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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.
-------------------- God's peace be with you A salaam a lakum Shalom Chevarim
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"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!
-------------------- God's peace be with you A salaam a lakum Shalom Chevarim
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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
-------------------- God's peace be with you A salaam a lakum Shalom Chevarim
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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.
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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.
-------------------- God's peace be with you A salaam a lakum Shalom Chevarim
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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.
-------------------- "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
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"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?
-------------------- God's peace be with you A salaam a lakum Shalom Chevarim
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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.
-------------------- God's peace be with you A salaam a lakum Shalom Chevarim
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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.
-------------------- "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
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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?
-------------------- God's peace be with you A salaam a lakum Shalom Chevarim
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