You implicitly assume that Salinger was actually wrong - on whose potentially false authority do you believe this? The FBI's? I take it you haven't been paying much attention to their shenanigans lately, or you'd have recognized that believing anything said by any FBI source on any topic whatsoever should be immediately discounted as deliberate disinformation. I don't say Salinger was right, I say only that having the Feebs contradict him publicly does vastly increase the odds that he was on the right track - those morons couldn't find their own Johnsons with both hands.
"While both major parties have been appealing more and more to centrist views..."
That's one way of putting it. "Both parties have become more shameless in their vote-whoring" would be another.
"Politics is compromise, and without compromise, the other side will win."
Once you've each compromised away any principles you may have had, what exactly constitutes "the other side"? Your point about both parties moving toward the center only reinforces this: now that the Demoblicans are tripping over each other in a mad rush to the center, how do you distinguish between them? Yeah, sure - the Democrats in toto are more left than the Republicans - but what does that have to do with any particular candidate? Do you really think Democrat=liberal and Republican=conservative? Tell it to Lloyd Bentsen and Harry Blackmun.
"You have accomplished -nothing- beyond satisfying
your own smug little idealistic worldview."
Smug? Yes, Mr. Pot, my kettle is in fact black. The truth of the matter is that Gore abandoned the left wing of the Democratic Party (as Clinton did before him) in an attempt to pimp more votes from the center. He assumed that they would stick with him because they had no other choice. Well, they did have another choice, and they chose it. Now I suspect you feel guilty that you sold your vote to the quintessential political whore (Gore or Bush - though I believe Gore prefers to be called an Electorally-Directed Courtesan). I have no interest in your tears of remorse, nor your self-righteous indignation at those who vote their consciences. It is YOU (plural), the collective self-satisfied, self-righteous status quo, who have perverted our political system and brought us to a time in which half the eligible voters stay home rather than pretend they have any voice in the process. It's easier to pretend that apathy is the only cause than to face the possibility that as much as 60% of the potential voters don't think either branch of the two-headed monster has anything to offer them.
So false. Texaco is the best friend Bush has at the moment. And the next moment, and the next...
You strike me as pretty damn smug yourself, bushboy. How's that new glass house coming along?
That's an interesting chain of logic you endorse: those who vote for Nader are electing Bush? I suppose those who are voting for Bush are electing Kodos (or is it Kang? I can never tell those alien cephalopods apart). Yes, yes, I understand the spurious logic that Nader is stealing votes from Gore. I ain't buying it - no one can possibly know how many of Nader's supporters would have simply stayed home if Gush and Bore truly were our only choices. More to the point: anyone who tells you voting your conscience=wasting your vote is a traitor to our country and his own conscience (or consicence). If you vote for the lesser evil, that's exactly what you'll get.
Face it, kiddo - Dubya is half the man his father is, who is half the man Reagan was, who was half the man Barry Goldwater was. I'm a libertarian - Goldwater was too much a hawk for my tastes, but was otherwise the best presidential candidate either major party has produced this century. He was pulverized in '64, though; so I guess all you rock-ribbed Republicans were wasting your votes, since he had no chance to win.
I find it hard to believe that anyone writing such a self-contradicting statement would ever consider allowing anyone to control even a portion of their own lives.
Understand that charity is a voluntary act. Welfare is not charity (look up the word - our current system fits none of the standard definitions, though I suppose that would depend on the dictionary used).
Your relatives should be given charity when needed, not seen as a 'responsibility'. The fact that you feel my rights are less important than their wants is a sad reflection of our authoritarian society.
I don't even understand your next point. You agree that welfare gives a lot of money to people who don't deserve it, but you'd like to know who doesn't deserve some form of welfare for unfortunate situations? Those receiving welfare were obviously deemed by someone to be in an 'unfortunate situation', else they'd never have qualified in the first place. Apparently you simply want to tinker with the formulae used to determine benefits. What makes you think your standards would be any more effective than the ones we have now? Do you have any concrete proposals in mind, or is this the standard disclaimer used by those who don't wish to appear irresponsible with other people's money?
I find it disgusting how so many people are brimming with Big Rock Candy Mountain ideas on how to spend money that doesn't belong to them.
What's not what monopoly means? I didn't offer a definition...
I will say this - anyone who thinks Microsoft has a monopoly because he/she can't get a Linux box at Circuit City has no concept of the term "competition". There's this wild new invention called the Internet - I hear you can buy things through it. There are other items, known to some as catalogs - a rumor I heard says you can buy things through them, too. You could even - dare I say it - install your own OS! Gasp!
Harry Browne is actually on the ballot in 49 states - the Arizona Libertarians are busily engaged in civil war, and have nominated L. Neil Smith, a science-fiction writer. That'll sure help their credibility, eh?
Interesting that you should mention monopolies. Please name one monopoly NOT supported - or even enforced - by the government.
Personally I don't think Microsoft is that bad. Granted, their software is bug-ridden garbage - so don't use it. They are not a monopoly, as any number of *NIX users here at/. can attest. They soon will be considerably worse, though, as they learned one lesson from the antitrust lawsuit: hire as many corporate lobbyists as you can afford.
The notion that the Libertarians are the party of unfettered corporatism is an old, tired lie. ONLY the Libertarians stand for an immediate end to all corporate welfare. The Libertarians oppose a cap on damages for lawsuits against corporations. Ralph Nader would have you believe he stands alone against Big Business - so why do trial lawyers love him so much? At the risk of sounding trollish, I say there is no more corrupt and inherently criminal group than the ATLA - excepting only the Federal Government, which is rife with lawyers. I've nothing against Nader personally, apart from his Quixotic and pointless crusade against the Corvair; but anyone beloved by lawyers is automatically suspect in my book.
You're confusing isolationism with solipsism. Don't you realize that the U.S. is the most hated country in the world precisely because we meddle in everyone else's internal affairs? Do you really believe Latin America is grateful for our "help"? How did the Iranians feel about our support for the Shah? Even WWII - Europe sure is thankful for the Marshall Plan, aren't they? I find your example of Taiwan especially frightening - are you saying you would support a war with China if they invade Taiwan? What a disgusting idea - tens of thousands (at least) of dead American soldiers, for the glorious ideal of motherboards.
Isolationism is not about pretending there is no outside world: it's about leaving other nations alone to handle their own problems.
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You implicitly assume that Salinger was actually wrong - on whose potentially false authority do you believe this? The FBI's? I take it you haven't been paying much attention to their shenanigans lately, or you'd have recognized that believing anything said by any FBI source on any topic whatsoever should be immediately discounted as deliberate disinformation. I don't say Salinger was right, I say only that having the Feebs contradict him publicly does vastly increase the odds that he was on the right track - those morons couldn't find their own Johnsons with both hands.
"While both major parties have been appealing more and more to centrist views..."
That's one way of putting it. "Both parties have become more shameless in their vote-whoring" would be another.
"Politics is compromise, and without compromise, the other side will win."
Once you've each compromised away any principles you may have had, what exactly constitutes "the other side"? Your point about both parties moving toward the center only reinforces this: now that the Demoblicans are tripping over each other in a mad rush to the center, how do you distinguish between them? Yeah, sure - the Democrats in toto are more left than the Republicans - but what does that have to do with any particular candidate? Do you really think Democrat=liberal and Republican=conservative? Tell it to Lloyd Bentsen and Harry Blackmun.
"You have accomplished -nothing- beyond satisfying
your own smug little idealistic worldview."
Smug? Yes, Mr. Pot, my kettle is in fact black. The truth of the matter is that Gore abandoned the left wing of the Democratic Party (as Clinton did before him) in an attempt to pimp more votes from the center. He assumed that they would stick with him because they had no other choice. Well, they did have another choice, and they chose it. Now I suspect you feel guilty that you sold your vote to the quintessential political whore (Gore or Bush - though I believe Gore prefers to be called an Electorally-Directed Courtesan). I have no interest in your tears of remorse, nor your self-righteous indignation at those who vote their consciences. It is YOU (plural), the collective self-satisfied, self-righteous status quo, who have perverted our political system and brought us to a time in which half the eligible voters stay home rather than pretend they have any voice in the process. It's easier to pretend that apathy is the only cause than to face the possibility that as much as 60% of the potential voters don't think either branch of the two-headed monster has anything to offer them.
So false. Texaco is the best friend Bush has at the moment. And the next moment, and the next...
You strike me as pretty damn smug yourself, bushboy. How's that new glass house coming along?
That's an interesting chain of logic you endorse: those who vote for Nader are electing Bush? I suppose those who are voting for Bush are electing Kodos (or is it Kang? I can never tell those alien cephalopods apart). Yes, yes, I understand the spurious logic that Nader is stealing votes from Gore. I ain't buying it - no one can possibly know how many of Nader's supporters would have simply stayed home if Gush and Bore truly were our only choices. More to the point: anyone who tells you voting your conscience=wasting your vote is a traitor to our country and his own conscience (or consicence). If you vote for the lesser evil, that's exactly what you'll get.
Face it, kiddo - Dubya is half the man his father is, who is half the man Reagan was, who was half the man Barry Goldwater was. I'm a libertarian - Goldwater was too much a hawk for my tastes, but was otherwise the best presidential candidate either major party has produced this century. He was pulverized in '64, though; so I guess all you rock-ribbed Republicans were wasting your votes, since he had no chance to win.
I find it hard to believe that anyone writing such a self-contradicting statement would ever consider allowing anyone to control even a portion of their own lives.
Understand that charity is a voluntary act. Welfare is not charity (look up the word - our current system fits none of the standard definitions, though I suppose that would depend on the dictionary used).
Your relatives should be given charity when needed, not seen as a 'responsibility'. The fact that you feel my rights are less important than their wants is a sad reflection of our authoritarian society.
I don't even understand your next point. You agree that welfare gives a lot of money to people who don't deserve it, but you'd like to know who doesn't deserve some form of welfare for unfortunate situations? Those receiving welfare were obviously deemed by someone to be in an 'unfortunate situation', else they'd never have qualified in the first place. Apparently you simply want to tinker with the formulae used to determine benefits. What makes you think your standards would be any more effective than the ones we have now? Do you have any concrete proposals in mind, or is this the standard disclaimer used by those who don't wish to appear irresponsible with other people's money?
I find it disgusting how so many people are brimming with Big Rock Candy Mountain ideas on how to spend money that doesn't belong to them.
What's not what monopoly means? I didn't offer a definition...
I will say this - anyone who thinks Microsoft has a monopoly because he/she can't get a Linux box at Circuit City has no concept of the term "competition". There's this wild new invention called the Internet - I hear you can buy things through it. There are other items, known to some as catalogs - a rumor I heard says you can buy things through them, too. You could even - dare I say it - install your own OS! Gasp!
Harry Browne is actually on the ballot in 49 states - the Arizona Libertarians are busily engaged in civil war, and have nominated L. Neil Smith, a science-fiction writer. That'll sure help their credibility, eh?
Interesting that you should mention monopolies. Please name one monopoly NOT supported - or even enforced - by the government.
/. can attest. They soon will be considerably worse, though, as they learned one lesson from the antitrust lawsuit: hire as many corporate lobbyists as you can afford.
Personally I don't think Microsoft is that bad. Granted, their software is bug-ridden garbage - so don't use it. They are not a monopoly, as any number of *NIX users here at
The notion that the Libertarians are the party of unfettered corporatism is an old, tired lie. ONLY the Libertarians stand for an immediate end to all corporate welfare. The Libertarians oppose a cap on damages for lawsuits against corporations. Ralph Nader would have you believe he stands alone against Big Business - so why do trial lawyers love him so much? At the risk of sounding trollish, I say there is no more corrupt and inherently criminal group than the ATLA - excepting only the Federal Government, which is rife with lawyers. I've nothing against Nader personally, apart from his Quixotic and pointless crusade against the Corvair; but anyone beloved by lawyers is automatically suspect in my book.
You're confusing isolationism with solipsism. Don't you realize that the U.S. is the most hated country in the world precisely because we meddle in everyone else's internal affairs? Do you really believe Latin America is grateful for our "help"? How did the Iranians feel about our support for the Shah? Even WWII - Europe sure is thankful for the Marshall Plan, aren't they? I find your example of Taiwan especially frightening - are you saying you would support a war with China if they invade Taiwan? What a disgusting idea - tens of thousands (at least) of dead American soldiers, for the glorious ideal of motherboards.
Isolationism is not about pretending there is no outside world: it's about leaving other nations alone to handle their own problems.