but I bet you don't have any problem at all with the tea party jackoffs toting assault weapons at anti-US government rallies. I bet you didn't see a thing wrong with a bunch of over-compensating gun fanatics trying to hold a rally on the Capital Mall.
Did they proclaim that no one of a particular race should approach unless a particular point of view is supported? Were they brandishing their weapons in a threatening manner? No. Did they have permits? Does the Constitution, the only document that gives the government any legitimate power, expressly give them permission to carry the guns? Yes. So, what's your point.
You all want to piss and moan because there's a black man been elected president. You scream and shit on the floor when you get called a racist, but the only black people at your rallies are the four who've been hired to speak. Don't you know that the corporate powers that are trying to ruin this country are just using your racism to achieve their own agenda?
So asking that the Federal government be responsible with taxpayer's money is racist? Any and all opposition to this aggressively liberal President is racism? Was the opposition to Bill Clinton's push for a federal takeover of healthcare racially motivated, too? Was the Conservative Revolution of '94 racially motivated, also? I suppose the ethics reviews making their way through Congress at the moment are also racially motivated?
Do you even know what racism means? Here's a hint:
your white-trash party
In fact, there are some indications that this "conservative tsunami" reached it's high water mark back in April and the momentum isn't going your way any more. Remember, "enthusiastic" voters still only get their votes counted once.
AARP has a few lobbyist up there. Representatives of unions are crawling all over the place and meet with the President regularly. The NRA has a few people there talking to various Congressmen. Are they there to protect the corporate exec's interests also?
An unimportant mistake? Really? The keepers of the law are so out of touch that they are voting on a bill with no name and no content? And this from the "most open Congress in history"?
And you think Americans would be any happier in a European style socialist utopia? Get a grip, dude. Americans are unhappy because they haven't yet built a small company into a multi-billion dollar a year enterprise. Americans become unhappy when things are given to them (studies of lottery winners). We have a cultural ethos of achievement. YOU CAN'T BE GIVEN ACHIEVEMENT.
So, I look at the way things are done in Europe, and I get a wrenching feeling of disgust in the pit of my stomach. I don't mean to offend with the word, but it literally a feeling of revulsion. "You just expect stuff without working for it? And then you let the government lord over you like a paternalistic nanny? And you're happy with that?" I would be constantly fighting against the state, and would eventually be shot for building my own submarine or some such foolery that the bureaucrats didn't think was safe and I refused to jump through red tape to get a permit for.
I was unhappy that my business failed last year. I would be absolutely suicidal in Europe.
Actually, George W. Bush appointed the Attorney General who "released" the man who was rumored to have threatened voters. It was the Bush Administration that decided not to bring charges against the "New Black Panthers" because they could not find a single voter who felt that they were being intimidated or didn't vote.
That is blatantly and demonstrably false. Even this apologist for Shabazz disagrees with you.
"shortly before the Bush administration left office in January 2009, the civil rights division filed a civil lawsuit alleging voter intimidation by both men, plus their chairman and their organization."
And what a limp apologist the guy is.
A video of the men, posted online, showed them dressed in paramilitary clothing. One, identified as King Samir Shabazz, carried a billy club.
But consider this: The polling place was in a majority-black precinct that has long voted Democratic. Most of the voters there hardly needed to be intimidated into voting for Obama.
Oh, I get it. Everyone was going to vote for the black guy anyway. So the guy standing outside with a club yelling racial slurs didn't have any effect....Whatever.
The current attorney general decided not to bring civil charges for the same reason. You can't convict someone of depriving someone of civil rights if you can't find anyone who was deprived.
You can't? Then how did the government get a judgement against Shabazz? Holder's office dropped the charges while the case was awaiting SENTENCING.
The whole New Black Panther "controversy" is a scandal created by the likes of Breitbart and Fox News. I'm surprised you fell for it, actually.
No, it is a legitimate story being buried by leftist and "I feel a tingle in my leg" progressives that want to ignore the racism among black Americans.
See you at the pole in November. Say "Hi" to Keith and Rachel for me.
I was responding to your last statement. "Why can't we have pure motives?"
We can't, because we're all different people motivated for different reasons. If you waited for "pure motives" it'll either never happen or will be "OMG! The sun is exploding" 8*)
You seem to believe that Americans are not happy and prosperous with the way we are doing things. In a truly American way, I thank you for your concern for my welfare, and would remind you to look to your own affairs foremost.
I thought the example of Colorado Springs was most instructive: a city that has to turn off one third of their street lights, and had to auction off police helicopters (and cut police jobs) because the ratepayers voted down tax hikes?
There are a lot of streetlights that could be turned off in the town I live in. Hell, the roll the sidewalks up at 9pm. A bunch of friggin' wasted money lighting streets that no one walks down.
Is it one of those helicopters with expensive visioning equipment that has no other purpose than to search for marijuana? In a state that probably has a large population that would prefer to legalize the weed, and stop wasting taxpayer's money pointlessly putting people in jail.
Just because a political entity is "offering services" doesn't mean anyone WANTS those services. Damn city engineers wanted to dig up the 4ft sidewalk next to my house and install a 10ft sidewalk, killing a 100yr old oak tree in the process. NOBODY walks these sidewalks, because the don't go ANYWHERE!!
Which leads us to the problem of government. Every "service" becomes sacrosanct, and nothing is every dropped by the wayside. I private enterprise has no problem cutting services that no one is willing to pay for, and no one sheds a tear. But a government service has a constituency that will always whine about how much they are being damaged when they are no longer afforded the opportunity to live off other people's money.
I like my country better than I like your country. If I thought your way of running a country was better than the way we ran our country, then I'd try to run my country the way you ran your country. We are the remaining superpower in the world. Until whatever country you're from overshadows the US in those terms, then I would have to say that we are in fact right smarter than all of you.
Who has appointed an Attorney General that has released a man caught on video standing at a polling booth club threatening those that won't vote for his candidate based on race? The same man caught in another video calling for black people to kill some "white, cracka' babies"?
And excuse me, the Republicans have just one network. The Democrats have an entire array of networks working for them.
There's a large reward out there for this racism your claiming. If you're not turning in some evidence for your share of $100,000(US), you need to STFU with such nonsense.
A citizen sued the President for sexual harrassment. The President lied every which way but loose. How could you not expect it to be A Big Thing? The Monica Lewinsky bit was simply smoke and mirrors to shield the public from the breach of justice that was Bill Clinton.
And the head of the Republican party is... wait for it.... a black man!!
Yes! That's right. The Republicans can have black people among their ranks, too. Unfortunately, the Republicans don't stomach black racists as well as the Democrats do. That's why there isn't a "White Caucus" that is exclusively Republican.
Because, we're not a "pure" species. We are not of one mind.
I want off this planet because I want to explore. You want off this plane because you want to learn. Boonhicks wants off because he's afraid of asteroids. Shily wants off because she wants to touch the face of God. Kalie wants off because she wants to roll around under a blanket just after watching the sun rise over a Martian mountain. (Yeah, she's a freak.)
If you want to get something done that is going to require the buy-in of a large host of people, you'd better come up with a large host of reasons for doing it.
Who travelled from Europe to the New World? Who pushed the Amercian boundaries west?
It wasn't the rich, that's for sure. The rich were busy enjoying being rich. Why the HELL would they risk their prosperity and cushy lifestyle for disease and hunger? The rich will be the last to go (by their own choice.)
Before we can make any progress, we have to get rid of this profit motive. We need the "star trek" economy to exist where people only work if they want to and everything is free.
I always love that mindset, because one of the episodes of Deep Space Nine featured the doctor getting into some serious trouble because his middle-class parents spent their money to get some genetic engineering for their unlikely to achieve son. For some reason this great society where everyone can achieve their hearts desire, you had people willing to risk persecution in order to give their son a fighting chance at a high paying job. Fancy that.
The truth is, a world where everything is free and no one has to work will be the world where nothing is valued and no one will work. Society will devolve into pettiness and idolatry. America probably sports the highest standard of living ever achieved. Do we spend our time studying and expanding our horizons? Improving our minds and bodies from day to day? For the vast majority of us, we spend our days looking for distractions. MTV. VH1. The Housewives of . America's Next Top . Whale Wars. NASCAR. Soccer. All fairly ridiculous and pointless wastes of time.
If we want to make space access cheap, try making the creation of a maglev/rail gun launch system a reality TV show. Sell lottery tickets for a ride. Hell, make it an amusement park. Instead of making a new roller-coaster every year, lengthen the launch system to enable the launch vehicle to reach higher. Have two so that teams could compete to outdo one another. Have international teams. (This years the Australians have a secret weapon. The introduction of a scramjet engine for a mid-trajectory boost.) Let people vote for their favorite launch vehicle paint scheme with a 1-900 number that contributes $0.49(US) to the cause with each vote. Advertise the hell out of it. (3g of acceleration followed by several minutes of weightlessness. A trip to the edge of space.) The commercials could go on forever, and eventually there would be space walks and the ability to chuck cargo pods into a low orbit.
Don't count on some utopian vision of what people are. Take them for what they have shown themselves to be an use them. Heh, it's what the politicians do.
OK, my airplane started life as 26 sheets of blueprints, and an order for 200 lbs of steel tubes. It has involved orders for rolls of polyester fabric, fiberglass cloth, and gallons of two part epoxy. The end result is lighter, faster, and has a higher payload than the factory Cessna 172.
I guess to be a REAL DIYer, I would have to smelt iron ore to get the steel tubes, and haul sand in from the beach to make the fiberglass.
Slashdot Mirror
but I bet you don't have any problem at all with the tea party jackoffs toting assault weapons at anti-US government rallies. I bet you didn't see a thing wrong with a bunch of over-compensating gun fanatics trying to hold a rally on the Capital Mall.
Did they proclaim that no one of a particular race should approach unless a particular point of view is supported? Were they brandishing their weapons in a threatening manner? No. Did they have permits? Does the Constitution, the only document that gives the government any legitimate power, expressly give them permission to carry the guns? Yes. So, what's your point.
You all want to piss and moan because there's a black man been elected president. You scream and shit on the floor when you get called a racist, but the only black people at your rallies are the four who've been hired to speak. Don't you know that the corporate powers that are trying to ruin this country are just using your racism to achieve their own agenda?
So asking that the Federal government be responsible with taxpayer's money is racist? Any and all opposition to this aggressively liberal President is racism? Was the opposition to Bill Clinton's push for a federal takeover of healthcare racially motivated, too? Was the Conservative Revolution of '94 racially motivated, also? I suppose the ethics reviews making their way through Congress at the moment are also racially motivated?
Do you even know what racism means? Here's a hint:
your white-trash party
In fact, there are some indications that this "conservative tsunami" reached it's high water mark back in April and the momentum isn't going your way any more. Remember, "enthusiastic" voters still only get their votes counted once.
Dream on, Mr. Bigot.
AARP has a few lobbyist up there. Representatives of unions are crawling all over the place and meet with the President regularly. The NRA has a few people there talking to various Congressmen. Are they there to protect the corporate exec's interests also?
An unimportant mistake? Really? The keepers of the law are so out of touch that they are voting on a bill with no name and no content? And this from the "most open Congress in history"?
We're doomed.
And you think Americans would be any happier in a European style socialist utopia? Get a grip, dude. Americans are unhappy because they haven't yet built a small company into a multi-billion dollar a year enterprise. Americans become unhappy when things are given to them (studies of lottery winners). We have a cultural ethos of achievement. YOU CAN'T BE GIVEN ACHIEVEMENT.
So, I look at the way things are done in Europe, and I get a wrenching feeling of disgust in the pit of my stomach. I don't mean to offend with the word, but it literally a feeling of revulsion. "You just expect stuff without working for it? And then you let the government lord over you like a paternalistic nanny? And you're happy with that?" I would be constantly fighting against the state, and would eventually be shot for building my own submarine or some such foolery that the bureaucrats didn't think was safe and I refused to jump through red tape to get a permit for.
I was unhappy that my business failed last year. I would be absolutely suicidal in Europe.
Actually, George W. Bush appointed the Attorney General who "released" the man who was rumored to have threatened voters. It was the Bush Administration that decided not to bring charges against the "New Black Panthers" because they could not find a single voter who felt that they were being intimidated or didn't vote.
That is blatantly and demonstrably false. Even this apologist for Shabazz disagrees with you.
"shortly before the Bush administration left office in January 2009, the civil rights division filed a civil lawsuit alleging voter intimidation by both men, plus their chairman and their organization."
And what a limp apologist the guy is.
Oh, I get it. Everyone was going to vote for the black guy anyway. So the guy standing outside with a club yelling racial slurs didn't have any effect. ...Whatever.
The current attorney general decided not to bring civil charges for the same reason. You can't convict someone of depriving someone of civil rights if you can't find anyone who was deprived.
You can't? Then how did the government get a judgement against Shabazz? Holder's office dropped the charges while the case was awaiting SENTENCING.
The whole New Black Panther "controversy" is a scandal created by the likes of Breitbart and Fox News. I'm surprised you fell for it, actually.
No, it is a legitimate story being buried by leftist and "I feel a tingle in my leg" progressives that want to ignore the racism among black Americans.
See you at the pole in November. Say "Hi" to Keith and Rachel for me.
I was responding to your last statement. "Why can't we have pure motives?"
We can't, because we're all different people motivated for different reasons. If you waited for "pure motives" it'll either never happen or will be "OMG! The sun is exploding" 8*)
Right on the money. If it would have made it to the front page, it would have made it a couple of weeks ago when these stories started breaking:
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/07/29/journolist-ic-proof-of-the-vast-left-wing-media-conspiracy/
Read a newspaper for chrissakes.
Wait. That wouldn't help would it.
How do you get that the right is more organized at it? They weren't able to get their candidate elected using these techniques.
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/07/29/journolist-ic-proof-of-the-vast-left-wing-media-conspiracy/
So as to keep us out of the BS:
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/07/29/journolist-ic-proof-of-the-vast-left-wing-media-conspiracy/
Wow. That was good. Got me there with that "on Digg" qualification. Of course, why would the powerhouses waste their time with Digg.
The leftist had much bigger fish to bury.
What a wonderful system that would be. Oh wait a minute, that'd be what America has at the moment. How is that working out?
We're currently the only nation widely considered to be a superpower. I'd say it is working fairly well. Thank you for asking.
Just dreams
You seem to believe that Americans are not happy and prosperous with the way we are doing things. In a truly American way, I thank you for your concern for my welfare, and would remind you to look to your own affairs foremost.
I thought the example of Colorado Springs was most instructive: a city that has to turn off one third of their street lights, and had to auction off police helicopters (and cut police jobs) because the ratepayers voted down tax hikes?
There are a lot of streetlights that could be turned off in the town I live in. Hell, the roll the sidewalks up at 9pm. A bunch of friggin' wasted money lighting streets that no one walks down.
Is it one of those helicopters with expensive visioning equipment that has no other purpose than to search for marijuana? In a state that probably has a large population that would prefer to legalize the weed, and stop wasting taxpayer's money pointlessly putting people in jail.
Just because a political entity is "offering services" doesn't mean anyone WANTS those services. Damn city engineers wanted to dig up the 4ft sidewalk next to my house and install a 10ft sidewalk, killing a 100yr old oak tree in the process. NOBODY walks these sidewalks, because the don't go ANYWHERE!!
Which leads us to the problem of government. Every "service" becomes sacrosanct, and nothing is every dropped by the wayside. I private enterprise has no problem cutting services that no one is willing to pay for, and no one sheds a tear. But a government service has a constituency that will always whine about how much they are being damaged when they are no longer afforded the opportunity to live off other people's money.
I like my country better than I like your country. If I thought your way of running a country was better than the way we ran our country, then I'd try to run my country the way you ran your country. We are the remaining superpower in the world. Until whatever country you're from overshadows the US in those terms, then I would have to say that we are in fact right smarter than all of you.
Who has appointed an Attorney General that has released a man caught on video standing at a polling booth club threatening those that won't vote for his candidate based on race? The same man caught in another video calling for black people to kill some "white, cracka' babies"?
And excuse me, the Republicans have just one network. The Democrats have an entire array of networks working for them.
There's a large reward out there for this racism your claiming. If you're not turning in some evidence for your share of $100,000(US), you need to STFU with such nonsense.
A citizen sued the President for sexual harrassment. The President lied every which way but loose. How could you not expect it to be A Big Thing? The Monica Lewinsky bit was simply smoke and mirrors to shield the public from the breach of justice that was Bill Clinton.
And the head of the Republican party is ... wait for it.... a black man!!
Yes! That's right. The Republicans can have black people among their ranks, too. Unfortunately, the Republicans don't stomach black racists as well as the Democrats do. That's why there isn't a "White Caucus" that is exclusively Republican.
Because, we're not a "pure" species. We are not of one mind.
I want off this planet because I want to explore.
You want off this plane because you want to learn.
Boonhicks wants off because he's afraid of asteroids.
Shily wants off because she wants to touch the face of God.
Kalie wants off because she wants to roll around under a blanket just after watching the sun rise over a Martian mountain. (Yeah, she's a freak.)
If you want to get something done that is going to require the buy-in of a large host of people, you'd better come up with a large host of reasons for doing it.
To back you up MarkvW:
Who travelled from Europe to the New World?
Who pushed the Amercian boundaries west?
It wasn't the rich, that's for sure. The rich were busy enjoying being rich. Why the HELL would they risk their prosperity and cushy lifestyle for disease and hunger? The rich will be the last to go (by their own choice.)
Before we can make any progress, we have to get rid of this profit motive. We need the "star trek" economy to exist where people only work if they want to and everything is free.
I always love that mindset, because one of the episodes of Deep Space Nine featured the doctor getting into some serious trouble because his middle-class parents spent their money to get some genetic engineering for their unlikely to achieve son. For some reason this great society where everyone can achieve their hearts desire, you had people willing to risk persecution in order to give their son a fighting chance at a high paying job. Fancy that.
The truth is, a world where everything is free and no one has to work will be the world where nothing is valued and no one will work. Society will devolve into pettiness and idolatry. America probably sports the highest standard of living ever achieved. Do we spend our time studying and expanding our horizons? Improving our minds and bodies from day to day? For the vast majority of us, we spend our days looking for distractions. MTV. VH1. The Housewives of . America's Next Top . Whale Wars. NASCAR. Soccer. All fairly ridiculous and pointless wastes of time.
If we want to make space access cheap, try making the creation of a maglev/rail gun launch system a reality TV show. Sell lottery tickets for a ride. Hell, make it an amusement park. Instead of making a new roller-coaster every year, lengthen the launch system to enable the launch vehicle to reach higher. Have two so that teams could compete to outdo one another. Have international teams. (This years the Australians have a secret weapon. The introduction of a scramjet engine for a mid-trajectory boost.) Let people vote for their favorite launch vehicle paint scheme with a 1-900 number that contributes $0.49(US) to the cause with each vote. Advertise the hell out of it. (3g of acceleration followed by several minutes of weightlessness. A trip to the edge of space.) The commercials could go on forever, and eventually there would be space walks and the ability to chuck cargo pods into a low orbit.
Don't count on some utopian vision of what people are. Take them for what they have shown themselves to be an use them. Heh, it's what the politicians do.
That's what she said.
OK, my airplane started life as 26 sheets of blueprints, and an order for 200 lbs of steel tubes. It has involved orders for rolls of polyester fabric, fiberglass cloth, and gallons of two part epoxy. The end result is lighter, faster, and has a higher payload than the factory Cessna 172.
I guess to be a REAL DIYer, I would have to smelt iron ore to get the steel tubes, and haul sand in from the beach to make the fiberglass.