sure, go ahead and ban me (if it's me you're talking about)! What will that prove? Only that you are so afraid of honest debate that you feel compelled to shut off my mic in true Bill O'Reilly fashion!

Speaking of Bill O'Reilly and so-called "credible news sources", Yoda, what is your opinion of the Fox News Network? I'd really be interested in knowing because you strike me as a creation of the Fox Network--Rupert Murdoch's godson, perhaps?

For the record, here's my opinion on the supposedly "fair and balanced" Fox News Network:

Fox News : Republican Party :: Pravda : Soviet Communist Party.

In other words, the Fox News Network is pretty obviously the propaganda wing of the Republican Party. Question is whether, thanks to Fox News, the good ol' US of A is headed towards a one-party system in the long run? Will the Democratic Party be extinct by the time 2008 rolls along? That's my concern.

About the rest of your arguments, don't worry, I will be sure to address them--assuming you don't shut of my mic (i.e. ban me) before I get the chance to reply, Mr. Bill O'Reilly! lol!

Speaking of which, considering that "shut up!" is O'Reilly's trademark, Yoda, you should really consider whether "ban him!" is yours!

[blibblobblib]

I say, let Dark horse stay ONLY when he finally admits that he is DjangyBum, because every single fibre of his online being screams it so. And then once we can all see his Django, after a week or so when he gets boring again, get rid of him.

[Yoda]

Yeah, I'm terrified of honest debate. Which is why I debated with you for roughly an entire year, not to mention the dozen or so posts here, as well. Your neverending War on Logic continues.

The rantings on Fox News are bizarre; you're the one who brought them up; no one else is really talking about them. I didn't cite them in any way, and I already told you (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showpost.php?p=208504&postcount=139) what I thought of them, even though it has little to no relevance here. Personally, I think O'Reilly is a blowhard, much like yourself.

Need I remind you, also, that you sent me an email after your last banning essentially admitting that I had good reason to do so? It's as if you devote a portion of each day to inventing new, creative ways to shoot yourself in the foot.

[r3port3r66]

It's like an annoying ringtone that no one answers.

[darkhorse]

Yeah, I'm terrified of honest debate. Which is why I debated with you for roughly an entire year, not to mention the dozen or so posts here, as well. Your neverending War on Logic continues.
If you are genuinely interested in honest debate, then let us debate without the ongoing threats of banning. I have nothing against logic. I do have a problem with your tactics of intimidating your opponents in various ways. I also have a problem with personal attacks.

The rantings on Fox News are bizarre; you're the one who brought them up; no one else is really talking about them. I didn't cite them in any way, and I already told you (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showpost.php?p=208504&postcount=139) what I thought of them, even though it has little to no relevance here. Personally, I think O'Reilly is a blowhard, much like yourself.
My so-called "rantings" on the Fox News Network are inspired by your point on supposedly credible news sources. You question the credibility of my news sources--my response is that they are no less credible than the Fox News Network, which is the mainstream right wing news organization and which, it seems, is your primary source of news, judging from your comments. I'm saying: broaden your horizons rather than taking cheap shots at your debating opponents. Oh, BTW, I am honestly surprised that you call Bill O'Reilly a "blowhard"! I seriously believed that he was your hero! But I guess I was mistaken... my bad!

Need I remind you, also, that you sent me an email after your last banning essentially admitting that I had good reason to do so? It's as if you devote a portion of each day to inventing new, creative ways to shoot yourself in the foot.
Ever heard of Don Quixote, Yoda? I think you are imagining things.

[Yoda]

It's not intimidation; it's site policy. You're hiding behind multiple identities. The only reason you were not banned immedietly for this is that I'd held out some hope that you might have turned over a new leaf. Instead, you fell right back into your old habits.

And no, Fox is not my primary source of news. The only reason you could possibly have for thinking so is that I'm a conservative. I have not sourced, cited, or mentioned Fox News in any way over the course of this discussion, to my memory. I think you're sloppily trying to tie things together, in some sort of Grand Unified Theory of Things You Don't Like.

As for the email; no, it's all too real, I'm afraid. I still have it, as well as several others from you, most of them claiming that you've "moved on" and such. This was before your two most recent attempts to return, of course.

[Anonymous Last]

It's not intimidation; it's site policy. You're hiding behind multiple identities.


What every time he gets banned two more appear?

http://pc59te.dte.uma.es/cdb/series/marvel/bitmaps/madrox.jpg

[7thson]

lol! Yeah, sure, go ahead and ban me (if it's me you're talking about)! What will that prove? Only that you are so afraid of honest debate that you feel compelled to shut off my mic in true Bill O'Reilly fashion!

Speaking of Bill O'Reilly and so-called "credible news sources", Yoda, what is your opinion of the Fox News Network? I'd really be interested in knowing because you strike me as a creation of the Fox Network--Rupert Murdoch's godson, perhaps?

For the record, here's my opinion on the supposedly "fair and balanced" Fox News Network:

Fox News : Republican Party :: Pravda : Soviet Communist Party.

In other words, the Fox News Network is pretty obviously the propaganda wing of the Republican Party. Question is whether, thanks to Fox News, the good ol' US of A is headed towards a one-party system in the long run? Will the Democratic Party be extinct by the time 2008 rolls along? That's my concern.

About the rest of your arguments, don't worry, I will be sure to address them--assuming you don't shut of my mic (i.e. ban me) before I get the chance to reply, Mr. Bill O'Reilly! lol!

Speaking of which, considering that "shut up!" is O'Reilly's trademark, Yoda, you should really consider whether "ban him!" is yours!
The television media for so long has been run by the Dems that when a station comes along that does not adhere to their ideals it must be a Republican station. Fox is not at least IMO totally Republican. Do I watch it? Yes, but not solely. I actually tend to watch CNN, but the best seems to be Cspan. Mr. O’Reilly must be a threat to the brick wall you have surrounded your ideals with because although he can be cocky he is successful. I rarely watch his show, but if a guest is someone I like to hear I usually watch it. Darkhourse, Uday, Dajingle bells, whatever or whoever you are, you are more close minded than I thought possible. This is really not meant to be an insult, but it bars me from healthy debate with you. We all have our own ways of thinking and our own ways of debating, reacting, etc… I for one know that I am never always right. Actually I am probably wrong quite a bit. I learn from this though instead of hiding in a cocoon that protects me from reality. You have a very innovative way of communicating and if focused towards growth instead of condemnation you would be quite good at it. You see I look at debate as a win/win situation. If I am proved to be wrong then by God I learned something, if I am right then I can be confident in my knowledge of the topic. It is funny when someone agrees with you, your responses are very “short and matter of fact” Yes of course most people would have more to say to someone who disagrees with them in most instances, but you shrug off your supporters as if they were annoying you. Your witty banter is insulting at best and self destructive in most instances. I have learned long ago that in order to get a point across it is best to listen with an open mind therefore you gain respect. Why am I even mentioning this? To be totally honest (usually liars say this I have heard) I want to debate with you because you have some interesting thoughts, too bad you think that no matter what you are always right. A shame I say.

[r3port3r66]

Something smells...

[Sedai]

Everybody does! I don't debate with the intention of losing.


I get into a debate to strengthen my communication skills, and as I have learned over the past few years, to hopefully learn a thing or two about things I don't have much (or any) knowledge on.

[chicagofrog]

http://www.andreaharner.com/archives/UnitedStatesnewmap.jpg
YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!
i know the Québecois won't be happy, but...

[darkhorse]

It's not intimidation; it's site policy. You're hiding behind multiple identities. The only reason you were not banned immedietly for this is that I'd held out some hope that you might have turned over a new leaf. Instead, you fell right back into your old habits.

And no, Fox is not my primary source of news. The only reason you could possibly have for thinking so is that I'm a conservative. I have not sourced, cited, or mentioned Fox News in any way over the course of this discussion, to my memory. I think you're sloppily trying to tie things together, in some sort of Grand Unified Theory of Things You Don't Like.

As for the email; no, it's all too real, I'm afraid. I still have it, as well as several others from you, most of them claiming that you've "moved on" and such. This was before your two most recent attempts to return, of course.
Get this, Yoda: I respect your opinion. I only hope you can respect mine. I do not wish to be confrontational with you. I only hope that all of us can share and express our opinions freely and in a civilized fashion without having to get confrontational. That's all.

You have a keen insight and a great deal of intelligence--I respect that. I only hope we can discuss issues without a mutually destructive tearing down of one another.

[Anonymous Last]

I would most definately love to sit in a bar with a few cold ones enjoying the company of Yoda & darkhorse talking all this jive to eachother...and I would slip a few comments here and there (just so that it doesn't look like I'm left out).