OK 2 more years of constant critisicm, conspiracy theories, disrespect, ridicule, hatred etc and Dems and Repubs will be even over the last 16 years. The internet has given us access to each other's thoughts and ideas like never before. Sadly I think this has lead to more anger, more hatred etc. Though the temptation will be great with the new President, whichever party, to continue down the same path we have followed the last 16 years, I for one hope that I am a big enough person to do my part to tone things down a notch. We all love our country. We all owe it to our country to do what we can to make it through the difficult years facing this great country of ours. I believe one easy step we all can take is toning things down, cutting back on the yelling and the name calling. Disagreement, dissent, discussion all are part of the American way. But it can be done while maintaining a high regard for those you disagree with. We have lost that ideal. The great trials the USA faces in the years to come needs both parties talking and respectful of each other towards one common goal: to be sure we maintain our rightful place as the greatest country on earth.
Posted by glassman on :
send that to Carl Rove...
Posted by Johnwayne on :
Ok Glass I give you two more years to make comments like that!!!! Than in the spirit of harmony we line up dissenters and use them for target practice LOL. Don't worry I can't hit the broadside of a barn.
Posted by Gordon Bennett on :
Amen.
quote:Originally posted by Johnwayne: OK 2 more years of constant critisicm, conspiracy theories, disrespect, ridicule, hatred etc and Dems and Repubs will be even over the last 16 years. The internet has given us access to each other's thoughts and ideas like never before. Sadly I think this has lead to more anger, more hatred etc. Though the temptation will be great with the new President, whichever party, to continue down the same path we have followed the last 16 years, I for one hope that I am a big enough person to do my part to tone things down a notch. We all love our country. We all owe it to our country to do what we can to make it through the difficult years facing this great country of ours. I believe one easy step we all can take is toning things down, cutting back on the yelling and the name calling. Disagreement, dissent, discussion all are part of the American way. But it can be done while maintaining a high regard for those you disagree with. We have lost that ideal. The great trials the USA faces in the years to come needs both parties talking and respectful of each other towards one common goal: to be sure we maintain our rightful place as the greatest country on earth.
Posted by Griffon on :
Why the Dems will lose more ground in '06-'12
To Hillary: what is your plan for getting out of Iraq? Her answer: Hate Bush!
To Al Gore: what is your plan to clean up the environment? His answer: Bush is dumb!
To John Kerry: What is your solution for inflation? His answer: Bush is an idiot!
To Howard Dean: Do you have a plan for health care? His answer: Bush shouldn't have started this war!
To any and all of them: Do you have any ideas for dealing with systemic poverty? Their answer: Bush cussed on TV!
Do you begin to see a pattern here? No substance, just empty hate speech. There was a time when Democrats would have demonstrated against this war, against the cost of health care, they would have worked with churches against poverty. Now they just look like repressive Republicans.
The American people are crying out for a vision that looks to the future. The Democrats are still arguing whether we should go to war against terror. It's a done deal, utterly irrelevant to argue whether we should have started fighting. We need a plan to end it without perpetuating the instability.
What I hear coming from Democrats all over is : Hate Bush, to which I have to ask: when did the Democrats I loved become so intolerant and mean-spirited? They sound no different on issues like health care and inflation or taxation.
Even as I look at the posts on these threads, I can see who's associated with which party. The Democratic supporters express the party line: Hate Bush, blame Bush and call Bush names. That will not entice me to vote for a Democrat. I want to see their vision for the future, not their frustrated fantasies about Bush.
Let's be honest here, if Bush were as dumb as Democrats make him out to be, that means their campaigns have been so inept, so absolutely incompetent, they couldn't beat someone of far below average intelligence. Given what the Democrats have said about Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice, they sound racist, ethnocentric and ethno-phobic. Given the way Democrats talk about people of faith, they are obviously atheo-centric and religio-phobic as a party. That means if the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. came alongside to march with them today, they would not accept him.
When will my party come back to myself and alot of disillusioned moderates?
Posted by john wayne on :
Excellent post griff.
Posted by Gordon Bennett on :
Yep. The Democrats and Republicans have both wavered so far from their core values as to be unrecognizable.
I personally don't hate Bush, I do hate the Administration he's the puppet for, however.
But do the Democrats appear to have the answer? The short answer is no. The long answer is Hell no.
LOL
Posted by bdgee on :
JW,
I applaud your effort to disuade hateful, name calling, demeaning attacks on others, particularly those in another party.
"I believe one easy step we all can take is toning things down, cutting back on the yelling and the name calling.", you say and I agree.
But what good is your effort when the first chance after that you praise a party line post designed to be demeaning of any and everything not party line republican.
Perhaps it is the case that you are simply unable to recognize party line hate when it comes from a republicaan slant? If you are intending to disuade us all from that sort of BS, it seems queer that you wopuld immediately turn around and lay praise on a post designed to foster hatered.
Griffon,
Perhaps you might have better luck pointing out ANY answer to any of the questions you so vigerously demand an answer to that came from the Administration....ever!
And answer this" Why is anyone other than Bush required to provide an answer to the mess he brough about in Iraq (which in turn is the basis for all the rest) by claiming there were WMDs in Iraq, whis is the ONLY reason he gave beforehand for going into Iraq?
Gordon,
Some questions don't have an answer from anyone or any source. No doubt, the Kansas City Royals would like to be in this year's world series, but the question of how to do that faces the reality of its impossibility. There is no answer to that problem.
The failure of the republicans or the democrats to have a solution to the problems in Iraq is because, once we went into Iraq with the absurd notion that we could change that culture by force, it was inevitable that we would fail and place the world in danger of the results.
Posted by jordanreed on :
Excellant post bdgee.
griffon...ask bush what his plans are to
get out of Iraq..
to clean up environment..
solution for inflation..
plan for health care..
dealing with systemic poverty..
he has no clue...his eyes are too close together..sign of lack of intelligence...
Posted by Johnwayne on :
BDGEE- If you read the title of my thread, it should tell you of my intent. You see I do not just plan on idly sitting by listening to hate filled dems spewing out venom for the next two years. I merely point out that for 8 years it was the republicans railing on Clinton, for the last 6 years, and no doubt the remaining 2, the dems have and will return the favor. Now if I were unable to see "party line" hate from the republicans, how could I allude to the democrats and republicans being even after the last 16 years?
Two more years of all of us being at each other's throats and than maybe we can get along again. Like Reagan and Tip O'Niell! Or Reagan and Sam Donaldson!
Posted by Johnwayne on :
Jordan- But President Bush is not running for re-election. If you ask the Republican candidates I'm sure you'll get an answer.
Posted by jordanreed on :
everyone thats running will have answers.. they have to..
Posted by bdgee on :
JW,
dubya's war is running for election.....and the republicaan machine that refuses to participate in Congress to check and ballance. That is fact, not hate.
And yes, assured there were WMDs in Iraq and Saddam had "arrangements" to share them with Ben Laden, many democrats voted to allow him to wage war with Iraq [b]with his promise that they would only go there to remove the imminent threat Bush assured us existed that Saddam posed to the Physical U.S. and then only after all other approaches failed.[b] No such threat existed and we are in a quagmire with Congressional Republicans still playing the party line. That party line has offered no solution and has made it clear that it intends to not do so."Stay the course" is NOT a solution", only an admission that they have none. If the republicans can provide no solution, then they need to accept the fact that they are responsible and stop trying to pass that responsibility off to democrats that didn't bring about the problem and haven't maintained it by party line votes to allow the Administration a free ride.
Yhe republicans have repeatedly responded to any and all request for that answer you assure they will give by attacking the democrats to try and shift the responsibility.
There is no answer to the problem.
Posted by Gordon Bennett on :
A revolution might be a good start.
Posted by Johnwayne on :
So the only acceptable republican solution for you Bdgee is for Republicans to come out and say we need to come up with a different plan?
Posted by Gordon Bennett on :
Like I said, it's as if the Bush Administration has dropped an egg on the floor and everyone is angry that the Democrats don't have a solution to make that egg whole again.
Posted by glassman on :
the dems can't put out a plan and get the plan announced without being Roved...
Rove has no "priciples"....
Posted by bdgee on :
JW,
There is no solution, republican, democratis, heaven sent, or otherwise. I ask the republicans either to show that is wrong, by proof not claim, or shut up about it.
Gordon,
I like the egg anology.
And all the king's horses and all the kings men......
Glass.....,
You have "fingered out" a very salient reality.
How shameful for our future to have been placed in such hands.
Posted by Dardadog on :
"Roved". Glass.....you've summed it up. LOL.
Dog
Posted by glassman on :
hey dog, how they hangin?
Posted by Johnwayne on :
Actually I think it's fairly common after hearing someone complain about something for a long period to say "Alright genius, you don't like the way I'm doing it, what's your solution?"
Posted by Gordon Bennett on :
Stop doing it!
Posted by glassman on :
LOL....
lessee JW? i showed the direct line from Rove to Novak to the swiftboat veterans and you still think everything is OK?
you are the one who is irrationally suporting a nonstarter... Bush hid during Nam.. and you call yourself John Wayne? i suspect even the real JW woulda been ashamned of this bahaviour....
Posted by bdgee on :
Yep, Glass..., and ashamed of anyone that condoned it, too. The real one was a republican that died before the complete distortion of the party.
Posted by Johnwayne on :
Well, unfortunately I've done quite a few things the Duke would be ashamed of.... too many to list on this site!!
Posted by glassman on :
it's OK JW.... JW sold tobacco to me... but i don't hold it agin'im...
i'm 6 weeks w/o today and getting over the hardest moments...
Posted by bdgee on :
You'll make it, Glass....
Posted by john wayne on :
Good luck on that. my brother said the first three days of giving up Skoal was the toughest thing he ever did
Posted by Sasquatch on :
I think the Dem's decided to make 'Hate Bush' a mainstay right around the time the rep's made FlipFlopper a household word.
Posted by Sasquatch on :
Dude!
I've had a friend who's quit about every substance known to man.
He said quiting cigarettes was harder than quiting the heavy stuff like coke. The withdrawl wasn't as bad but it got into his head in a way coke never did.
Said the only thing harder to quit than smoking is chewing. Cause your nicotine level when you chew is so much higher than when you smoke.
I believe it.
I've quit smoking about 10 times now. Wife and I will probably try attempt 11 in a month or so.
Thought I had it licked on time 9. Lasted near a year. Time 10 didn't last more than a couple weeks.
(edit fur speelling an grahmerr)
[ July 19, 2006, 20:21: Message edited by: Sasquatch ]
Posted by glassman on :
same here sas....
i don't count anymore...
i just know i gotta say no when i think "just one" cuz it's never just one....
Posted by bdgee on :
I had no problem quitting whenever I chose. I guess that was actually a problem.
Posted by jordanreed on :
quote:Originally posted by john wayne: Good luck on that. my brother said the first three days of giving up Skoal was the toughest thing he ever did
would that be your clergyman brother?
Posted by Griffon on :
"And yes, assured there were WMDs in Iraq and Saddam had "arrangements" to share them with Ben Laden, many democrats voted to allow him to wage war with Iraq [b]with his promise that they would only go there to remove the imminent threat Bush assured us existed that Saddam posed to the Physical U.S. and then only after all other approaches failed.[b] No such threat existed and we are in a quagmire with Congressional Republicans still playing the party line. That party line has offered no solution and has made it clear that it intends to not do so."Stay the course" is NOT a solution", only an admission that they have none. If the republicans can provide no solution, then they need to accept the fact that they are responsible and stop trying to pass that responsibility off to democrats that didn't bring about the problem and haven't maintained it by party line votes to allow the Administration a free ride."
Bdgee, As my thread on why the dems support genocide proved we now have proof of 1: WMDs moved by Russians a few days prior to the war; and 2: links between Saddy and terrorists in Palestine and Afghanistan. The Democrats supported the war because the truth spoke for itself.
"Like I said, it's as if the Bush Administration has dropped an egg on the floor and everyone is angry that the Democrats don't have a solution to make that egg whole again."
Not at all, GB, I commend President GB for acting to stop the on-going ethnic cleansing of the Marsh Arabs, environmental degradation and the genocide of the Kurds. The Democrats I criticize because they would prefer the ethnic cleansing, genocide and environmental degradation continue rather than depose a brutal dictator we brought to power. Course they have had more experience with doing nothing in the face of genocide.
Honestly, I am not angry with the Democrats for not cleaning an egg up off the floor, I like 'em scrambled for that matter. I am upset with the Democrats because they whine about Bush not doing a good job, then offer no substance. Our Bishop had a good saying, "You might not like my idea; you might even want to knock it down. But before you do put something better in its place." All I hear from the Dems (in very Python-esque" terms) is: "Run away! It's a fluffy bunny with sharp pointy teeth."
They cower behind "Hate Bush" because they know, there was a time when they would have rallied an anti-war movement that would have prevented the war. There was a time when they would have offered a competing vision for this nation that would have re-focused the debate on their terms. Now they are so impotent that on every issue BUT the war, they sound like watered-down Republicans.
See we don't elect copies of the successful team. We vote on the vision and a negative or unclear vision always loses. Ultimately the Democrats came away from the trouncing they received in 1994 with the wrong lesson. Susan Estrich expressed what they learned after the pasting the Democrats got in 2004: "We lost because we weren't mean enough; we didn't get the hate vote out." You know what, I won't walk across the street to vote "against" someone, but I will vote after driving and working all day to vote "for" someone.
My Democratic friends are shut out of Howard Dean's team because they told him that. Anger and hate do not win elections. Shadowing the opponent ideologically is not only being fake, it sounds like mush. It gets you the title "flip-flopper." Now I happen to like flip-flops on Palm Beach, though my bald head always burns to a crisp when I wear them. And I honestly don't mind a person with a nuanced position on difficult issues. That is a good flip-flopper. A bad flip-flopper listens to which direction the political wind is going and switches for political convenience.
Susan had it all wrong. The Democrats lost and will keep on losing as long as they let the Republicans pick the tune. When they run on hate, they cease defining themselves on their own terms and on their own issues. I mean the Democrats lost big and bad to a vulnerable sitting president. They lost to a vulnerable president they labeled as dumb. I mean did you see James Carville and Susan Estrich * 7pm on CNN all grins and smiles? By 9pm they were gone and never returned that whole evening. They were so sure they would win that they were devastated when they lost.
Well, ask my bro' I predicted that on election morning. In fact I had said it a few weeks before the election. I told him then, we vote for vision not hate. But you know what's funny, President Clinton did that two week run through Arkansas and Missouri and nearly turned those states. Why? Because he talked issues and programs. No attacking Bush, he simply focused on where Democratic principles and plans were better. I mean it was a 14% turn-around in Arkansas.
You see, it's a lesson anyone with a 13 year old girl should have learned. Prado is NOT Prada, meaning copy-cats aren't cool, and there ain't much difference between what Dems and Republicans claim as a platform. And it is distinctiveness is what sells. Try telling your teen-ager Keds are as good or as cool as Nikes. The Dems never offered a compelling alternative, no distinctive vision. And they got smoked.
Now don't mistake me for a Republican. I am merely pointing out why the Dems lost and will lose. The Democrats can turn this around with a compelling vision and strong leadership; not mean leadership, strong leadership. The person with the vision and leadership ability is Barak Obama. I would vote for him in a minute.
Posted by bdgee on :
That's pure nonsense.
Posted by Griffon on :
Someone may make the absurd assumption that Bush shouldn't even have been president. Well, if you want to circumvent the Constitution, that's debatable, but it is another reason the Democrats keep losing. They are looking at what amounts to ancient political history. Crying about that is utterly pointless. Nothing is going to change the fact that Bush won, fair and square and by the rules set out in the state and in our nation.
In terms of the '04 election, there are more pending cases involving Democratic hijinks than Republicans. Beyond that though, in Wisconsin apparently, Democratic operatives, not under any instruction from Dem leaders, sabotaged vehicles to prevent Republican drivers from picking people up to vote.
At that point 6 years of maligning Bush's character, an economy in the toilet, war, gas prices, interest rates beginning to climb and unemployment creeping, none of that could prevent Bush and the Republicans from clobbering the Democrats. They should have known then. They should have immediately started to design a clearly articulated "Contract with America" that didn't make them sound like Republican wanna-be's.
The ridiculous irony though is they still want to make the debate about George Bush being dumb. The man has two more years, hopefully he won't abuse the pardoning priveledge as Bill Clinton did for personal profiteering but tht's a topic that has passed too.
Posted by john wayne on :
I believe you meant 4 years griffer, not 6
Posted by Griffon on :
Jordan inquired:
"would that be your clergyman brother?" in reference to my struggle with Skoal addiction.
Yes, it was me that struggled with addiction during my days as a chef. Thanks be to God I was delivered in an instant after many unsuccessful attempts. My bro' doesn't quite have it right, but I can share the story in the hope it will help some others.
First let me say I chewed tobacco for about 20 years. I was addicted at the first plug. By the time I was 15 I chewed a tin a day, spitting into garbage cans and carpet in classrooms. At 19 my girlfriend wanted me to quit so I hid it from her. At work in the kitchen, I spit into the garbage cans until I learned to swallow the spit. I would fill a 2 liter pop bottle with spit during a week at off work time.
Now I have to explain a little more. I would have to quit eating during meals to have a dip of skoal and then resume eating. I have times when I ran out of gasoline or went hungry because it was a matter of buying gas or food or tobacco. So when I say I was addicted, I am serious. I tried to quit countless times from the time I was 19 until I was 32. I was absolutely powerless in the face of that craving.
But two things happened in 1996 to change the situation. The first was when a friend of the atheist religion, something he as a philosophy major comfortably admitted about atheism, spoke about God in a way that offended me as we sat at the bar after work. I asked him not to do that because I was a Christian and his language offended me. He said, "You sure don't act like one." It deeply convicted me. I knew God was speaking through that friend, who has since become a priest.
A few weeks later, addicted as ever, I felt a strong tug on my heart to fast once a week. One day a week I ate or drank nothing from sundown to sundown. I went to Ash Wednesday service and as I was getting in the car I prepared a dip of skoal. Suddenly, I knew the thought in my head was from God saying, "Why are you polluting yourself if I am making you clean." And that time, in that moment, I quit for good. Hard as that week was, I had the strength to overcome. Now over 10 years later, I have never tried again. Like Glassman said, it is tough!
Posted by Griffon on :
From Bdgee: "That's pure nonsense."
Yes, I knew that would be your assessment, and the one liner betrays you know what I said is absolutely true. But you do demonstrate my point Bdgee. I see the way you abuse the conservatives on this board and the president. But a growing number of my Democratic friends are talking exactly the way I am. We are travelling "without party" as it were, and I always will be by nature of my position, until they see the party pick up a platform of civil rights and human rights again.
From JW: "I believe you meant 4 years griffer, not 6"
Not really bro' the campaign against GB started in 1998 in the press. It was pretty much 6 years of mean-spirited, spewing intolerance from Democratic leaders who again took the wrong lesson from '94
Posted by john wayne on :
I know I had it licked in 1987. had quit entirely and was only chewing the fake stuff. Then we went up to Minnesota for the first game of the 1987 World Series, and somehow I convinced myself that I had to have the real Copenhagen again. It was allright I reasoned, this is the World Series. Just for this special occasion. I haven't quit since. So Jordan- if it hadn't been for the Twins making the World Series that year I would never have resumed chewing LOL.
Posted by Griffon on :
well all, I have to go. Another early morning tomorrow and all day. May pop in to see what fun we are having at Allstocks, otherwise chat tomorrow night. For the ones quitting tobacco, I pray it goes easier for you. Hey bro' still got a copy of the pic with me kissing the piglet for you. 135 year promises are sometimes hard to keep.
Posted by Gordon Bennett on :
It's not an absurd notion whatsoever.
Bush lost the popular vote the first time, (and probably the second time as well, though we'll never know for sure). The majority is supposed to rule in any true Democracy. Bush shouldn't even have been president.
The supreme court should not have the power to pick our President for us.
quote:Originally posted by Griffon: Someone may make the absurd assumption that Bush shouldn't even have been president.
Posted by Griffon on :
"The supreme court should not have the power to pick our President for us."
First things first, I need to offer a correction to this statement. The Supreme Court did not pick the president. They were asked to rule on a state's electoral process. They ruled the process was within the bounds of the law. That is their constitutional mandate through Marbury v. Madison. That legal ruling had a secondary consequence of President Bush being elected, but that is not the direct effect of the ruling. Had they voted to determine who the president was they would have been stepping outside the constitution. As it is, the side that lost the election as a consequence, even though they most often win in the court system, suddenly don't like the courts and want to change the highest Rule of Law in the land.
Hey if you want to tear the Constitution up that might work. Do you have that much disdain for our second foundational document? The electoral college functioned as the constitution set out. Do I think we need an electoral college in this day and age? Yes, to protect the otherwise voice-less small states. They don't vote the way I think is right but they still deserve to have a voice in our "Representative" Democracy.
We are a Republic Gordon. To become a full Democracy, which is possible given the technology that exists today, we would have to start over with the Constitution. In the case of the Supreme Court, I bet that is one of the few cases you didn't like their decision on isn't it? The court you trust and have benefitted from made a non-partisan decision. Now you can desire to vacate that decision, but because the process is spelled out in our Constitutional system and defined in a Judicial Review process, that decision will stand as the law of the Land.
As to the conspiracy theory that Kerry got cheated as he got trounced trounced in '04, that argument is alot like when we were in Little League. There were those games when we lost and someone would invariably cry, "The umpires cost us that game." Now feel free to agree or disagree, but losing is part of politics. If you put your fate into a third-party's hands, you have already lost. In the case in point, Kerry lost when he was convinced he should win so to justify the loss he's blaming the electoral process. This is what happens when you have a weak party: we trust too much in the process to pull us through. Instead of working the issues we rely on anger to mobilize our base, hate to mobilize the general electorate and we count red and blue and battleground states.
Hey it's a frustrating system that we put ourselves through every two and four years. Isn't it fun to watch?
Posted by Griffon on :
"It's not an absurd notion whatsoever."
oh yes, I forgot the absurdity of continuing to fuss and fret over election defeats like 2000 and '04 is that no amount of energy lost in those debates will change the outcome. That is the absurdity of continuing to try to win the 2000 election. Counting chads right or wrong did not cost the Democrats the election. Lack of vision defeated them. And no amount of talk will undo that defeat.
Posted by Gordon Bennett on :
You complain that I'm fussing and fretting over the stolen 2000 Election, while you and your ilk still agonize over Clinton's service record.
That's what is truly absurd.
quote:Originally posted by Griffon: "It's not an absurd notion whatsoever."
oh yes, I forgot the absurdity of continuing to fuss and fret over election defeats like 2000 and '04 is that no amount of energy lost in those debates will change the outcome. That is the absurdity of continuing to try to win the 2000 election. Counting chads right or wrong did not cost the Democrats the election. Lack of vision defeated them. And no amount of talk will undo that defeat.
Posted by Johnwayne on :
What about it Gordon? Should the constitution have been amended after 2000 so the popular vote was all that mattered?
Posted by Gordon Bennett on :
All the votes should have been counted in Florida. If they had been, and Bush had still won, I would have accepted that.
Also...
Dangling chads, my ass. LOL. Give me a break. How stupid do they think we are?
Oh wait. It worked.
Posted by Griffon on :
GB you lost under the rule of law. I ask that the same standard be applied to every president. My point about Clinton is as valid as your complaints about the election of 2000. Only difference law was broken in Clinton's case, law was defined in Bush's case. I imagine you would prefer every purjurer be released as well?
Posted by Griffon on :
"Dangling chads, my ass. LOL. Give me a break. How stupid do they think we are?"
That's what you have when one party is weak, the Democratic Party tried to circumvent an election with "chads" when it should have been won on vision.
Posted by Gordon Bennett on :
It could have been won by counting the votes.
Posted by Griffon on :
It was won by counting the votes. That count was upheld by rule of law. It's done and over. No recount will change that.
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