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McCain Releases Technology Platform
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "John McCain has finally released a technology platform. Most of it is the same old stuff; lower corporate taxes, protect children from porn, and avoid Internet regulation unless 'necessary.' Alas, in his view, helping the RIAA's War on Sharing is necessary to stop the 'global epidemic' of piracy, while Net Neutrality is something he 'does not believe in.' Ars Technica has a review of McCain's platform."
A brief analysis is also available from Federal Computer Week. In addition to the technology policy, McCain has also released a paper describing his stance on security and privacy. We've previously contrasted his views with those of Barack Obama. Obama's technology policies are also available online.
Yay for contradictions?
I think you missed the point. While it is nice of you to enhance the blogopshere comment with a bold font, that was not his subject. He was obviously speaking about the tendency of youth to dominate the conversation about anything and everything as if they knew the best approach and all others had nothing to offer. In fact, what he is implying here is that it is important to listen, especially to experienced individuals, but listen. That does not reduce the value of a blog, it puts it in context of "where, or from whom,do good ideas come from"?
no comment
Come on, now; don't be intellectually dishonest. He's not mocking individual expression; he's mocking what many people perceive to be the stereotypical self-important blogger attitude. I suppose it's fitting that your reaction seems to fit this stereotype. I am not voting for him, but I found that whole diatribe fucking hilarious. There are more than enough legitimate things to criticize McCain over; this excerpt from his speech is not one of them.
It's funny because I generally agree with him. Many people, young or old, think they know what is best for others. They're inclined to step in and dictate how others should run their lives, how other countries should run their governments, and generally how the world would be so much better if either (a) people would just listen to their insights or (b) people would give them the power to enforce their insights on others.
So, perhaps he had the right idea, that he himself didn't know everything. The problem is that he took that insight and, still assuming he knew everything, extrapolated that out to be an issue of age and wisdom. A wise man knows he is a fool. He does not force his foolishness on others. Instead, it is in his wisdom that he only answers the questions of those who seek him out. For even if he gives a foolish answer, he is merely provided what is asked of him. Such is the paradox of politics and having wise men as leaders in a democracy.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
If you are basing your vote solely on technological issues in a presidential election, you really need to get out more. There are much more important issues that the President should be considered about (economy, jobs, defense, etc).
I'd agree with you, except that right after the blog line McCain said he "would have felt very much at home in the medium", obviously taking a cheap shot at bloggers as people who "dominate the conversation about anything and everything as if they knew the best approach and all others had nothing to offer."
The original poster very much got his point, methinks.
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
I knew this kind of position was coming as soon as he said he didn't know how to use a computer. He obviously doesn't understand the issues, so naturally he is just going to default to his party's (or contributor's) position.
If I were in his place and somebody asked me to formulate a position on farming, I would do the same thing. That's why it is important to look at what party a candidate belongs to and who is giving him money.
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
And McCain is a big loser on all those fronts also. The economy is not his bag, man. Said so himself. Be ready to bail out another Lincoln Savings and Loan or three. And He's a warmonger. Not that the other guy is actually any better. Time to vote the party out.
What?
Arguably one of the worst leaders in the tech industry. It's no wonder his technology positions don't make any sense. That's like picking Jeffery Skilling as an energy advisor...wait, he doesn't need him, he's got Phil Gramm. With the added advantage that Gramm isn't in federal prison...yet.
Let's just pick the most incompetent, corrupt people from every industry we can find and bring them together in one party. It's no wonder his positions on technology don't make any sense. A classic case of the problem dictating the solution.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
he's mocking what many people perceive to be the stereotypical self-important blogger attitude.
I believed that to be especially true with many of my elders, people whose only accomplishment, as far as I could tell, was that they had been born before me,
What I believe he was implying is that children should be seen and not heard. Of course his definition of 'children' seems to extend to all bloggers, regardless of age. Of course the First Amendment gives freedom the press, but doesn't tell us the definition of "Press", but I really doubt if the Framers meant "Government sanctioned and licensed persons"
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
I don't think the GOP really wants the average citizen to have that kind of power.
And don't believe for a New York second that the democrats are any better. Both are authoritarians who think that ignorance is strength.
What?
Violating other people's legal rights is not "sharing".
Granting legal rights of excessive scope and duration is not "good government" either, especially when sites such as opensecrets.org demonstrate the bribery that prompted things like the Bono Act and the DMCA.
Grow the fuck up, asshole.
Nor is comparing somebody to an anus "civil".
How about, "I'll protect the American consumer, and I'm against net-neutrality[sic]"?
Let me guess:
You are a young man
You are quite infatuated with self-expression, and rightly so because, you are so much more eloquent, well-informed, and wiser than anyone else
You understand the world and the purpose of life so much more profoundly than most people.
You believe that to be especially true with many of your elders, people whose only accomplishment, as far as you can tell, was that they had been born before you and consequently, had suffered some number of years deprived of your insights.
You have opinions on everything, and you are always right.
You love to argue, and you can become understandably belligerent with people who lacked the grace and intelligence to agree with you.
With your superior qualities so obvious, it is an intolerable hardship to have to suffer fools gladly. So you rarely do.
All their resistance to your brilliantly conceived and cogently argued views proves is that they possess an inferior intellect and a weaker character than God has blessed you with, and you feel it is your clear duty to so inform them.
You and your Floppy, Hoppy Bunnies feel very much at home in the blogosphere.
Gee you're right, he must be TOTALLY wrong. I'm convinced.
-Styopa
He's implying--stating fairly clearly, in fact--that children think they know everything. I'm only 24, but in my experience, even looking back on my own actions, that tends to be true. I'd like to think I'm past it, but who knows if I'll think the same of myself a few more years down the road. Regardless of its truth, though, it's a societal meme in the same vein as "teenagers think they're invincible," so I wouldn't go so far as to ascribe anything to it specifically.
To be honest, I'm not even sure the comment about bloggers should be considered more than a joke. It's two sentences at the end of a fairly long paragraph; twenty words out of two hundred--out of 3500 if we're counting the entire text of the speech. I checked out the link to the whole speech and while I didn't read it all, that wording is at the end of a paragraph with the next paragraph about him not being so sure of himself as an older man. It would have helped to hear the delivery, I think, but at the moment everything points to it simply being a joke.
You post on slashdot... That means you have a greater that 80% chance of thinking Obama isn't liberal enough, never mine McCain!
Uhhh, please explain. Slashdot is generally pretty right-libertarian leaning. Hardly 80% strongly liberal.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Maybe I'm just reading different posts than you are but I can't recall the last time I saw a post supporting a conservative view point that didn't get flamed.
I'm a registered Republican, so maybe I'm just focusing on the posts I agree with that get tarred and feathered, and the ones I strongly disagree with that keep getting modded +5 insightful.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
How does either candidate expect to move interest in science forward in the US when you can no longer: a) buy a home chemistry set, b) you end up with government agents raiding your house if you have a LEGAL home chemistry lab (ala Mass.), c) experimenting with home-built fireworks or small-scale explosives is now an act of "terrorism"?
No kids are going to get interested in science anymore because all of the cool things we did as children to pique our interest in science are now illegal or acts of international terrorism.
Duris MUD - The best pkill MUD. Ever.
Making fun of me is fine (and I think I'm all those things, except "young"!)
McCain was mocking and denigrating unsanctioned argument as a whole.
If you were really such a nerd, maybe you would realize the the logical fallacy in your post.
I just destroyed you.
It's worth remembering that technology is a huge factor in the US economy, jobs, defence, (privacy/spying, civil rights, scientific progress...) etc. - so the topic is quite important.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
I'll reply to this as an AC rather than moderating you then. The average political post seems to center around a few things...
1. Protection of the little guy - stop allowing big corporations to use the law/lobbying to create an unfair environment. See DRM, Patent trolls, subsidies given without stipulation and no-bid contracts. Most think it's ridiculous you can patent a seed to which you found in a government vault, which they obtained from the wild. You can.
Enforcing a free market is a conservative value.
2. Government staying out of our personal lives. This would fall under the small government category/give us personal freedoms. These are views in keeping with the constitution/bill of rights. I'd say that the constitution has a Libertarian feel to it. This isn't the viewpoint of the Republican party, so you have us there.
3. Most of us don't seem to be for most welfare in it's current state, view SS and medicade as a fiscal disaster in need of much revamping, etc. Conservative/Libertarian.
I think in general we're all for a competent government, whatever form that may be, so long as it will stay competent/for the people. As a Republican you do realize that in the past 20 years, your party has changed drastically. Government debt goes up the most during your terms, often setting new records. Not fiscally conservative.
In terms of the past 8 years, we're tired of the government being very competent at taking away the rights we're guaranteed to have in that "goddamned piece of paper". We're tired of how competent they are at lying, but incompetent they are at leading. They're experts at returning favors for those who gave them money or ran their political party, but they fail horribly of their ONLY responsibility, which is to uphold and defend that piece of paper. They spit on the hundreds of thousands who have died to defend this country and its ideals and the people who have given them the power in the first place.
Maybe that's why we appear liberal. We cannot stand the current adminstration, and if your quote is any indication, you are a traditional republican. I suggest you check out the Libertarian party's main points, http://www.lp.org/platform, as they are more in line with traditional Republican viewpoints. The one main area you might disagree on is the US's role in the world.
He needs to be in a retirement home, not the Whitehouse
Yes, we're much better off with a president who thinks we should have the UN Security Council issue Very Stern Words towards Russia over their actions in Georgia... you know, a president who doesn't understand that Russia has a veto-enabled seat there, and can simply shut such things down. It's that sort of clueless grasp on foreign relations and international issues that makes an inexperienced smoke-blower like Obama a non-starter. Compare their initial reactions to that turn of events. McCain spoke his mind immediately, and has not changed it. Obama started out with a "why can't we all just get along - they need to show restraint" comment, and complained that McCain was "shooting from the hip" and being too aggressive in criticizing Russia. A day later? Obama had "refined" his position to echo exactly what McCain (who actually understands what's going on and who the players are) had already articulated.
Doesn't matter, right? Change! All we need is Change! Doesn't matter from what, or to what, of course. Just CHANGE! Change we can "believe in!" What a bunch of vague, useless, pandering crap. When forced to actually talk detailed substance, Obama has to give in face real issues realistically, and it annoys his leftist supporters who like him most when he's a blank slate that they think will do what they tell him to. If he actually gets the job, they're in for a real shock, because even though he's going to fall on is face learning as he goes, by the time he actually gets around to doing the job of C-in-C, he's going to have to do a lot of back pedaling on his vaporous campaign semi-promises.
Being old enough to know how things work and what's actually at stake is bad as far as you're concerned? I'm sure you'd rather the office of president was available to college freshmen.
the technology they are about to regulate
Do you actually even understand what Congress does, and which party is running it? Maybe if you weren't so old, your mind would be clearer.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Abstinence is the only proven method of not contracting STDs. The only way.
I'm sorry, my friend, but if you're going to slut it up... you're going to pay the price. All the latex and gels in the world won't give you the same protection as abstinence.
The problem is it only works in theory. In reality, on large scales, even kids with abstinence rings end up doing it, and getting pregnant or catching a STD. The reality is, most people just have to get laid, no matter what you say or what they say, they're gonna do it. All you can do is make sure the ones who will do it will do it properly. Pretending that it's as easy as not doing it is sticking your head in the sand. Abstinence alone isn't enough. You also need to be completely reliable, which is foolish to assume from anyone. Or very unattractive.
You just got troll'd!
I want to have whatever it is that you're smoking/injecting/snorting. If you say anything on Slashdot that does not strictly adhere to liberal-leftist religious dogma, you get modded down. Simple as that.
You're right, we need a President who is very concerned about the Iraq/Pakistan border. I'd also like him confuse Sudan and Somalia, after all, they are like the same thing, right?
McCain, at one point, may have known his stuff. But he has lost it. There is already a very long list of these gaffes. Is this the kind of face you want America to have?
Because he knows so little that he hired Carly Fiorna as one of his chief economic advisers? Does not bode well...
Doesn't need to be an expert on everything, but it would help if he could actually identify proper experts to hire.
Is this the kind of face you want America to have?
Actually, I want that "face" to be driven by actual principles. Obama avoids showing his at all costs, and when they do show, they're contradictory, or imply a very shaky house-of-cards case of mixed premises. Whatever intellectual horsepower or rhetorical elegance he posesses is being applied to and is in the service of a very patch-work, self-defeating, confused set of principles. THAT is not the face I want America to have. He doesn't know himself, and is very careful to hide how he actually feels about a lot of things, because he knows that he has to tap-dance around issues like his crazy, race-baiting friend the preacher and what tolerating/encouraging him for 20 years (including his children's formative years, listening to him blather every week) says about his world view.
Are you really looking for a gotcha contest on mispoken names or recollections? Is that how you'll evaluate the deliberative decision-making perspective that a person brings to being the C-in-C? We're not hiring a spokesmodel (though that seems to be what a lot of people think the job is about - how embarassing). People don't need an inspirational president, they need a competent one who actually knows who he is and what he stands for. Leave it to the lefties to imply that it's the government's job to be the source of inspiration and cultural guidance lacking in homes that use their Wii and the Cartoon Network to raise their children. No, I'd rather leave the cultural polishing to the people IN the culture, and have them hire someone as president because he's been around the block enough to do the job right.
Someone like Obama, who claims to be "post partisan" while in the same breath saying that his political counterparts are idealogically unseparable from "failed ideas" is just plain funny. He's far MORE partisan than his opponent, and utterly slavish to a very loud, far left minority. Is THAT the face you want for America? A poll-following pretty boy who hates to be asked what he really thinks lest he have to actually get pinned down on specifics? No thanks.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Ask yourself this, if California voted to seperate from the US how do you think your government should respond?
You seem to be something of a student of history. How is it that you missed what happened when separtists in numerous states in the US tried seceding? Why ask about just a hypothetical California case when you can look up what actually happened last time that issue really came up? Essentially, the US did exactly what Georgia just did... they went after the violent sepratists to put them out of business. We had a years-long civil war over just that issue, and the separists that tried to pry the country apart lost in their efforts.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I have been having this discussion with people older and wiser than I IRL for a while now.
When I was younger I was able to vote FOR something or FOR someone, that seems to have gone away but it is likely that my blinders have been removed.
I'd vote Libertarian or Green Party but, well, those people are often pretty insane. I'd vote Democratic because that was better, I thought, that Republican. In the last election I actually voted (not presidential) for Olympia Snowe because of what she has done and what she continues to do to work for the State of Maine.
Here we are with a new election and I'm not seeing anyone worth voting for. I could, and would, vote for a third party but that is akin to throwing my vote away in the current environment. That's an unfortunate reality but it is real regardless.
I would abstain but that, to me, is tantamount to treasonous behavior. It is my duty to vote, it is my job, it is a requirement for me personally. As a side note, it pisses me off when I hear people complain about the current government and they tell me that they didn't vote.
We have had some decent percentages for turn out lately and it would be nice if there were more. The Australian's have to vote or they risk varied penalties I understand. Our situation isn't quite like that but I think it would be good if it were to mimic that. I think, and this is just a guess, that if more people were actually voting (and a broader exposure was a given) that we might actually be able to come up with a third party system where we would get results. Maybe...
A lot of it is just getting to the point where I'm disheartened. It makes me unhappy that I'm ashamed because of my choice in the next election. I shouldn't be ashamed but this election is a case of me voting for the least likely to ruin my country. For me, because I don't want more regulations and I don't think I need a nanny state, I'm likely to vote Republican because I suspect McCain will be busy with "more important things" and not doing stuff like regulating fatty foods or kowtowing to PeTA.
That I have to be ashamed of my vote, that I have to hold my nose and vote, that I have to vote against something - which is not the same as voting for something, is bothersome to me.
When I was younger I was voting for something and, perhaps I'm just seeing more now - age does that they tell me, this time I'm unable to actually do that. I don't like McCain, I don't want him to be president. I sure as hell don't want the alternative.
Sometimes I wonder if it has reached the point where I need to move and I actually research it but I can't find anything better so I haven't.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Abstinence has been REPEATEDLY shown to not be an effective way to control the spread of STDs or prevent pregnancy in populations. The problem is that people just aren't willing to be abstinent, even when they are educated about the risks of sex. It's certainly inconvenient that people aren't willing to be abstinent, but society needs to face that reality and deal with it, rather than continuing to fantasize that we can control the spread of STD and pregnancy with abstinence programs.
I love it when Baby Boomers get on generational tirades like this. It has genuine comedic quality about it, particularly given how ridiculous and hypocritical it is.
But since you seem to be a true-believer, let me clear it up for you, old timer. "Young people" are, knowingly or not, rejecting the flawed assumptions and unjust laws that have effectively attempted to privatize human culture for the benefit of a greedy few at the very top of content distribution companies who are better at bribing the legislature than serving their own customers. What you describe as pathological compartmentalization is, in actuality, the very natural returning shift in public values to a more balanced, modern view of copyright protections. In short, the pendulum is finally swinging back towards the social-contract view of government-granted, temporary monopolies described in Article I section 8 of the constitution, which references not the "rights" of companies or starving artists but the "progress of science and useful arts".
-Grym
Try "nuanced"; read his second book for a better understanding -- not only of the principals in question, but of the importance of considering multiple points of view (as opposed to only a single, black-and-white view of the world based on one particular set of partisan principals) in making positions.
Can viewing the world in shades of gray lead to a charge that one must have a (presumptively black-and-white) view which is inconsistent, constantly shifting, "patch-work" or "self-defeating"? I suppose it may... but that doesn't prevent it from being The Right Thing.
The whole thing would go a lot faster if they'd just tell us who they were going to select as their various advisors and whether or not they were going to listen to them.
Hopefully not too many people are deluded into thinking that the President actually makes his own decisions, rather than leaning heavily on advisors and other departments.
shades of gray
Don't you understand? Obama is completely black-and-white in his assertions that his political opponents are wrong, wrong, wrong about how they see things. His completely, unshakably clear on how wrong everyone else is. That's pretty black-and-white. Saying that one should "consider all sides" while also saying "the side on which my opponents live is wrong, and is a failure, and we must stop it" is - by definition - hypocrisy. He's "considering" other sides just long enough to 100% black-and-white dismiss them. He's NO different than his opponents in that sense, except that he's pandering to the warm-and-fuzzy crowd, who don't pay very close attention, by saying that he's post partisan and open to discussion, etc. He's trying to have it both ways, and that's the simplest demonstration of his immaturity you could ask for. He's happy to entertain multiple points of view, as long their all his, and don't upset the money-raising engine on the far left. This isn't limited to him - all candidates do it. The difference is that even as he's doing it, he's lying about his commitment to not doing it. That's what he's made of: deceit, right out of the gate, on the very thing that he claims makes him different.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
1st amendment (which protects _political speech_ and no other type)
I see this assertion on Slashdot here now and again, and while I'll certainly agree that political speech was probably the type of speech which the Founders were most concerned with protecting, I see no basis for the assertion that that was all the First Amendment is meant to protect. Quoth the Constitution:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Seems pretty broad and universal to me.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
And avoiding contact with all people is the only way of avoiding being killed by someone. Fact. Doesn't mean it isn't completely stupid and illusory. Sorta like communism. Right?
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Ok, let me get this straight...
1. My initial post is modded Flamebait because I assert that most posters to Slashdot are ultra Liberal.
2. It is pointed out to me that my impression of the general slant of Slashdot members is not accurate. (I wouldn't consider that flamebait, but that's just me)
3. In response to this correction, I admit that my impression is probably colored by my own tendency to focus on certain topics.
4. You vilify every person in the US who considers themselves conservative, which based on the last presidential election is roughly half of the people that bothered to get out and vote.
... And I am the "scumbag"?
This sort of hostile vilification of those "different from yourself" is the cornerstone of racism/anti-semitism/etc. that lead to political coup's, ethnic cleanings, civil war's, and further intolerance (those who were previously tolerant become intolerant as a defensive measure).
You're attaching everyone from a political party because of your dissatisfaction with the current administration. You have NO IDEA who I voted for in any election, unless of course you can read minds through the internet. You don't know whether or not I agree with any stance that the current administration has made, or whether I'm a member of the Republican party because or in spite of Bush.
Like most people I'm conservative on some issues and liberal on others. It's not so black/white as you are making the liberal/conservative issue out to be. I joined the Republican party 10 years ago because the issues that mattered most to me were best represented by the "general" platform of the party, not the platform of any individual politician.
I think you need to talk to a counselor about your hostility issues, maybe get a valium prescription, get laid, something because your reaction to my post was way over blown and disproportionate.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
No, it isn't treason but to me it is treasonous - more so in my case than in most I suppose. (Military. Marines to be more accurate, thus I always vote.)
If I voted for what I believe I'd be writing in a candidate and, well, that'd be a waste in this campaign and any other presidential election.
I really wish there were a viable third party to vote for.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Don't forget he had Phil Gramm, who enabled Enron's outrageous business practices through deregulation-- the same deregulation law is suspected to be a major cause of the credit/subprime crises. Notice, Gramm tried to downplay "recession" hysteria because he helped draft and promote that bill! Gramm's history as far as his position in the campaign is concerned, but his overly business-friendly policies are generally still in place.
"We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
I've been screaming for it for years. If the Green Party and Libertarians hadn't put up nut-jobs and didn't have such extremist views I suspect they'd do better. I'd like a decent Independent candidate to vote for. Those parties have no numbers and thus have no money and thus have no exposure. If they aren't in the pockets of big business they aren't getting any media coverage and Average Joe doesn't get to know anything about them.
The two party system sucks and the third parties aren't really very good at getting a candidate that people will actually vote for. Sucks, really.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
The hypocrisy is stunning. They don't want to be told what they can and can't do online (including burning a huge portion of the available bandwidth while ripping off entertainment), but they want the ability to tell a business that builds and sustains a network how they should operate it.
Your hypocrisy is stunning.
The ISPs didn't build and sustain the networks. We the people were robbed at gunpoint to pay for them to do so. They refused to deliver what we already paid them to do and instead siphoned off the money to executive salaries and bonuses.
So until they deliver what they lobbied to force us the pay them to do, they have no rights and no legitimate authority over *our* networks.
If they wanted intelligent, informed people (unlike yourself) to support their right to own their network, then they should have actually paid for it themselves. So by your delusional statement that they should be allowed to screw over my use of *my* property which *I* paid for you demonstrate not only hypocrisy, but the belief that you, me and everyone else in the country are nothing more than the slaves of whoever bribes the government enough.
You really should consider relocating to a country like China or Saudi Arabia where they already share your values rather than trying to drag this country whose values you despise down to their levels. It is, of course, the ethical thing to do which is why I'm not holding my breath waiting for you to do it.
the pendulum is finally swinging back towards the social-contract view of government-granted, temporary monopolies described in Article I section 8 of the constitution
Which provides, in which way, for legal cover when millions of kids grab ripped-off copies of a newly released recording the day after the musician in question publishes it for sale?
social-contract view
So, an artist who spends years putting together a recording, or novel, or opera, etc., has no social contract upon which to lean? Only the people who want the material at no charge get to invoke that concept in the spirit of pendulum-swinging? If you don't like the fact that your favorite musician wants to charge you for their work, walk away. The only social contract that matters here is the one where the people who want the artist to work for them either meet what that artists asks as a price, or they take their entertainment-buying dollar elsewhere. You're doing your level best to excuse people from ripping off the entertainment they want because they can. Songs for a dollar? A movie appearing on your TiVo for $1.99? The horror! It's a good thing that we have earnest young rebels willing to forward the useful arts by ripping that stuff off, instead.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
2) You have friends that would engage in a race war? Man, that says a lot about you. The fact that you haven't brought this to the attention of the police shows you're a coward and an accomplice.
Dude, get back on your meds. Shooting Republicans in the face is about the most patriotic thing it's possible to do in this day and age.
No. Inspiring the next generation of poor, angry, anti-American would-be-terrorists is not keeping us safe, it is setting us up for long-term failure.
Day to day life has been devastated for many in the middle east, with aggressive US foreign policy as the catalyst (if not cause). Rightly or wrongly, it gives a new generation someone on which to assign blame for the problems they face.
Bush's bandaid will fall off sooner or later.
If we start buying CDs then the terrorists have already won.
Let me amend myself a little:
Your "Facts" are not facts at all! They are assertions based loosely on actual facts in evidence, and more on conjecture and rhetoric.
If half of the country is conservative, then they can't be unamerican, becaase they are HALF OF AMERICA!
Religion, political opinion, and other perspectives that relate to world view are primarily influenced by the household someone grew up in. I gave examples of religious, and political persecution as well as racial persecution, and I didn't even mention sexual preference.
This to you means I'm a closet racist and trying to project those beliefs on you. Once again you are claiming knowledge not in evidence. My step father is part cherokee, my Mother's maiden name is Gonsalves, my wife is half Korean, and my biological father is 100% Polish (racial jokes about Pols were very common in my neighborhood growing up, and I kept my fathers heritage a secret for many years). I chose to work with a Nigerian professor for my MS and PhD in a lab where over 6 years I've worked with, and befriended 3 Nigerian, 2 Ghanaian, 1 Korean, and only 2 American graduate students. I've experienced the pain and suffering that is caused by prejudice in general and racism specifically, and will not accept it from anyone! So FUCK YOU YOU IGNORANT PRICK.
You are full of irrational hate for individuals that disagree with you. You want my opinion on political issues? ASK ME! Don't put words in my mouth, I'm more than capable of taking responsibility for expressing my own beliefs.
I don't judge individuals based on their religious/political/ethnic/sexual affiliations or preferences. YOU on the other hand do. Your judgement of me based solely on my statement of political affiliation is the definition of bigoted based on the definition supplied by Leopard.
bigoted |ËbigÉ(TM)tid| adjective obstinately convinced of the superiority or correctness of one's own opinions and prejudiced against those who hold different opinions : a bigoted group of reactionaries. â expressing or characterized by prejudice and intolerance : a thoughtless and bigoted article.
You claim that Republicans are the single biggest threat the to the safety of the US, yet Republicans make up the vast majority of those willing to lay down their lives to defend this country. My step-father served in the marines, both of my brothers and my uncle (mother's family) are currently serving in the military. Your free to say the hateful crap you spew because the military defends this country you claim to love so much and they are predominantly the Republicans you hate so much. I also abhor the use of torture, I have family in the military and fear any of them being taken captive and tortured because of the widespread evidence torture being used by the current administration.
You also claim that I support a Theocracy. I do not, the religious right is a much smaller portion of the party than the media makes it out to be. I haven't attended church in over 10 years if you discount the 7 or 8 weddings I've attended in that time. In fact, over the last 15 years I've made the transition from Believer, to Hopeful skeptic, to strong skeptic, to currently a borderline atheist. It is one of my biggest deviations from the part line, that I don't believe religion has any place in politics. I support Sex-ed and think Abstinence only programs are a recipe an explosion of teen pregnancy. While I support the rights children and teachers to pray at school if they choose, I don't believe their should be a formal moment for praying that others are forced to participate in. I agree whole heartedly that the US was founded by people looking for religious freedom, I'm originally from Massachusetts and grew up going to Plymouth rock every couple of years on field trips.
Being a Republican from Massachusetts impressed upon me the importance of political tolerance because I ran
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde