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Most of my fellow Americans want a planned economy, since the Soviet system demonstrated such strength and utterly crushed America to finally end the cold war. I don't quite understand their argument, but that's what it is.

Why does it always have to be either the God-Blessed, American-as-Apple Pie Free (AS IN FREEEEEEDOM!) Market or Evil, Godless, Soul-Crushing Red Commie Totalitarianism?

Is this sort of extremist, black-and-white argument that keeps this country lurching around like a slowing top instead of trying to find the working balance that preserves competition and harnesses self-interest for good while preventing predatory practices and avoiding giving businesses enough rope to hang themselves with in the pursuit of short-term executive profit (instead of sustainable, long-term strategies to grow the company for the next generation).

What we want isn't a "planned economy," but what we also do not want is the Law of the Jungle. Neither situation is truly free.

Technology: US Army Sees Telephone As Possible Terrorist "Operation Tool"

Mike writes:

"A draft US Army intelligence report has identified the popular communication device, the telphone, as a potential terrorist tool. A chapter titled 'Potential for Terrorist Use of Phones' notes that telephoned loved-ones knew of the July Los Angeles earthquake faster than lonely tv-watchers, and activists at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis used mobile phones to keep the police honest. 'Phones are already used by some godless freedom-haters to discuss and/or debate extremist ideologies and perspectives,' the report said. The report goes on to say, 'Terrorists could theoretically use telephones in the US as an operation tool.' Just wait until the Army finds out pen and paper!"

If Grandpa leaves you his collection of hate literature, that's not an inheritance you have to embrace. Ditto for the U.S. Consitution, a document drafted without the input of women, without the input of the poor, and without the input of minorities.

*Originally* drafted....

All of the amendments are actually part of the constitution now, and they were not all so drafted.

I think the apathy about the Constitution among the American people is based not only on simple laziness. The recognition that it's a bigoted document must play some role.

There are several reasons.
Among the religious extremists who have come out of the woodwork since the rise of the threat of "the godless communists" and were put to work against their country and even against their religion by the Republican party, they despise the constitution with every bit of vitriol they can muster. They hate it because it was specifically designed to prevent them from inflicting their religious hatred on others.
What's an easy way to tell if somebody absolutely despises America and every decent thing it ever claimed to stand for? If they say, "America is a Christian nation" or "America was founded on Christianity" then they hate America with all their hearts.

For the people who actually benefit from the Republican party (the very rich), they hate the constitution because it doesn't allow them to rob the people to pay for their own mistakes and hence avoid taking any personal responsibility. It doesn't allow them to keep making up wars for their personal profit and to the detriment of America and the American people. and on and on.

The Democrats hate the constitution because while it guarantees equality under the law, it doesn't guarantee any other sort of equality. It deals with the fact that some people just are better than others at various things and they don't like that. Of course, they enjoy robbing the people blind as well which is another reason they hate it.

So given that the current text of the constitution has eliminated all discrimination (just from itself, not actually in reality or anything of the sort ;-), your argument doesn't really apply. It applied before many of the amendments, but not any more.

Now the fact that unless you're really fucking rich you have no control over your government certainly leads many people to give up the futile efforts, but there's nothing more satisfying than giving a would be ruler a bullet hole where their face used to be, so I'd think more people would be eager to get behind such counter revolutionary activity.

Especially by bears, who we all know are giant, marauding, Godless killing machines.

Blacks in the US *have* to think pragmatically. They can't afford (or they act as if they can't afford, which I wish most folks would do) to elect officials who are going to play shenanigans with their sons' and daughters' bodies in a godless (you heard me) war over oil. Black folk by and large send their sons and daughters to college to get law and medical degree, and they vote for candidates who reflect their interest.

You do realize that what you wrote makes no sense, right? You state that black parents have to worry their kids are going to go off to fight in wars, then state that blacks "by and large" send their kids to law and/or medical school.

Hate to break it to you, but the majority ("by and large") of black kids do not go to either the military or law/medical school.

I've heard statistics from some sources as high as 97% of black voters will be voting for Obama,

Blacks voting for Obama are mainly voting their interest, and Obama is an amazing candidate by many measures. If someone like Clarence Thomas were running for president do you think many blacks would be voting for him? Me neither.

Blacks in the US *have* to think pragmatically. They can't afford (or they act as if they can't afford, which I wish most folks would do) to elect officials who are going to play shenanigans with their sons' and daughters' bodies in a godless (you heard me) war over oil. Black folk by and large send their sons and daughters to college to get law and medical degree, and they vote for candidates who reflect their interest.

In all of the cases you mention, religion was not a major component.

Really? The holocaust did not have religion as a major component? The collaborators, and there were an awful lot of them, were certainly motivated by religion.

The claim that Bosnia was an ethnic conflict with out a major religious component seems disingenuous when the division between the two ethnicity was religion.

Have you read much of the primary sources or quotes of leaders during the cold war? They routinely invoked god and atheism of communism in order to instill fear and motivate the population. The pink scare in the early 1900s was mostly built around the fact that communists were godless or jews.

In his farewell address speaking on America's destiny (ie the conquering of NA) he said:

"May He who holds in His hands the destinies of nations, make you worthy of the favors He has bestowed, and enable you, with pure hearts and hands and sleepless vigilance, to guard and defend to the end of time, the great charge He has committed to your keeping. "

The whole premise of U.S. entitlement to Indian land was that GOD had chosen America. This not empty rhetoric. How else can you convince the masses of people that murder and theft is ok? It truly takes divine intervention to overcome the innate decency of humanity.

However your argument that because religion is not the sole cause of my examples somehow discounts their validity seems absurd. Nothing significant in the politics of humanity has a single cause as it's explanation. Even in your own examples can't meet that standard. Certainly Islam is not the sole cause of those laws- the need for the regime to seem pious, the ability to silence critics, etc are additional reasons for these laws.

The Iraq war- invocation of crusade imagery by Bush, constant rhetoric about gods work by Bush and the Evangelicals. The religious component was inescapable and significant.

I am not saying that Islam is not violent. I totally agree with you that it is violent and oppressive. I am just asserting that Christianity is by nature no better. Religion is violent. The degree to which various religions engage in violence may wax and wane over time (likely corresponding to their influence) but in the end it doesn't matter.

As long as religion is a significant force in Western life, we will be periodically plagued by religious nut job violence.

I'm not a regular protester at any events or anything like that, but I'd rather be shot for defending my freedom than live to see it gone.

But that's not how it works nowadays, is it? By and large you're not going to be given the chance to martyr yourself for liberty. You just get to watch basic freedoms slowly erode away while most people don't give a damn. Your options are either to try to effect change through the political system (good luck with that, you godless nihilist), to start an outright armed revolt (good luck with that, you godless terrorist) or to simply quietly secede and disregard the authority of "your" government to rule you. The last option will pretty much inevitably lead you into conflict with law enforcement, and ultimately you'll be faced with either giving up or taking up arms (good luck with that, you godless nutcase).

So either you're quiet and no-one notices or you're loud and your actions are used to further justify the need for increasingly draconian law enforcement.

If it were not for sex offenders, it might well be that we'd be protecting the children from godless atheists or some other group. Democrats perhaps?

I have already been protecting my children from Democrats.

If it were not for sex offenders, it might well be that we'd be protecting the children from godless atheists...

For that, I thank them regularly for their service to society.

A very salient point: If they're still a danger to society at large, why the hell are they not behind bars?

Answer: Because without a group of people to vilify there is no easy way to sway the mindset of the public at large. If it were not for sex offenders, it might well be that we'd be protecting the children from godless atheists or some other group. Democrats perhaps? The USA system of democracy has been tortured into a shape that requires a evil-doers in order to function. We HAVE to be at war against something or nobody will vote.

Sad but true.... According to Palin, we're engaged in an economic war right now also. Not sure when that was declared or even if the McCain campaign has spoken with her about this new war, but she has announced it. Beheading of Wall street types who don't own at least 3 cars is to begin next week.

Yeah well it's true that the first choices would concern religion, but besides that, in the "godless scientist-types won't laugh it off right off" category that's what you'd come up with I guess.

Read more history. The racists stayed with the Democratic Party for several decades, until they just couldn't stomach some of the things the left was doing. Then they left, reluctantly.

By "the things", you mean the civil rights act signed by Johnson? Heaven forbid those damn niggers be granted equal rights like the fucking constitution guarantees, right? Lost the south for a generation etc. etc. Longer actually as it turns out, but dirt poor dipshits tend to want to blame others for their problems.

Also, note that, traditionally, the "welfare leeches" were, and are, staunch Democrats to this day. Remember, Welfare was also an invention of the Democrats.

Wrong. Welfare, obviously is an invention of the left, but Republicans are the primary recipients. Agricultural subsidies, electricity, internet, phones etc etc etc. all of these are heavily subsidized and the primary recipients are rural states and regions i.e. Republicans by and large. Add in the military which is primarily a welfare scam and it's overwhelming. Then, of course, there's corporate welfare which goes primarily to the very few people who actually are sane (if evil) for voting Republican.

Almost all "red states" are welfare states. That means they receive more in taxes than they pay. Every resident of these states are on welfare. Just because they don't receive GA checks doesn't mean they aren't welfare leeches

Of course, even the "blue' welfare recipients are getting paid primarily by the blues states as they're the ones paying the country's bills, unlike the welfare states.

Wow, that's the first time I've ever been called a lefty! I'm not sure whether to applaud you, or suggest that you're not bright enough to pour sand from a boot with instructions printed on the heel, since I've been posting here for years and years, mostly to the right.

You're the one saying that people unwilling to pay for luxury services should receive them out of my pocket. That's loony lefty. I care sweet fuck all, what other nonsense you've spewed over the years. If you think poor people who refuse to pull their own weight should be paid for their failure out of my pocket, that makes you far to the loony side of left on that topic anyhow. Let me guess, you're a poor religious loon so your left when it means you get my money, but you still want to inject your fucked up hate based religious bullshit into my life, which is extremist right wing nonsense.

Though perhaps, if you're as far right as you sound like (just a tad right of David Duke), I look like the left from there.

Nope, I'm a Liberal as in what the word actually means. not how it's commonly used in America these days. You know, Liberalism, the basis of America? That's the center. I don't like extremist lefties, because I don't like the power of the state being used against me to promote some bullshit interpretation of "equality" and I fucking despise the right, or fascists, because I don't like the power of the state being used to keep the rich and powerful rich and powerful at my expense because they despise equality as in "equal under the law". So I'm in the middle and you seem to be an extremist to the left and right depending on the issue and more importantly the recipient.

Oh, you should also read enough history to know what you're talking about when you discuss religion in this country. From your rant above, you haven't a clue in the world about the subject.

"the United States is in no way founded on the Christian religion" --- Treaty of Tripoli. Passed unanimously and widely celebrated by the Americans of the time. We have fallen far driven primarily by the religious loons coming out of the woodwork with the threat of the "godless communists" They added their god bullshit to the Pledge of allegiance in the 50s dipshit. You obviously don't know a god damned thing about the history of keeping religion out of our government and the critical importance of that to America becoming what it was before the fucking loons

I guess you could point to certain eastern religions like the Jains as having functioned, but they generally get their asses handed to them throughout history.

Based on your perspective, having your ass handed to you could be an acceptable event. You might even feel worse for the ass-hander (the dude shit-kicking you) than you do for yourself, since he's gotta be pretty messed up to have gotten to the point where he feels it's necessary to do the aforementioned ass-handing.

Funny thing is that Islam has an even stronger moral code against killing innocents than Christianity, yet they are the ones which have the least problem with targeting purely civilian populations.

It all depends on how you define "innocent". "Infidel" doesn't really have the connotation of "innocent", does it? To take this to Christianity, "Baby Killer" doesn't really sound too innocent either. Same for "Christ-killer", "Godless Sodomite", $religiously_motivated_slander_du_jour or any other term that propagates the whole "Us vs. Them" mentality.

I don't know much about what Al Franken stands for, but after I saw this he dropped to about zero credibility in my book.

And you just dropped below zero in mine. "Under God" wasn't written in the Pledge of Allegiance, it was added in the 50's to show defiance to those godless communists in the Soviet Union. And saying "God" shouldn't be in the Pledge or on our currency is the most obvious thing in the world, as the Government is making laws respecting a religion - blatantly unconstitutional.

Oh, and did you know the Pledge was written by a Christian Socialist to sell flags?

That's why you take the hose with you when you water your lawn! "GIT OFF ME LAWN YE GODLESS BRATS!" followed by a sufficient dowsing is generally enough.

Are there? Most of the surveys I've seen have scientists as a terrifically godless lot, far less religious on average than pretty much any other segment of society.

This is the very kind of [eggheaded woolly liberal|reactionary anti-intellectual conservative] thinking that has led our country to a [godless communist|theocratic fascist] condition. Surely you will be [sent to hell|purged in class warfare] for your [sins|crimes].

I haven't missed a single one of your points. You continue to try and squeeze a square peg through a round hole. I based my air-powered engine on solid ground that was broken by great scientists YOUR PEOPLE shoved under a rug. And my having religious views well, you should be mature enough to MULTITASK THROUGH IT, not make demands I stop doing it to make you feel better. I had good reason to choosing to speak religion side-by-side with inventions. One of them was to keep God's Name rightfully stamped onto His Creation where it should be just like any inventor stamps his name on a Patent application. By making my inventions integrated with my religious beliefs as a minister of the Holy Bible kept me out of prison there fella. The government could have imprisoned me for the remainder of my life for introducing "Disruptive Technologies" to the Public {there is a law that gives them the right to do that}. So far their law against imprisoning a minister has trumped that law otherwise I would now be behind bars and you would still be ignorant along with everybody else.

You're resorting to name-calling? Calling me harmless? hahaha I'm impacting the entire world right now 9/24/2008 , the world that is thrashing around like the other Terminator in the hot molten tank trying in desperation to save itself from building my God-honoring engines. Apparently they have a deep respect for my "mythological" beliefs that are well-grounded in 5,000 years of previous humanity's ~including Greek and Roman philosopher-thinkers, our early scientists~ believing in them, plus just maybe they realize they AREN'T WORTHY ENOUGH AS HUMAN BEINGS BEFORE GOD'S THRONE TO BUILD THE ENGINES.

i.e. Engines that do not run on fuel but on pre-universe Laws of Physics. Hydrocarbon fuels took a long time to develop and dovetail nicely with the THEORY of evolution eh? But if you use a mixed fuel that indicates a Great Intellect designed everything in this Universe it doesn't tuck its tail under your godless beliefs... so you simply are forced to argue and whine all over SlashDot. Your stunted growth doesn't bother me. I've had an extremely productive day doing God's Work spreading the word that this planet was made a Paradise "In the Beginning" and still is. I packaged my best pdf files of 2008 into one small heat-seeking missile package as I was influenced by God's holy spirit to do this special day of September 24 2008 here: PDF PAGE and I strongly suggest you give some thought to the bottom 6 links on that page before you continue calling my ideas mythology. A preponderance of striking evidence is in my favor. As I stated to you long ago, there is a lot you do not know. Redeem yourself. Read those 6 links. I wish you well but I also pray you insight. The ideas you are choosing to believe over mine you got them from other humans, my equals not my superiors. Plus you're wasting time. Not mine; yours. We have literature explaining how your "scientific" information has problems and therefore amounts to so much brainwashing. You should be reading that. But if not there was a recent SlashDot article explaining how the Carbon Dating is grossly in error. Jehovah's Witnesses knew that 40+ years ago.

Expect the response to be something like: "We don't want to trust our precious elections to a bunch of godless communists."