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Post by tjaman on Dec 18, 2005 21:27:00 GMT -5
Switching over to "Family Guy," myself.
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Post by tickie on Dec 18, 2005 21:28:59 GMT -5
I'm going to watch the Housewives, I missed this episode.
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Post by tjaman on Dec 18, 2005 21:44:21 GMT -5
That redhead looks like her face is Silly Putty!
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Post by Rebelman on Dec 19, 2005 0:50:32 GMT -5
Oh how bemusing it is to see yalls liberal comments.
I suspect a bit too much agreeing here with no solutions. I find that even more bemusing.
I am making an educated guess when I suspect that yall do not like the War or the handling, would I be right?
Does anybody have a grand solution? Immediate pull out and leave people to go wild is not a solution but sounds so magical to say.
I am also making an assumption yall are isolationists? Boy that really paid off in the past. Got us blown up for being idle bags.
We have money, we have homes, we are safer, we really don't have much to gripe about. We got more than most, more security than most, more to eat than most so really no griping to do really.
If we lived in Iraq or Afgan would yall want someone to save yall? Or would you want an opposing viewpoitn to say leave them there to have Saddam put them in the football field to blow there brains out?
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Post by tjaman on Dec 19, 2005 10:31:30 GMT -5
If I lived in Iraq or Afghanistan, I would assume someone was wiretapping my phone, if I was fortunate enough to have one.
As an American, however, I am appalled to learn that thousands of Americans were wiretapped without any kind of due process, Reb. Furthermore, I am outraged to learn that the New York Times knew about this fully a year ago and because of the atmosphere of terror and repression promulgated by this administration, they held the story.
Maybe you're OK with the erosion of your civil liberties -- which we value enough apparently to expend half a trillion dollars in American tax dollars in expanding to people in other nations -- but I am unapologetically not OK with that.
Last I checked, the Fourth Amendment was still the law of our land.
As for the war, I reserve judgment. I recently ran across some information that I personally feel further justifies our intervention, but not to the lengths it has gone and certainly not to the expense it has gone.
George Bush and the Bush family should be forced to pay everything they have in the prosecution of this war. It'd be interesting to see if they felt as strongly about it then.
Sorry, Reb, but half a trillion dollars can buy quite a lot of diplomacy.
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Post by Rebelman on Dec 19, 2005 12:50:46 GMT -5
You said the Al Quida guys aren't given due process. Were the possible Japanese during WWII in concentration camps given this?
This is what President Bush said regarding the wiretappping: ""To save American lives we must be able to act fast and to detect these conversations so we can prevent new attacks,"
Would you not want to be protected? In these times rules change. During the big wars things changed. Its either some or all. Would you rather the possible terrorists be wiretapped for our security or would you rather have all of us wiretapped? Do you have a possible solution.
By the time we go through the Due process as you mentioned we would be having issues again. You know Courts do take forever to get a case on the docket.
And about a withheld. Remember Geraldo Rivera telling Mission troups locations. This applys here. Would you want the terrorists to watch our news and find out about our plans to protect ourselves and our honorable troups?
The tax dollars are necessary in a crisis time. Would you prefer not to do anything or high beyond have them blow us up again only to have us whine and say "why didn't you go there first"?
So you were with Kerry with the no ammunition? We have to have money in order to do things. Give a good stragety other than what is going on for a removal or a slow removal from Iraq.
I don't think a law on the book can make President Bush pay for war expenses. That would be saying Its against the law to protect our country.
We are safer than we were. The Clinton Liberal mainia team you do not complain about doing in advance for this but of course its always better to complain to one that is not liberal.
Thank goodness this country is not majority liberal. The midwest is not, the south is not, rural is not and that is the majority.
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Post by tjaman on Dec 19, 2005 13:38:57 GMT -5
You said the Al Quida guys aren't given due process.
Gotta stop you right there. Get a copy of any paper in the world from this weekend and look at the facts. I'm not talking about Gitmo or al Qaida or anyone like that, Reb. I am talking about any American citizen George Bush wanted to wiretap -- this number is believed to be in the thousands -- he could wiretap.
This isn't actually anything new, Reb. The government can tap a person's phone. What's new about this is that the president didn't get a judge's showing of probable cause.
I really hope I haven't lost you with this. If a judge doesn't review the case, no one is involved in making sure someone's civil rights aren't being trampled on. The checks and balances in our Constitution are there for a reason, Reb.
I can't make this any simpler. The president abused his power to spy on American citizens with no greater cause than his own say so, his own suspicions, and no one gave him the authority to do that. Not the Patriot Act, not anyone.
No. And this was wrong, too. Most of the Japanese who were rounded up and taken to camps up here in the Dakotas were loyal Americans, just like most American Muslims are.
There's a difference between being vigilant and being paranoid, Reb. A big one. And paranoia can get ugly. Just ask any witch in Salem.
That realization was built into the Patriot Act in the form of sunset clauses -- it could be renewed if it was deemed necessary. In light of his overstepping even the Patriot Act, I don't see it getting a lot of support.
This is a very different world than the one on Sept. 10, 2001. And it's a very different world from the one on Sept. 12, 2001.
Anyone arguing things have changed for the better ought to take a peek at our federal budget. Our paranoia, our lashing out, our holding persons of interest indefinitely, our atrocities in Abu Gharib which is certainly one consequence of hatred that grew out of The Attacks, the world's disgust at our sanction of torture now fully four years later, Reb, these are undeniably unfortunate consequences.
Thomas Jefferson said anyone willing to trade liberty for safety deserves neither, and I happen to agree. We've proven that we can respond in defense. Can we now show any restraint?
You have listed about eight straw man arguments. You've essentially said "What, you want us to do nothing?"
I don't advocate doing nothing. I advocate doing something deliberately. Your defense of the president's whiplash policymaking -- someone hits us we hit someone else and hard -- isn't a working solution either.
I'm not going to respond to you any more on this topic. You, Reb, reduce anything remotely complicated into an all-or-nothing reductio ad absurdum and then respond to that.
It's not the argument I'm making, nor is anyone making except maybe Howard Dean and he may be party chair but he doesn't speak for all Democrats -- that four-letter word "liberal" you like to throw at me like it even means anything any more (I'm actually more of a progressive if you insist on labels).
And there's a reason I don't bother with the Debate Kingdom any more and this is why: I tire of debating politics. I know what I believe, I'm not likely to convince any of the other True Believers over there and certainly they react to me like I drank the Kool-Aid.
Well, maybe I did and maybe I didn't. I know what the world looks like to me and I know that right now it saddens me. But all I can practically do is vote. So I do.
The rest is merely banging one's head against a brick wall, which isn't nearly as much fun as it sounds.
Good day, sir.
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Post by Aunt Arlene on Dec 19, 2005 16:03:26 GMT -5
Oh how bemusing it is to see yalls liberal comments.
I suspect a bit too much agreeing here with no solutions. I find that even more bemusing.
When you start a post like that I can't honestly reply without getting a little pissy. That's why I haven't posted here. Saying that you are bemused sounds like you are looking down on us from a very lofty perch.
Not a great way to start a discussion. An argument maybe, but not a discussion.
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Post by Rebelman on Dec 19, 2005 17:20:22 GMT -5
Being snarky at first is the only way to get someone to respond.
No one was discussing just complaining. I am the lone conservative here so I have to fend for myself.
Still no one gave solutions yet.
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Post by tickie on Dec 19, 2005 18:41:47 GMT -5
Well Reb then we're sort of like the President aren't we? What major solutions has he come up with? None. No, he can't be bothered to present "imaginary timetables."
As for being snarky, you know we'd respond to you either way, probably with a lot more generosity had you been polite.
There's no need to fend for yourself. We aren't attacking you, and I don't think we've spoken in a manner that would make it seems as if we were attacking you.
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Post by Rebelman on Dec 19, 2005 20:29:08 GMT -5
But a discussion/debate involves solution proposals. If that wasn't involved it would be a constant who is worse argument.
When I did not like Kerry I did in fact come up with the reasons why with support and with whom I support I come up with supporting details to back myself up.
Just like President Bush. Sometimes extreme measures are needed in these cases. I don't want to turn on my tv and see towers falling again. And if keeing probes on Al Quida or possibles is a way to help us then it is needed. Its either this or act like the solution will solve itself.
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Post by tjaman on Dec 19, 2005 21:16:52 GMT -5
As a point of fact, if you see something going on that you disagree with or disapprove of in the course of national policy, you are perfectly within your rights to say so.
It's not up to me, a random person, to come up with an alternative. I am not in possession of all the information, influences and history involved in this situation, and am certainly not imbued with the authority to implement any alternative solutions were I in possession of them.
I can, however, state forthrightly that I don't think what we're doing is the right solution and call for alternatives.
This president dismisses anyone who disagrees wiith him as being delusional, himself holding forth that he and the people who agree with him are the only ones pursuing the right solutions and are in fact doing the only things they can.
That sound like anyone you're posting as, Reb?
No one has suggested attacking al Qaida with hummus. Not that I think that would necessarily be effective, but still.
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Post by tickie on Dec 19, 2005 21:20:53 GMT -5
Or y'know peace talks. Bush says we have to take action, because talking simply isn't enough.
I know it's not his strong point, however it may be worthy of some consideration.
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Post by GreatMuppetyNick on Dec 19, 2005 21:33:09 GMT -5
Once upon a time, there was a man called Adolph. Now Adolph was a man who loved his Country, and was saddened by the fact that his country was ravaged by "terrorists". Adolph had plans to change that, so that his country would no longer be under the threat of these terrorists. He understood that in extreme times, extreme measures were often called for. He used the secret police to spy on his people, to make sure none of them were traitors to the country. Of course, to him, anyone who disagreed with him, were traitors simply because all he did was for the good of the country, and if they didn't agree with protecting the country. What mattered the rights of the people, if it meant that the majority who supported him were safe.
To the Jews, people who caused the country to be in the state it was then, Adolph persecuted them. These people did deserve mercy for what they had done, or had planned to do. After all, in times of war, one has to do away with the pleasantries.
-- a brief summary of history.
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Post by tickie on Dec 19, 2005 21:39:34 GMT -5
So what you're saying is that we should do away with the law because it takes too much time?
So in what instances should we ignore due process? What about a suspected murderer. I mean if we take the time to adhere to the constitution he may get out on bail and kill again. Do you propose we get rid of the due process clause?
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