"So you think Mr. "Bomb Iran" is going to be fiscally responsible?"
And you actually think a Democrat is going to be? Neither of those two are running as a fiscal conservative, as Bill Clinton presented himself in 1992. Both of them have grand plans for nationalizing health care... 1/7th of the economy, in some form or another.
"I hope you enjoy war with Iran and a never ending war on an intangible concept that can't technically be defeated. Real bright decision there, chief."
When we've beaten Al Qaeda, and they no longer exist... and that day is coming... I'll be sure and remember enlightened men like yourself and hoist a victory drink your way.
Actually, yeah. Lets see. Son of a President. BA from Yale, MBA from Harvard, Governor of Texas, co-owner of the Texas Rangers MLB franchise. Admit it or not, the guy had a good resume.
Look, I'm not much of a fan of Hagee either, but it doesn't help you to spew crap like "he's trying to bring the Apocalypse!". He's doing no such thing. He simply believes the same thing that other Evangelicals do; that the end times will revolve around an attempted invasion of Israel. He'd tell you himself that trying to personally bring about the Second Coming is blasphemy, because it violates two Biblical principals. One, that "no man knows the time" of Christ's return, and thus can't personally bring it about, and "do not tempt the Lord thy God", ie don't attempt to force God's actions.
Try not to believe everything you read on Alternet or Crooks and Liars.
The whole "the Internet has degraded the quality of news" meme makes me want to axe-murder someone. I'm truly sick of hearing it. Its not true, and it mostly comes from people having a vested interest in the old media. This worst part if it is this silly fantasy that the news was of better quality and unbiased when it was 3 networks and newspapers in every city. Limited choice does not equal better quality. Having all news in the grip of the newsmedia priesthood does not ensure fair reporting. Self-contained guilds aren't always the best way to ensure quality and openness, and that's what we had with the old system. These old media types never seem to realize that the reasons independent Internet press took off... both right and left... is because it had gotten to the point where no one really trusted the old news cartels. They're mad because giants like Dan Rather can be brought down by common people with keyboards when he pushes faked documents. NBC is mad because they can't get away with putting rockets on fuel tanks to make vehicles explode for their stories.
Though declared "Dead", the body is still warm. And you'd think that HD-DVD would be the natural successor to the DVD drives for PC's because they share the same filesystem, and HD-DVD drives are completely backwards compatible with CD and DVD formats. While Blu-Ray players can be made compatible with those formats, not all players are. At least some BR players on the market couldn't read standard CD's, for instance. Since Microsoft's Xbox 360 uses an HD-DVD drive, you might be able to get them to push the standard for PC drives.
Nope, sorry. On the bright side, one benefit of that bad experience is that we chucked our Exchange server, and are moving to non-proprietary technologies, though.
I have a family, bills to pay, etc. I simply can't justify spending premium dollars just to play high end PC games. I still play Half-Life (not 2) and its derivatives... the first version of Day of Defeat, Counter-Strike, etc. Picked up the gamepack disc at a Wal Mart for around 10 bucks years ago, and still play them online quite a bit.
One thing I've noticed is that low end gamers are not going into that good night. There are large numbers of us, and we keep things fresh with new mods and maps for older games. I'm seeing more people on the free QIII clone Open Arena as well.
I think most people believe something that can't be scientifically proven. So if he's gonna get in a snit about something like a horoscope, he'd better resign himself to marrying another scientist. That, or resign himself to being a bachelor for the rest of his life.
"I am surprised by this as I would have thought Nvidia would have put more effort into their Vista driver with Linux drivers being mostly on the back burner."
Nvidia is putting a lot of effort into their Vista drivers. The problem is that Windows Vista just plain sucks ass, and there's nothing Nvidia can do about that. They're probably thinking what most other people (including Microsoft, more than likely) are thinking... write Vista off as another WinME-type loser, and wait for the next Windows OS, which promises to be must more responsive with the MiniWin kernel.
"And yet, those Nordic countries were the state has great control over the economy are also marked by some of the lowest government corruption in the world."
By what standard? What are your references? Links? Something? Or are you just going to pull assertions out of your ass and hope no one checks? If you're going to advocate a government takeover of the economy, at the very least take the time to back up your assertions of why this is such a good idea with proof.
I found out about the 2 gig limit on PST files the hard way a few years ago. There are third party tools you can use to recover the mail, but there's always some residual corruption in the files.
"First, kudos to the U.S. for buying plutonium from the Russians. What better way to get it off their hands? Second, many people should rejoice, this is a golden opportunity to decommission a warhead or two for the plutonium in it."
IIRC, half of all current new fuel rods going into US nuclear plants are coming from decommissioned Russian nuclear weapons.
But with Putin's Russia resurgent, this can't last very long. We'll need to dig for more of our supply soon. Supply isn't the problem. We have plenty. We just took the fall of the USSR as an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone... fuel our reactors cheaply, and keep that material away from malevolent third parties.
As far as the plutonium shortage goes, if we'd build more nuclear power plants here, we'd not only be able to make more of our own plutonium, we'd get much cheaper and cleaner energy as well. Keep in mind that virtually all of France's power comes from nuclear plants, and they're producing such a surplus, they're selling it to the UK. And as for the waste issue, most people don't realize that 92 percent of spent fuel rods can be reprocessed and used again. France literally keeps all of their nuclear waste from power plants in one room in La Havre. The reason why we don't reprocess our spent rods is because of a law Jimmy Carter signed in 1977 banning fuel reprocessing. The concern wasn't safety or environmental... the concern was that other countries would get their hands on the plutonium produced during reprocessing to build weapons. Of course, that was useless, as countries just got it from other sources (and Iran is building their own enrichment facilities anyway... no way to stop that unless you blow it up).
DOD was going to have to deal with this satellite coming back, whether or not the hydrazine tank was a danger. Shooting it down as a "better safe than sorry" basis was justified in and of itself. The fact that the Navy got in some target practice was just an added bonus. They have to train in any case, so why not shoot it down?
I think some people are just too addicted to conspiracy theories.
"Gee, how do you define safe? Is driving to work in a car "safe?" Because, you know, there are at least 100x less deaths per mile traveled via car than there are via airplane."
The big difference being that while accidents and assholes happen on the roads, there still aren't Islamic terrorists trying to kill you on the Interstate.
Hijacking a plane, mid-flight, is tough to respond to. Hijackers only half to worry about fuel and a country that will let them land. Almost all will on humanitarian grounds, and to my knowledge, no one but the Soviet Union has ever intentionally shot an airliner down in peacetime (the U.S.S Vincennes incident excepted; the ships crew thought it was an Iranian military aircraft they were shooting down). Hijacking a car will quickly get you a long line of police vehicles and a nice roadblock up ahead.
Yes. They were Christian Europe's response to Islamic aggression, when Muslim armies started conquering Christian countries in the Near East. The First Crusade was called as a retaliatory and rescue measure. Syria, Egypt and North Africa, and much of Turkey were all Christian Kingdoms until Islamic forces invaded and conquered them. St. Augustine, perhaps foremost of the early Catholic thinkers was the Bishop of Hippo...which is in modern day Algeria.
"What Obama has...is the ability to actually undo some of the goddamn partisan hackery that has dominated our political process for the last 30 years or more"
Christ Jesus, if I hear one more time how Obama is going to unite the country...
Look, NO ONE is going to unite this country. This country is too divided among large groups of people with very strong, and very different ideas of how to do things. You think just because Obama is a good speaker that all of the sudden, Republicans are going to go "hey, this guys speaks well, just like Reagan! Let's get behind him!". That's a fantasy. It's not going to happen.
Look at the front runners; McCain and Hucabee....Clinton and Obama. None of them can even unite their own fucking parties, and you expect one of them to unite the country? Are you kidding me? Here's what going to happen. If a Republican wins, the Democrats will fight a scorched earth campaign against him. If a Democrat wins, Republicans will fight a scorched earth campaign against him/her.
"So, in other words, only workers should have to pay taxes"
Well, publicly owned companies shouldn't have their profits taxed. Property taxes on facilities, yes. On profits, no, because in publicly owned companies, those profits go to their shareholders. As it stands now, those people are essentially getting taxed twice. First there's a tax on the profits, which reduces that revenue. Then when the revenue is given in dividends to those shareholders, they're taxed individually on that money as well. Not only is their income, which includes those dividends taxed, if they make a lot, they're also hit with another tax, a capital gains tax. So some of them are in reality being taxed three times for that companies revenue. Further, they're also paying taxes on the value of the stock they own in most cases.
The only case in which I think company profits should be taxed are when a company doesn't pay dividends and simply builds up large cash reserves. Even then, there should be caution in how they're taxed, because building up cash reserves is a smart way for a company to acquire assets without piling up a lot of debt. You want to be careful not to punish a company for good business practices.
"Given that this also affects every single minority religion, support for a secular state used to be stronger across party lines. Now it seems the support for the secular state has become a party divider which it shouldn't be."
I think you're misrepresenting the whole issue. There is no "seperation of church and state" anywhere in the Constitution. I challenge you to point those words out to me. You won't find them, because they're not there. Those words came from a correspondance of Thomas Jefferson. They have no weight in the law. What the Constitution does say about religion is this:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"
Nowhere in that clause does it prevent people from expressing their faith in the public square. By "establishment", Congress simply didn't want an official state religion that trumped all others.....as Anglicanism did in Britain, as Lutheranism did in Germany, as Roman Catholicism did in Italy. It was never the intention of Congress to tell people that they couldn't pray, or lead prayers, in public places. By telling someone that they can't, say, bring their Bible to school, then you're violating the second part of that clause, not enforcing the first.
No one is trying to force anyone to practice a religion...the whole MO of the Bill of Rights is "Majority Rule/Minority Rights". No one is going to make you pray, but if the majority wish to do so...even in a public area ( or especially in a public area, since they're citizens too), then you or any one else has no right to tell them they cant. And just because it makes you uncomfortable makes no difference. Minority Rights doesn't include the right not to get your feelings hurt or feeling left out. The so called conservative judges aren't changing anything, other than interpreting the Constitution as it was originally written. No more, no less.
"At least Reagan presided over the fall of the Soviet Union, although he can hardly take a lot of credit for that."
That statement is stupid beyond imagining. He certainly didn't bring down the USSR by himself...he had help....the Pope's influence in Eastern Europe, the Solidarity trade union in Poland, Margaret Thatcher, the Soviet's own corruption...but for anyone to claim that he had little or nothing to do with the Soviets falling is just whackjob land. Do us both a favor, and skip on over to the Libertarians. Because even when Barry Goldwater was running, he didn't have the outright hostility to religion and projection of American power abroad that you do. And please, no bullshit about how the GOP used to eschew religion....this party has had religious enthusiasm since its beginnings. Bibles were sold at Barry Godlwater's campaign rallies to raise money. If that kind of thing makes you uncomfortable, you need to find another party. And if you're not a Republican in the first place, then you're just trolling here anyway.
"However, I find it utterly bizarre and disturbing that religion take such a huge place in American politics."
You're not alone, but that doesn't change the fact that for the vast majority of Americans, religion is very important to us, and has been from the beginning. Our Puritan roots are still pretty strong. Alexis de Tocqueville noted just how religion was ingrained into our national character. You wouldn't know it from reading slashdot, which has a heavy agnostic/atheist tint to it, but then again, slashdot isn't very representative of the general public in America. Something like 80+ percent of Americans identify with a religion, and over half claim to be devout, attending church on at least a semi-regular basis. To my knowledge, this is much higher than the rest of the Western world at present. You (and other slashdotters) may lament that fact, but we are what we are. I would never say to American slashdotters "if you don't like it, get out". It is a free country after all. But I also think its rather disingenuous to expect the rest of the country to change its identity, too.
"While has always been pro-life, he has not been pro-life enough for them. His willingness to compromise on judges is heresy to them."
That's the least of McCain's problems with the base. McCain revels far too much in his Maverick image. He revels far too much in the adoration of the mainstream press, which is considered leftist by the GOP base. McCain has a history of cussing and chewing and basically giving the finger to other GOP senators on the floor, while he rarely does it to Democrats. McCain's sins in the eyes of conservatives are many....McCain-Feingold to limit campaign spending, his stance against tax cuts, the gang of fourteen, and worst of all, his amnesty bill (and like Slate magazine puts it, yes, it was an amnesty bill. At least be honest about that). McCain's only openly conservative position lately is support for the war. He openly shuns conservative events like CPAC, and loves to stick his finger in the eyes of prominent Republicans. This may make him popular with Democrats and so-called independents, but its earned him years of ill-will from his own party. A strange combination of factors has put him where he is now, but he certainly didn't get there with conservative support, and there's a very real danger of the party base sitting home in November if he gets the nomination. Many conservatives think he's another Nixon or Ford....a wishy washy moderate too eager to cave to liberals in order to appear reasonable instead of standing on principle. Many conservatives say "look, the next President is going to suck in any case, why not let the Democrats get the blame?".
"The economic collapse we are now experiencing makes the likelyhood of Paul running away with the Republican nomination increasingly likely as spring turns to summer."
If you actually think Ron Paul is going to "run away" with the GOP nomination, I'd say the greater liklihood is you losing your damn mind. Ron Paul will never get more than 10 percent of the GOP vote, and that's on his best day. He's been averaging more like 5 percent. He's running second place in a couple of small states, but that's it. Half of his positions contradict the GOP platform. Even in an election with many surprises, I'll guarantee that Ron Paul won't win Jack Shit. He may go on to run as a Libertarian Party candidate (which is where he belongs anyway), but he'll never even get a sniff of the GOP nomination, no matter what your fantasy is.
"I am a registered Republican, and I will be most likely be voting for Ron Paul next week"
I don't understand why you're a Republican in the first place. You sound more like an outright Libertarian to me. If you're so passionate about Paul's positions, I'd say the GOP is the wrong party for you. We're never going to be an isolationist party again. We're not going to blame Israel for the world's woes, not complain about how the Jews are running Washington. While you're at it, do us a favor and take Pat Buchannon off our hands, too.
Slashdot Mirror
"So you think Mr. "Bomb Iran" is going to be fiscally responsible?"
And you actually think a Democrat is going to be? Neither of those two are running as a fiscal conservative, as Bill Clinton presented himself in 1992. Both of them have grand plans for nationalizing health care... 1/7th of the economy, in some form or another.
"I hope you enjoy war with Iran and a never ending war on an intangible concept that can't technically be defeated. Real bright decision there, chief."
When we've beaten Al Qaeda, and they no longer exist... and that day is coming... I'll be sure and remember enlightened men like yourself and hoist a victory drink your way.
"He did?"
Actually, yeah. Lets see. Son of a President. BA from Yale, MBA from Harvard, Governor of Texas, co-owner of the Texas Rangers MLB franchise. Admit it or not, the guy had a good resume.
Look, I'm not much of a fan of Hagee either, but it doesn't help you to spew crap like "he's trying to bring the Apocalypse!". He's doing no such thing. He simply believes the same thing that other Evangelicals do; that the end times will revolve around an attempted invasion of Israel. He'd tell you himself that trying to personally bring about the Second Coming is blasphemy, because it violates two Biblical principals. One, that "no man knows the time" of Christ's return, and thus can't personally bring it about, and "do not tempt the Lord thy God", ie don't attempt to force God's actions.
Try not to believe everything you read on Alternet or Crooks and Liars.
The whole "the Internet has degraded the quality of news" meme makes me want to axe-murder someone. I'm truly sick of hearing it. Its not true, and it mostly comes from people having a vested interest in the old media. This worst part if it is this silly fantasy that the news was of better quality and unbiased when it was 3 networks and newspapers in every city. Limited choice does not equal better quality. Having all news in the grip of the newsmedia priesthood does not ensure fair reporting. Self-contained guilds aren't always the best way to ensure quality and openness, and that's what we had with the old system. These old media types never seem to realize that the reasons independent Internet press took off... both right and left... is because it had gotten to the point where no one really trusted the old news cartels. They're mad because giants like Dan Rather can be brought down by common people with keyboards when he pushes faked documents. NBC is mad because they can't get away with putting rockets on fuel tanks to make vehicles explode for their stories.
Though declared "Dead", the body is still warm. And you'd think that HD-DVD would be the natural successor to the DVD drives for PC's because they share the same filesystem, and HD-DVD drives are completely backwards compatible with CD and DVD formats. While Blu-Ray players can be made compatible with those formats, not all players are. At least some BR players on the market couldn't read standard CD's, for instance. Since Microsoft's Xbox 360 uses an HD-DVD drive, you might be able to get them to push the standard for PC drives.
Nope, sorry. On the bright side, one benefit of that bad experience is that we chucked our Exchange server, and are moving to non-proprietary technologies, though.
I have a family, bills to pay, etc. I simply can't justify spending premium dollars just to play high end PC games. I still play Half-Life (not 2) and its derivatives... the first version of Day of Defeat, Counter-Strike, etc. Picked up the gamepack disc at a Wal Mart for around 10 bucks years ago, and still play them online quite a bit.
One thing I've noticed is that low end gamers are not going into that good night. There are large numbers of us, and we keep things fresh with new mods and maps for older games. I'm seeing more people on the free QIII clone Open Arena as well.
I think most people believe something that can't be scientifically proven. So if he's gonna get in a snit about something like a horoscope, he'd better resign himself to marrying another scientist. That, or resign himself to being a bachelor for the rest of his life.
"I am surprised by this as I would have thought Nvidia would have put more effort into their Vista driver with Linux drivers being mostly on the back burner."
Nvidia is putting a lot of effort into their Vista drivers. The problem is that Windows Vista just plain sucks ass, and there's nothing Nvidia can do about that. They're probably thinking what most other people (including Microsoft, more than likely) are thinking... write Vista off as another WinME-type loser, and wait for the next Windows OS, which promises to be must more responsive with the MiniWin kernel.
"And yet, those Nordic countries were the state has great control over the economy are also marked by some of the lowest government corruption in the world."
By what standard? What are your references? Links? Something? Or are you just going to pull assertions out of your ass and hope no one checks? If you're going to advocate a government takeover of the economy, at the very least take the time to back up your assertions of why this is such a good idea with proof.
I found out about the 2 gig limit on PST files the hard way a few years ago. There are third party tools you can use to recover the mail, but there's always some residual corruption in the files.
"First, kudos to the U.S. for buying plutonium from the Russians. What better way to get it off their hands?
Second, many people should rejoice, this is a golden opportunity to decommission a warhead or two for the plutonium in it."
IIRC, half of all current new fuel rods going into US nuclear plants are coming from decommissioned Russian nuclear weapons.
But with Putin's Russia resurgent, this can't last very long. We'll need to dig for more of our supply soon. Supply isn't the problem. We have plenty. We just took the fall of the USSR as an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone... fuel our reactors cheaply, and keep that material away from malevolent third parties.
As far as the plutonium shortage goes, if we'd build more nuclear power plants here, we'd not only be able to make more of our own plutonium, we'd get much cheaper and cleaner energy as well. Keep in mind that virtually all of France's power comes from nuclear plants, and they're producing such a surplus, they're selling it to the UK. And as for the waste issue, most people don't realize that 92 percent of spent fuel rods can be reprocessed and used again. France literally keeps all of their nuclear waste from power plants in one room in La Havre. The reason why we don't reprocess our spent rods is because of a law Jimmy Carter signed in 1977 banning fuel reprocessing. The concern wasn't safety or environmental... the concern was that other countries would get their hands on the plutonium produced during reprocessing to build weapons. Of course, that was useless, as countries just got it from other sources (and Iran is building their own enrichment facilities anyway... no way to stop that unless you blow it up).
DOD was going to have to deal with this satellite coming back, whether or not the hydrazine tank was a danger. Shooting it down as a "better safe than sorry" basis was justified in and of itself. The fact that the Navy got in some target practice was just an added bonus. They have to train in any case, so why not shoot it down?
I think some people are just too addicted to conspiracy theories.
"Gee, how do you define safe? Is driving to work in a car "safe?" Because, you know, there are at least 100x less deaths per mile traveled via car than there are via airplane."
The big difference being that while accidents and assholes happen on the roads, there still aren't Islamic terrorists trying to kill you on the Interstate.
Hijacking a plane, mid-flight, is tough to respond to. Hijackers only half to worry about fuel and a country that will let them land. Almost all will on humanitarian grounds, and to my knowledge, no one but the Soviet Union has ever intentionally shot an airliner down in peacetime (the U.S.S Vincennes incident excepted; the ships crew thought it was an Iranian military aircraft they were shooting down). Hijacking a car will quickly get you a long line of police vehicles and a nice roadblock up ahead.
"Ever heard of the crusades?"
Yes. They were Christian Europe's response to Islamic aggression, when Muslim armies started conquering Christian countries in the Near East. The First Crusade was called as a retaliatory and rescue measure. Syria, Egypt and North Africa, and much of Turkey were all Christian Kingdoms until Islamic forces invaded and conquered them. St. Augustine, perhaps foremost of the early Catholic thinkers was the Bishop of Hippo...which is in modern day Algeria.
"What Obama has...is the ability to actually undo some of the goddamn partisan hackery that has dominated our political process for the last 30 years or more"
Christ Jesus, if I hear one more time how Obama is going to unite the country...
Look, NO ONE is going to unite this country. This country is too divided among large groups of people with very strong, and very different ideas of how to do things. You think just because Obama is a good speaker that all of the sudden, Republicans are going to go "hey, this guys speaks well, just like Reagan! Let's get behind him!". That's a fantasy. It's not going to happen.
Look at the front runners; McCain and Hucabee....Clinton and Obama. None of them can even unite their own fucking parties, and you expect one of them to unite the country? Are you kidding me? Here's what going to happen. If a Republican wins, the Democrats will fight a scorched earth campaign against him. If a Democrat wins, Republicans will fight a scorched earth campaign against him/her.
That's it. That's the way it is.
"So, in other words, only workers should have to pay taxes"
Well, publicly owned companies shouldn't have their profits taxed. Property taxes on facilities, yes. On profits, no, because in publicly owned companies, those profits go to their shareholders. As it stands now, those people are essentially getting taxed twice. First there's a tax on the profits, which reduces that revenue. Then when the revenue is given in dividends to those shareholders, they're taxed individually on that money as well. Not only is their income, which includes those dividends taxed, if they make a lot, they're also hit with another tax, a capital gains tax. So some of them are in reality being taxed three times for that companies revenue. Further, they're also paying taxes on the value of the stock they own in most cases.
The only case in which I think company profits should be taxed are when a company doesn't pay dividends and simply builds up large cash reserves. Even then, there should be caution in how they're taxed, because building up cash reserves is a smart way for a company to acquire assets without piling up a lot of debt. You want to be careful not to punish a company for good business practices.
"Given that this also affects every single minority religion, support for a secular state used to be stronger across party lines. Now it seems the support for the secular state has become a party divider which it shouldn't be."
I think you're misrepresenting the whole issue. There is no "seperation of church and state" anywhere in the Constitution. I challenge you to point those words out to me. You won't find them, because they're not there. Those words came from a correspondance of Thomas Jefferson. They have no weight in the law. What the Constitution does say about religion is this:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"
Nowhere in that clause does it prevent people from expressing their faith in the public square. By "establishment", Congress simply didn't want an official state religion that trumped all others.....as Anglicanism did in Britain, as Lutheranism did in Germany, as Roman Catholicism did in Italy. It was never the intention of Congress to tell people that they couldn't pray, or lead prayers, in public places. By telling someone that they can't, say, bring their Bible to school, then you're violating the second part of that clause, not enforcing the first.
No one is trying to force anyone to practice a religion...the whole MO of the Bill of Rights is "Majority Rule/Minority Rights". No one is going to make you pray, but if the majority wish to do so...even in a public area ( or especially in a public area, since they're citizens too), then you or any one else has no right to tell them they cant. And just because it makes you uncomfortable makes no difference. Minority Rights doesn't include the right not to get your feelings hurt or feeling left out. The so called conservative judges aren't changing anything, other than interpreting the Constitution as it was originally written. No more, no less.
"At least Reagan presided over the fall of the Soviet Union, although he can hardly take a lot of credit for that."
That statement is stupid beyond imagining. He certainly didn't bring down the USSR by himself...he had help....the Pope's influence in Eastern Europe, the Solidarity trade union in Poland, Margaret Thatcher, the Soviet's own corruption...but for anyone to claim that he had little or nothing to do with the Soviets falling is just whackjob land. Do us both a favor, and skip on over to the Libertarians. Because even when Barry Goldwater was running, he didn't have the outright hostility to religion and projection of American power abroad that you do. And please, no bullshit about how the GOP used to eschew religion....this party has had religious enthusiasm since its beginnings. Bibles were sold at Barry Godlwater's campaign rallies to raise money. If that kind of thing makes you uncomfortable, you need to find another party. And if you're not a Republican in the first place, then you're just trolling here anyway.
"However, I find it utterly bizarre and disturbing that religion take such a huge place in American politics."
You're not alone, but that doesn't change the fact that for the vast majority of Americans, religion is very important to us, and has been from the beginning. Our Puritan roots are still pretty strong. Alexis de Tocqueville noted just how religion was ingrained into our national character. You wouldn't know it from reading slashdot, which has a heavy agnostic/atheist tint to it, but then again, slashdot isn't very representative of the general public in America. Something like 80+ percent of Americans identify with a religion, and over half claim to be devout, attending church on at least a semi-regular basis. To my knowledge, this is much higher than the rest of the Western world at present. You (and other slashdotters) may lament that fact, but we are what we are. I would never say to American slashdotters "if you don't like it, get out". It is a free country after all. But I also think its rather disingenuous to expect the rest of the country to change its identity, too.
"While has always been pro-life, he has not been pro-life enough for them. His willingness to compromise on judges is heresy to them."
That's the least of McCain's problems with the base. McCain revels far too much in his Maverick image. He revels far too much in the adoration of the mainstream press, which is considered leftist by the GOP base. McCain has a history of cussing and chewing and basically giving the finger to other GOP senators on the floor, while he rarely does it to Democrats. McCain's sins in the eyes of conservatives are many....McCain-Feingold to limit campaign spending, his stance against tax cuts, the gang of fourteen, and worst of all, his amnesty bill (and like Slate magazine puts it, yes, it was an amnesty bill. At least be honest about that). McCain's only openly conservative position lately is support for the war. He openly shuns conservative events like CPAC, and loves to stick his finger in the eyes of prominent Republicans. This may make him popular with Democrats and so-called independents, but its earned him years of ill-will from his own party. A strange combination of factors has put him where he is now, but he certainly didn't get there with conservative support, and there's a very real danger of the party base sitting home in November if he gets the nomination. Many conservatives think he's another Nixon or Ford....a wishy washy moderate too eager to cave to liberals in order to appear reasonable instead of standing on principle. Many conservatives say "look, the next President is going to suck in any case, why not let the Democrats get the blame?".
"The economic collapse we are now experiencing makes the likelyhood of Paul running away with the Republican nomination increasingly likely as spring turns to summer."
If you actually think Ron Paul is going to "run away" with the GOP nomination, I'd say the greater liklihood is you losing your damn mind. Ron Paul will never get more than 10 percent of the GOP vote, and that's on his best day. He's been averaging more like 5 percent. He's running second place in a couple of small states, but that's it. Half of his positions contradict the GOP platform. Even in an election with many surprises, I'll guarantee that Ron Paul won't win Jack Shit. He may go on to run as a Libertarian Party candidate (which is where he belongs anyway), but he'll never even get a sniff of the GOP nomination, no matter what your fantasy is.
"I am a registered Republican, and I will be most likely be voting for Ron Paul next week"
I don't understand why you're a Republican in the first place. You sound more like an outright Libertarian to me. If you're so passionate about Paul's positions, I'd say the GOP is the wrong party for you. We're never going to be an isolationist party again. We're not going to blame Israel for the world's woes, not complain about how the Jews are running Washington. While you're at it, do us a favor and take Pat Buchannon off our hands, too.
"ENOUGH with the Ronulans"
:)
I prefer to call them Paulistinians