The Opinionated Bastard

After reading this entry of yours i see that maybe thetension is getting a bit high in trying to rationalize and justify what George Galloway called “a pack of lies”.

The truth is America no longer supports this war and there is now direct evidence suggesting that the “facts were being fixed” to support an illegal US invasion into iraq. (downing street memo and a newly leaked document today from the UK) those damn brits! Bush Inc has killed 1700+ american soldiers for a failed oil adventure and everyone knows it. The republicans will pay dearly in 2006. (congress has very low approval ratings..social security, schiavo, iraq lies, president Bush too…your party is truly imploding before our eyes). The 2006 election cycle will focus on iraq lies and support for those lies. some demos will be hurt as well, but the republican goose steppers will be destroyed out of public disgust.

I predict an impeachment in 2006, then treason trials for cheney, rumsfeld, wolfowitz and their spokesman, Bush. I rejoice with glee at the collapse of american totalitarianism…

ps, by the way, how in the hell does one study the i ching and remain a republican, that one stumps me.

ernie

No, its more along the lines of the fact that I like many of the goals of the Democratic party (being social liberal), I just can’t stand their implementations or fiscal policy.

Criticism is easy, leading is hard. I see the Democrats doing a lot of criticizing but I don’t see any ideas of their own. So why should I take them seriously?

As one comic put it, the Republican party is the party of bad ideas, while the Democratic party is the party of NO ideas.

BTW, your remark about the I Ching betrays your snobbery.

It’s not that I disagree with the goals of the Democratic party. Everyone in America would like the poor to be doing better, workers protected from stupidity of employers, more respect for schoolteachers etc.

It’s their methods I disagree with. The Democrats keep promoting the same failed policies over and over again, hoping that what didn’t work the last 10 times will magically start working.

You assume this very narrow viewpoint of Republicans: White, Middle-Class, WASP.

Republicans wouldn’t be able to win a single election if that was true.

You can see how snobby you’re being if you reverse it. Are Democrats Black, Lower-Class, Catholics? No! Democrats are all sorts of people. So are Republicans.

As long as the Democrats keep thinking that Republicans are just WASPS, they’ll keep losing elections.

There’s nothing wrong with the Democratic party that reading Atlas Shrugged wouldn’t cure…

no, i just thought hippies and new agers were deep into the eastern mysticsm thing, no “snobbery” intended. (i.e. all the people i meet who are into such are usually what you would describe as “liberal”)

but nothings universal.

but really, you like eastern mysticism but support a party who if they had their way would want to make it illegal for it is not in the bible. I mean you may deny it, but christian fundamentalists are not the most tolerant people on the planet and GW Bush is kookoo fundamentalist to the bone.

Ive read atlas shrugged and was enthralled by it for a couple years, about until i turned22.but the world is more complicated than rands aristotelian “objectivism” (which im sure the i ching informs you) but i get the sense of libertarianism you seem to follow. Libertarians have good ideas except for the fact that they believe ones wealth has the right to oppress others.

ernie

“support a party who if they had their way would want to make it illegal for it is not in the bible”

Neither the Republican party nor the Democratic party is that homogeneous. Should I say that the Democratic party think it should be illegal to make a profit?

I support the Republican party because given one party that wants to tell me to be moral (but I can keep my money), and another party that wants to force me to be nice (but I have to give all my money to the government), the rational choice is the party that lets you keep your money, because you can always buy immorality.

(That said, I’m getting fed up with the tax and spend Republicans too…)

Name something that Bush has done that’s so kookoo fundamentalist. When did believing in God make you a religious nut? He may talk a good line, but as far as I’ve seen, its mostly lip service, much like the Democrats and feminism.

As for Atlas Shrugged, or Libertarianism, I’m only mildly libertarian anyways. The thing that bothers me about the Democratic party is their dismal understanding of economics. The Republicans never quite grasp that making immorality illegal just makes it more expensive; the Democrats never grasp that making greed illegal makes everyone poor.

I think it is obvious that parties are diverse coalitions. One thing Bush did that is kookoo fundamentalism? How about claiming to talk to God and God told him to invade Iraq (reported in an Israeli paper interview)How about saying saying jesus was his “favorite philosopher”. How about procliaming a “crusade” of infinite justice” in a “cosmic struggle of good vs evil” (language straight out of Hitler Nuremberg speaches)admitted such labels were retracted when kookoo Bush Inc figured out that they sounded as such to the american public. How about Bush not supporting Stem cell research because of his “religious beliefs” of his of fetus’ and brain dead people like terri schiave, rushing to sign a congressional order to stop the removal of her feeding tube?

Now for the virtue of greed and selfishness. One response…hahahahhahahahahhahahah

hahahahahahhahahahahahahhaha. good luck america.

See, free market capitalism was debunked long ago, thus the US went into redistribution to quell the increasingly adamant demands of more and more people to social justice. You are correct, cutting taxes, pumping up military industrial complex money and increasing US debt is DESIGNED to bankrupt the US so the cult of selfishness and greed can stiop paying for system stability…again good luck…

when peoples families starve en masse US cities will burn. Social stability will be ruined which, as Adam Smith would have argued, is terrible for commercial success. Again, I think your ideology is condemning this system to rapid dissolution.

ernie

Talking to God is not crazy (its called prayer), its thinking he’s answering you that’s crazy.

So as for God telling him to invade Iraq, I read the article, then tracked down original quote, and he never said God told him to invade Iraq. Sorry I don’t have a link.

The point is though, that he’s done very little that a big-C Christian might be expected to do. He’s stated he believes in God, and he mentions him occasionally, the same way a Buddist might mention Budda.

Now as for stem cell research, you should now that there are 4 types of research going on:

1. Privately funded using adult stem cells.
2. Publically funded using adult stem cells.
3. Privately funded using embryonic stem cells.

4. Publically funded using embryonic stem cells.

   Bush only controls the publically funded part, and he increased funding for #2, while saying that perhaps #4 should only use already existing stem cell lines. (Stem cells can be grown in vats.) And in fact, he increased funding for #4 as well, given that there wasn’t any funding before that.

   You don’t have to be a right-to-lifer (I’m not) to have grinding up embryos in order to do science give you the willies…(It does to me.)

   The reason that most of the research in the US is being done using adult stem cells is because embryonic stem cells cells have a number of issues that make them more difficult to work with. Specifically, there are certain protiens in embryonic stem cells that prevent them from being useful in many kinds of research.

So it’s not just the moral dimension, embryonic stem cell research can be done with most of the existing embryonic stem cell lines, its just that most reasearchers don’t think it will be productive in the near term to do so.

Adam Smith wasn’t precisely a free market capitalist. He’s been painted that way, but you really should go read him, and think about the historical context. At the time, Adam Smith was arguring against the mercantilists who believed that the way to make a country richer was to invade and take over countries with gold and silver mines, because after all, that’s where money came from.

Substitute “Oil” for “Gold and Silver” and I think you can see why those of us on the right don’t believe in Iraq being just about Oil. Adam Smith pointed out that this wasn’t the way the world worked in 1776, and that most of the governments policies (trade monopolies, high tariffs, regulation on gold/silver trading, limited trade) were making everyone poorer.

That may be “laizzez faire” for the time, but given some of his other statements, I think if Adam Smith were around today, he’d be pro labour union and a bunch of other things we think of as the antithesis of capitalism.

Personally, I think we need to cut taxes, AND spending, and that’s what bugs me about the current administration. But whenever I talk to lefties like yourself, you always think we should cut the military budget, when 3/4 of that goes to salaries, not bombs. Instead, you have some delusion that taxing the rich will somehow create social justice.

It just doesn’t work that way, taxing the rich usually makes things worse, at least during the last 10,000 years of human history it has…