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Gary
climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Jul 14, 2005 - 01:17pm PT
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LEB wrote about liberals telling people how to live their lives.
"Other than telling us how to live, think, marry, pray, vote, invest, educate our children and, now, die, I think the Republicans have done a fine job of getting government out of our personal lives."
-- Sunday Portland Oregonian
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jul 14, 2005 - 01:18pm PT
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Whitman was actually an honest Republican that was totally abused and hounded because she refused to essentially dismantle the EPA and allow the neocon's [corporate] agenda to drive policy - she made the mistake of allowing science to drive policy; a fatal flaw to folks like Rove.
In the end I very much respect her for her defense of that embattled agency over a difficult two and half years. Her book details how low Cheney, Rove, and Co. will go to achieve their agenda. I personally think she was far smarter than Colin Powell who should have resigned before burning all his currency with that crew who basically used and discarded him.
The fact that the administration has basically been "weeded" of competent and independent-voiced Republican moderates says about everything there is to say about this lot of criminals that currently inhabit the Presidency.
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dirtbag
climber
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Jul 14, 2005 - 01:35pm PT
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Then tell the people you voted for to quit kissing their asses.
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Ouch!
climber
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Jul 14, 2005 - 01:36pm PT
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What Healyje said. Amen.
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akclimber
Trad climber
Eagle River, AK
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Jul 14, 2005 - 01:45pm PT
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"You liberals are so feckin' gullible I wish you were fish, I'd get my limit more often."
That is frickin' hilarious!
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dirtbag
climber
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Jul 14, 2005 - 03:40pm PT
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Jody, if your Prez will stop nominating right-wing judges so far out the American mainstream, the Dems will play ball. Nominate another Thomas and it will be ugly. 68% of the public wants a justice that will uphold Roe: explain to me how nominating another bible-thumping extremist will work in your favor politically.
BTW, you may want to take your dong out of your hand and look at some of the recent poll results for your guy. They aren't pretty. Bush only got 51% of the vote in the first place so that's hardly something to crow over.
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Spinmaster K-Rove
Trad climber
Stuck Under the Kor Roof
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Jul 14, 2005 - 04:50pm PT
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Actually the same percentage of judicial appointements were voted down and fillibustered during the Clinton Administration as now. The only difference is that the Clinton was appointing moderates and Bush is appointing ultra-conservatives. And you guys whine about the Supreme Court but 7 of the 9 were appointed by Republicans. Again, the tactic is to continually complain about things being too liberal even if they aren't, to pull the country further and further over.
Howweird...all you have to offer this forum are ad hominum attacks. At least your brethren have som substantive ideas. Get some actual opinions instead of just making personal attacks.
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dirtbag
climber
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Jul 15, 2005 - 01:56am PT
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Keep it up Jody. The Repubs are just basking in hubris right now, but it always bites back.
"I only want judges that interpret the Constitution, not legislate additions to it. "
Me too. That is why Bush v. Gore is a power-grabbing travesty of the judicial system.
(As for the source, click the link "poll results" in the box title "related" here: http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/07/13/scotus.poll/);
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jul 15, 2005 - 02:16am PT
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We often like to look for a "single cause" why a certain trend is in place. Often, it's a combination of things.
1. Conservatism offers a simple, black and white, set of answers to things that appeals to folks who find ambiguity and relativism unsettling. They may be folks of integrity and strength themselves, but the appeal of the straightforward seems honest and forthright.
2. The religious right finds it easier to latch on to divisive political issues than to learn to love and give to the poor like Jesus taught. Toss them a few bones on Gay Marraige and pretend to be on the road to outlawing abortion (which would create an unfortunate backlash against the right if it really happened) and you have the churches on your side.
3. Folks with real money naturally fall prey to accepting rationalizations about why they should be able to keep as much as possible. It takes all of society and it's infrastructure to enable the accumulation of all that wealth, even if it was grandpa's. But in any case, humans, right and left, tend to care for themselves first and the right wing promises to keep the taxes down and keep regulations off the backs of business.
4. The science, art and technology of manipulating people's minds through advertising and propaganda gets better and better all the time. Also the art of redistricting, and scientifically analyzing election demographics has been refined with polls, stats, and computers The right is better at it these days than the left.
5. Fear leads people to want strong leaders who don't flinch in using the strength of the military. War and violence make us rally around the leaders.
6. Winning elections takes vast amounts of money, even after totally ineffectual campaign finance reform. That means that money is going to get what money wants, whether it's via the Republicans or Democrats. Clinton might have been a Democrat, but if you look at what he did, and looked at his numbers economically and his policies, he would have made a lot of Republicans happy if they weren't allowed to know his party or learn about his partying.
Unfortunately spin is spin. We believe what we want to believe. Sure, your taxes are lower but it's 100% borrowed from your kids. Sure, your business is freer from environmental laws, but your kids or grandkids will pay for that too. The government getting so much closer to Religion is likely to corrupt Religion even further, and the war and violence are not making us safer, but rather making world peace a distant hope. Less dollars are going into social programs but this will cost more in the long run as the common man's society erodes and creates the problems that lack of care bring about. In the meantime, no money is really saved as the military is pumped up with more money that the rest of the world combined spends on their military. The defense contractors are not any more efficient at spending the money than the welfare department, and the results are uglier.
RIght or left, we're blind and not making the choices and plans that might help us through the coming critical time of oil depletion and economic collapse (which would be a big danger oil crisis or not, you can't run a 3-400 billion federal deficit and 5-600 billion trade deficit for too long before it's unsustainable) Climate change is another threat and areas of the South may become residential concrete bunkers from Huricanes over the next 10 years.
God help us, right and left
Peace
karl
Off to the high country, which it's cool!
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jul 15, 2005 - 02:43am PT
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Sorry Dean, I'm outa here.
If I had to argue about everything, it would never end. Time to climb
Peace
Karl
Edit: Ironically, it seems the biggest crossover between church and state that we have is one that is so close to us that we didn't think about it until it became an issue. Marriage. Once we define who can get married based on relgious values, we've made a law establishing a religion. Better to let different religions marry whoever they like and put the state in the legal contracts and agreements business.
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Mountain Man
Trad climber
Outer space
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Jul 15, 2005 - 05:25am PT
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F*#king Commies, hating America first, last and always
If you were a paid Communist agent, you'd be saying the same things.
Men are judged by the company they keep.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jul 15, 2005 - 07:37am PT
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Unfortunately MM, the commies have finally figured out a way to take over the US in a way that we can't resist.
They simply plan to buy us.
Peace
Karl
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Gary
climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Jul 15, 2005 - 10:04am PT
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Lenin said that a long time ago: "The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them."
And the Republicans are the ones selling us out to China. Interesting.
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dirtbag
climber
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Jul 15, 2005 - 10:10am PT
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"Karl, maybe you could answer how this portion of the first amendment is being fairly interpreted, seems like an awful lot of "prohibiting the free exercise thereof" going on.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.."
Well Jody, there have many instances of where states basically sponsor (respect the establishment of) religion. You Christo-fascists are so hypocritical on this issue. You harp about how you support strict interpertation of the Constitution, but when the courts give a literal interpretation and say, "Uh, Dudes, the government is promoting religion here, you're breaking the law." you turn a blind eye.
That nutcase mountain man seems incapable of saying anything except calling those who disagree with him "commies" or "America haters." It shows he has a very weak, feeble mind. Poor guy, I think he's been turned into some kind of Michael Savage-Rush Limbaugh-John Birch-programmed Conserva-Bot/Zombie. What's a matter MM, did your militia buddies realize you are kookier than they are and vote you out of their cave?
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Spinmaster K-Rove
Trad climber
Stuck Under the Kor Roof
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Jul 15, 2005 - 02:08pm PT
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Howweird if you want to live in a monarchy then you are in the wrong country. The President NOMINATES the judges, and the senate actually puts them into power or not. That is called a 'check and balance' on power and it was created specifically because of situations like this one, where a President is elected with an insanely slim majority and clearly does not represent all of the people in the nation. Winning the Presidential election, especially by 100,000 votes or so, does not give Bush unchecked control of the government.
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Chefclimber
Trad climber
Northern Nevada
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Jul 15, 2005 - 02:30pm PT
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Well I can argee with Karl on one point. I don't have time to debate all day. Climbing is more exciting.
Lois, thanks for the backup. You go girl!
It always amazes me how so many lefties get tourqued about Christians. This country was founded on them. Ouch, why don't you stop name calling and write something intelligent. The Ten Commandments gave us guidelines to live by. Showing them in public orgovernment buildings does not sponsor any religion. You and the rest of the wacked out libs sound like a bunch of snot nosed teenagers who don't want to listen to authority. Then they fall on there face and wonder what happened.
The 1st ammendment gives us freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion. When moral absolutes are removed from society the same thing happens, we bite the dust.
The problem with the left is that they have no new ideas. Thats why Kerry lost. He couldn't stop drumming up anti-support for the oppositoion. "Vote for me because I'm better. You want to see my plan for Iraq? Go to my website." Very poor campaign indeed.
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dirtbag
climber
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Jul 15, 2005 - 02:40pm PT
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Sorry, but you're asking the government to pick a favorite religion by housing the Ten Commandments. It is a spiritual text. When one religion is favored, all others are disfavored. That is why the Constitution says that the government can't do that sort of thing.
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Spinmaster K-Rove
Trad climber
Stuck Under the Kor Roof
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Jul 15, 2005 - 02:56pm PT
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Most of the founding fathers were Deists actually.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism
They may have been Christians too, but they were not Christian in the way we think of Christians today, particularly the kind we tend to see on TV lobbying congress or whining about their persecution.
And I'm glad that you see it that way about the 10 Commandments, Chef, because I have been trying to get my art installation 'One Phalice to Bind Them' about Gay unity put in the courthouse in my town. The conservatives in town have been complaining that this would be explicit government support for the 'homosexual agenda.' It would REALLY help me out for them to see some fellow conservatives with a more realistic view like yours. I will send you my petition and maybe you would even consider contributing financially.
And you are absolutely right that the Kerry campaign was horrendous. Kind of sad that your guy only won the electoral college by about 100,000 votes in Ohio and the popular vote by 3 million (2.5 % which is the lowest margin by a sitting President). Isn't that kind of like bragging about your 2 point victory over a retarded kid in 1 on 1 basketball when you have the home court advantage?
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Spinmaster K-Rove
Trad climber
Stuck Under the Kor Roof
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Jul 15, 2005 - 02:56pm PT
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Most of the founding fathers were Deists actually.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism
They may have been Christians too, but they were not Christian in the way we think of Christians today, particularly the kind we tend to see on TV lobbying congress or whining about their persecution.
And I'm glad that you see it that way about the 10 Commandments, Chef, because I have been trying to get my art installation 'One Phalice to Bind Them' about Gay unity put in the courthouse in my town. The conservatives in town have been complaining that this would be explicit government support for the 'homosexual agenda.' It would REALLY help me out for them to see some fellow conservatives with a more realistic view like yours. I will send you my petition and maybe you would even consider contributing financially.
And you are absolutely right that the Kerry campaign was horrendous. Kind of sad that your guy only won the electoral college by about 100,000 votes in Ohio and the popular vote by 3 million (2.5 % which is the lowest margin by a sitting President). Isn't that kind of like bragging about your 2 point victory over a retarded kid in 1 on 1 basketball when you have the home court advantage?
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