Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
MasterP for president!!!
The behavior of the Republican candidates especially in congress makes me not want to identify with the Republican Party. This is why I will always be a conservative first and a Republican second. What people fail to realize is that Rush is not some fringe nutcase that liberals and the media portray him to be. He is a polarizing figure to be sure, but his views are not outside of the conservative mainstream. He spoke for 58 million Americans who voted for McCain (really against Obama) this year when he said that he hoped Obama’s policies failed. I hope they do too. Don’t get me wrong, I want the economy to turn around, I wish Obama success in this matter, however his policies will not do the job. If he decided to cut taxes to stimulate the economy (I mean real cuts, not the “credits” in the stimulus bill.) I would not think twice about supporting him. However asking me to support his policies now is like asking the liberals to have supported the Iraq war. (Even though most of them did at one time.)
We get two whole days off for St. Pats here. So basically drinking and drinking and drinking and then on Saturday… Shinedown and Puddle of Mudd concert and then some more drinking.
“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money to spend.” – Margaret Thatcher
I have long ranted about the uneducated masses who vote for politicians in this country, and I will say I am tempted to follow Brian’s lead and require people to pay federal taxes before they can vote in federal elections. I personally would prefer that they have to pass and intelligence test or at least some sort of quiz on current events. (Like being able to name their representative, senator, maybe a cabinet member of their choice.) However, as tempting as this choice is, I cannot agree with it. Once you start down the road of placing requirements on voting, where do you stop? That takes us to a place where I don’t wish to go as a country.
Also, we have ranted many times about the tax code, but I think it really comes down to a fundamental principle: Who owns what? Does the government own you? Do they own your house? Do they own your money? Do you support the government, or do they allow you to keep some of your money?
I personally believe in private property. What I earn is mine. I can do with it whatever I wish. My income is not the government’s, I pay taxes, they don’t allow me to keep some of my income.
What do you all think? Who really owns what?
So can you tell me how specifically President Bush screwed up this country. What did he do? Here’s my list of things:
1. Signed McCain-Feingold finance reform
2. Passed No Child Left Behind
3. Tried to give amnesty to illegal immigrants
4. Passed Medicare Prescription Drug coverage
5. Passed the bailout
There are reasons I don’t support all of these and there could be more, but I’m just curious what do you think he did wrong, specifically? (Everyone join in and make a list pls.)
.cb new_rayz said:
-The rich aren’t going to be taxed 70% or 90%, EVEN THOUGH they control over 90% of the wealth in this country. And as you may already know, we have a progressive tax for a very good reason. The rich get more out of the government. Yes I am saying it, the rich get more from the government.Beyond all this, the federal budget is top-heavy with corporate welfare. Counting tax breaks and expenditures, corporations and the rich snuffle up over $400 billion a year- compare that to the $116 billion spent on programs for the poor.
Can I take it that you agree that 70% to 90% taxation is unfair? What guarantees are there that the tax rate won’t go up on the rich to those excessive levels? During the 60’s and 70’s the top tax bracket bounced around between 70% up to 90%. These “evil” rich couldn’t stop it then, so I seriously doubt they could stop it now. I guess that they would just have to quit buying their toys like jets and yachts. Oh wait, I forgot, Americans’ jobs depend upon the rich buying these toys. I live in Wichita, KS, the “Air Capital.” When the rich don’t have money for planes, our whole economy goes to *edited*. This affects everyone from the engineers to the assembly line workers to the janitors. Confiscatory tax rates on any segment of the population affect everyone, even if it is not directly.
Corporate welfare is a terrible thing, you and I can agree. However, I believe your numbers are extremely flawed.
Looking at this chart, you can see that, by far, the Department of Health and Human Services gobbles up the most of the budget. I’m not exactly sure what sort of Corporate Welfare they dole out, but I do know that the rest of the welfare, the programs for the poor come through this office. So instead of the “measly” $116 Billion it will be $700 Billion for 2009. That is the cost of the first bailout. Tack on the budget of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Labor and you have a good chunk of our money being spent on welfare, not for the greedy evil rich corporations, but for the poor. In 1964, President Johnson declared war on poverty. 45 years later, after trillions were spent and more being spent each year, we still have poor among us. Before we pull out of Iraq and declare defeat, maybe we should consider withdrawing from a more expensive and longer lasting quagmire.
A word on terrorists. Yes, they were training for their mission here in the US at our own pilot schools, however, they also trained previously in Afganistan, in terrorist “boot camp” if you will.
Just an update… we went with this one.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx…N82E16834149050
Yesterday we were fighting the crowds at our local Circuit City trying to get some deals since they are going out of business and found it for $315. So now I am typing on it and cruising the internet with it. It had pretty much everything I wanted in a net book. The keyboard is good. It has enough usb ports, it has a webcam and mic, etc. The only drawback is that it has a 3 cell and not a 6 cell battery, so we may have to upgrade down the road. I will most definitely be upgrading the RAM to 2 gigs.
YouWinGameOver said:
They did not have terrorist camps however they did fund terrorism and there are blatant showings of it. They also harbored terrorist throughout the last 25+yrs. I hate bringing up 9/11 but because this is a discussion on obama and bush and whoever else I will bring it up again. 11 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia. 11. Terrorists. Saudi Born. And Bred. You can’t tell me that they are not a threat.I am Israeli and have lots of family over there. If we wanted Saddam dead you don’t think we would have done it ourselves? We quarantined his housing unit for over a week before and we’ve done this several times.
We didn’t do anything until 1916 and the war was over in 1918. You can not compare an evil of that time to an evil of this time. Yes I agree there are a lot of similarities but you can not compare it.
I am definitely not saying that the Saudis are without blame, because you are right, they fund terror, they produce terrorists, etc. But you have to divorce the actions of the citizens from the actions of the government. Blaming their government for 9/11 would be like blaming Kansas for the OKC Bombing because McVeigh was from there. I obviously don’t see all intelligence data about this situation, so maybe their government is not without blame as well, but I personally think that the House of Saud is more interested in oil than terrorism.
So far I have succeeded in staying out of this, but I am being drawn in.
Here is how I feel about Obama. I did not vote for him at all, but until he actually does something which I disapprove of I cannot say that I dislike him or that he is a bad president. With that said, judging by his rhetoric on the campaign trail, it probably won’t be long until he does something that I don’t like.
“What I have to ask you is if more then 3/4 of the people who carried out the attacks on 9/11 why did we attack Sadam Hussein and go into Afghanistan? Was it not Saudi Arabia’s fault?”
Good question. Can I infer from this question that you really don’t see why we had to go to Afghanistan? I will assume that you do, so lets deal with Iraq.
It is a fair question why Saudi Arabia didn’t make the invade list, but I can only assume that the fact that its government and the US are friends and it did not host any terrorist camps was probably one of the reasons we didn’t invade.
Iraq on the other hand was different. Obviously, Hussien was not friendly to the US and unfortunately for him had at least one terrorist camp in Iraq. Unfortunately for him, he also had 14 or 15 UN resolutions calling for him to disarm, which he openly defied. Add on top of this to a failed land grab into Kuwait in 1991 and repeated aggression upon the Kurds with WMDs (VX nerve gas. One of the villages that he wiped out was what they charged him with and executed him for.) and you have a pretty bad guy who claims he has WMDs, who has used WMDs, and starts wars to absorb and terrorize neighboring countries.
Now, you may ask how does this affect us? He actually has no WMDs, and even if he did, he wouldn’t use them on us, right? Ignore the obvious humanitarian crisis afflicting his country. Ignore the training camp. The US has allies in that region. As mentioned earlier Saudi Arabia is one, Kuwait is another, Qatar, Israel, etc. Saddam, you could argue, posed no threat to us, but he did pose a huge threat to these others. The threat to Kuwait is obvious, as seen in 1991. Also in 1991, he shot as many SCUD missles as a he had at Israel during the Gulf War. He was going to go after Saudi Arabia next, if the US hadn’t intervened. You can argue about the importance of these allies, whether it be to ensure a stable oil supply or to provide us with intelligence on terrorists, but they are our allies. Ignoring the threat posed by Saddam would be like ignoring the threat of Germany in WWI. The US protects its friends and keeps the peace. The war to remove Saddam was not without mistakes, to be sure, but it needed to be done.
For further proof, look to Bill Clinton. Why would he of all people bomb Saddam unless it was a threat? (Or to divert attention from Monica.)
Liam said:
Awps / Auto Snipers are set to a max of 2 for all maps.I love you Liam.
In a completely platonic way.
Looking good so far.
One suggestion…
We aren’t really going to know how well this works until we play it some, so can we test it for two weeks or so and then throw up another official thread to see if it needs tweaking?
Also, do any of these maps include automatic awp restrictions?
I was waiting for that comment….
Maybe we should let those with as much as experience as you do the spanking…
But then you would be spanking our monkey, and that would be just wrong.
Many thanks to all of you.
#21 is the number reserved for the first nooblet. (That will be a few years.)
Yeah, I’ve seen this house in Wichita, in fact, one of the guys who lives there was at a LAN once. And yes, his dad is an engineer.
The fact that this is legit is almost a win! If anyone is ever looking for the perfect gag gift, here it is. There is no one upping this. This is the peak and summit of gag gifts.
