A thumbnail doesn't give you the full detail of a full-sized image. Try to scale it up and you get pixellated garbage.
Unless you run into one of those sites that used to be a lot more prevalent where the nitwit who made the site just used imagesize on the full size images making it worse than just having a page of full size images in the first place;-)
I go around with my thumbnails uncovered all of the time (even though they are a bit chewed-up) and I don't care if people can see my nude thumbnails on Google or not.
But what if you just got finished working on your car or in your garden or something?
Well, in a way, sure. It's a catch-22. Would we prefer to be totally controlled, having no choices? Or would we prefer to have free will, which apparently leads to our downfall?
I've heard a lot of people say similar things before, but I remain unconvinced of it. There is no conflict between those things. If there is an all powerful all knowing being who created the universe, then he created it *exactly* how it is. If he's one of the "damn you to hell for whatever" types of gods people seem so fond of, then he with full knowledge at the time he created the universe determined exactly who he was going to damn and who he was going to save. That's an unavoidable consequence of omnipotence and omniscience. (throw in "good" "kind" "just" "loving" or any of the other things people try to attribute to him and you're just left with an impossibility, hence no such god can possibly exist in any relation to this universe).
Now none of that has anything to do with free will. You are perfectly free to make whatever choices you want ( within certain "reasonable limits" which I'll wave my hands about ) in such a universe. All of the arguments I've ever seen asserting otherwise have been merely failed attempts at apologetics for religions which set up that conflict by the way they chose to invent their gods. The conflict was created by their definitions and only exists in the context of those definitions.
Well, those punishments are meant for Jews living in Jewish communities. I don't think they were meant to apply to any society.
Except Jesus ( assuming for the sake of the discussion that there ever was such a person, let alone the mystical bits) *was* Jewish. His apostles were *all* Jewish and he was quite clear that all of his followers were bound by every single letter of every single word of old testament law. So, really, Neo-Jewish and Paleo-Jewish could be accurately used to describe Christianity and Judiasm respectively.
I just think people try to take MANY things from the Bible out of context, because they don't want to put the time and effort in to understanding that context.
I'm sure that's true as well, but it is also true that much of it is just ignored or rejected out of hand. Like most of the sickeningly atrocious things that were finally driven out of civil societies by the rise of Liberal secularism. For example, slow roasting "witches", heretics and the like.
Jehova's Witnesses haven't been around my block for years, but those dang MorMons won't leave me alone.
I haven't actually had anyone knocking on my door in some time. I'm surprised at the Mormons though. I have a 4th/5th floor condo with no elevator. If anybody's in good enough shape to make it up it should be the Mormon missionaries;-)
As for the last paragraph, very true. I've never understood the justification for laws period with no religious source of some sort. Either there are fundamental laws handed down by a higher power, or there is the law of nature. I don't know where people get the idea that moral codes can be evolved without some sort of higher power.
Well, we disagree there. I have yet to see any evidence for any rational morality coming out of any religion. It's easy to develop at least a basic good system of morals and laws purely from a rational basis. Murder, theft, rape, and things like that that almost everybody would agree should be banned easily fit into a rational worldview. All of them have been either banned or commanded by religions. Often a given religion will simultaneously ban and command them at the same time. Obviously, that's a recipe for chaos and horror.
Apart from basic things like those which any stable society absolutely requires to survive, it truly is a question of personal morality and that's great as long as people recognize that for what it is. Taking your personal morals whether you picked them out of some ancient book, rationalized them to yourself, or pulled t
Not actually. Many would be killed in the tribulations, but the majority will be killed by the government. Of course, that follows the pattern of normal human history as well. It will be the war to end all wars and refusal to take the mark that kill most people, though.
I'll just mention that the easy way out: God designed everything in such a way as to make all that happen. As soon as you posit a creator, that's entirely his fault. Granted that's the trivial case. It's kind of like how a huge amount of mathematical proofs go: Theorem: X has property Y Let X = 0 Duh! QED Assume X!=0 Bunches of stuff which is far from Duh! QED
This is a bad example. Read it a little more closely. They're not advocating killing people who believe differently, they're advocating killing people who attempt to force through whatever means people to abandon their faith.
Not *force*. Even a suggestion is enough. There are plenty of others though. The Bible advocates stoning for a vast array of "crimes", few of which could be considered a crime in anything approaching a free society (blagh blagh all disclaimers about the silliness of trying to call the US a free society).
(I'm looking at YOU, Mormons & LDSs) But you repeat yourself;-) Add in Jehova's Witnesses, and any evangelical sect, of course. Also anybody trying to put the 10 commandments in government buildings, people pushing racial quota based affirmative action, hate (thought) crime legislation, "moral laws", prohibition, the mass of rural subsidies rant rant rant....ummmm hello? where am I? what were we talking about?;-)
No, what is happening is that kids whether naturally in belief of their deity or brainwashed by their parents choosing are being told they cannot pay homage with like people before they start the school day off.
Bullshit. This is not happening.
And I think you better take another look at the undergod and why it was inserted. It really has little to do with religion.
It has everything to do with shoving religion into politics. The "godless communists" were the excuse the nutjob extremists needed.
I have to ask, did some bible thumper kick your ass or something? Did one of these religious people look down on you and hit you with the bible or something?
No, they have stated their goal of eliminating the constitution and replacing it with a theocracy. If they get their way, I will be murdered by them. There is nothing the least unclear about that. There is nothing you can point to in history to indicate that if they get their way there will be massive atrocities.
This is saying that the government isn't controlled by the church and the government doesn't control the church. It doesn't say the government cannot give the church money to perform services it would be paying someone else.
Money *is* control. When it is *my* money going to people whose faith demands that they stone me to death that is a far more serious violation than anything you are talking about by orders of magnitude.
The only hate I am seeing it coming from you.
Then you haven't paid a damn bit of attention to what these scumbags have been doing. An amendment to the constitution for the first time in our history to discriminate against a group of people whose only crime is being born as something they blindly hate?
Seriously, what happened here, did some catholic priest abuse you? Did a nun smack you with a ruler too many times?
You're either a troll or entirely ignorant of history.
They have a 2000 year history of slowly burning people alive for the "crime" of using their brains. The separation of church and state is the *only* thing that has kept them at bay this long and they are systematically dismantling the only protections that I have from them apart from my own personal arsenal.
That is the reality of that religion.
You would imagine i it meant that much, it would have been specifically included. It wasn't and even if a few people thought that way, the weren't "the founding principles", they were of a minority of opinion that didn't make the cut.
That's the same thing that they said about the constitution itself *before* they added the bill of rights. It was perfectly clear that the government had no powers to infringe any of them, yet some stubborn people insisted that they be put in. Since then we've fallen so far that most people think that those are an exclusive list of our rights rather than an emphasis. It's the exact same situation with the separation of Church and state. That is absolutely clear when you read the Treaty of Tripoli and note that it was approved *unanimously* and then consider that anyone in Congress voting to approve something with that wording would be run out of town on a rail by religious extremists. That is a clear demonstration that the attitude toward religious belief in government has undergone a significant shift for the worse in the intervening years and we are seeing the exact same attitude toward it as evidenced by *your* claims here, as we see in all the various entitlement programs toward the rest of the constitution.
If your insinuating the church as an official function advocated harming you, then your boldly mistaken.
Oh really? I'm mistaken? If so, then explain how that is consistent with the fact that the Bible, according to them *the word of god himself* and the only and entire source of orthodoxy states in no uncertain terms that since I'm a heretic according to them that I must be stoned to death. There is nothing in the
Correct me if I'm wrong, Jesus called himself 'the son of God' (to be more accurate, he spoke of God as his father). And he called everybody 'children of God'.
Like so many parts of that wacky myth you're both right and wrong. He's both that and god.
It is not me who is missing the whole point of his teachings.
You are, however missing the point that there most likely never was a "him" even as a mortal man.
You are like a smug little devil trying to find an absolute truth by reading a book instead of understanding it.
Laughable. I understand it just fine. Unlike yourself I haven't automatically assumed from the outset that it must be true, hance my understanding of it isn't premised totally on assuming what I'm concluding.
But since you know the Bible so well, tell me: what happened to all the people endowed with wrath in its stories?
Mostly they were the rulers (Moses etc running around murdering his own people and others for going against the voices in his head ) and the writers of the hate mongering screeds littered throughout the scripture.
Atheists and agnostics have no absolute, written, unchanging, published moral code, so they can never be called hypocrites.
Christians claim to have one, but it is flawed, contradictory and they don't follow it, therefore, they *are* hypocrites. Anybody can be rightfully called a hypocrite if they engage in hypocrisy. e.g.. if they claim to believe some wacky myth is the word of god and then pick and choose certain parts of it to follow and ignore the rest all the time dishonestly claiming to have some sort of "absolute morals" *which they keep trying to force on decent people* then they are hypocrites by definition.
They act as if they subscribe to the golden rule, but they really don't. Calling someone's deeply held religious beliefs a 'myth' goes against the golden rule, for instance.
How is that against the golden rule? If I was spouting insane delusional contradictory nonsense, or claiming that magical invisible fairies were talking to me or any of the other then, indeed, I'd hope that sane decent people would try to help me. So, I'm doing unto others exactly what I'd want done unto me.
So, basically, you have no point, you make no sense and you're just mad that I pointed out a couple of the deep seated hypocricies and contradictions inherent in a myth you were silly enough to think was true.
I didn't make any statement regarding your political affiliation. Go re-read my comment and apply some reading comprehension. Clearly "you're" in that context is in reference to the people making the accusations (in this case congressional Democrats). Unless you're a Democratic member of the US House of Representatives, I wasn't talking about you.
Reading comprehension glasses *on*.
Come back when you(1) learn to debate civilly and have learned some history. Swearing, and declaring that we should do things differently than we;ve done in our government for many decades because it's convenient for your(2) party now makes you(3) look like an idiot.
I've bolded the relevant words and numbered the various uses of you/your. "You're" didn't even come into it, so you might have gotten confused about what you actually responded to or you just made a grammatical error.
You(1) is referring to me. No doubt about that. Your assertion is that I am both unable to debate civilly and have no knowledge of history. Taken at face value, your motivation in making that assertion is to encourage me to go elsewhere until I have improved in civil debate and historical knowledge.
Is there anything in the least inaccurate about that analysis?
So now we come to sentence 2. Typically after making an assertion like in sentence 1, a person who is trying to be persuasive will present evidence for their assertions. So, "Swearing" seems intended to back up your assertion that my debate style is uncivil, and "declaring that we should do things differently than we;ve done in our government for many decades" seems to address historical context of which I'm allegedly completely ignorant. Following that, we have the other 2 uses of you/your. These clearly refer to the person and possession (party in this case) of the person doing the swearing.
So, it's quite clear that *an* obvious interpretation of what you said is that I am the "you" in all 3 cases.
If you intended to apply the first sentence to myself and the second sentence to "Congressional Democrats", then you might consider not switching context in the middle of a paragraph. Now what we can say for certain is that if that was actually your intention, it was not at all "clear". Of course, "makes you look like an idiot" shows that "you" in this case is actually singular, hence can't apply to "Congressional Democrats". Maybe you had one in particular in mind?
So at the very least, you were not at all clear. Now for the million dollar question which might be able to demonstrate that you're merely ambiguous and confusing as opposed to a liar:
While I can't dispute the specific Koran texts, quoting Deutoronomy as the teachings of Christ is simply incorrect. Deuteronomy is from the Old testament, and therefore not "Christian" per se. Christ specifically contradicted many of the old testament teachings.
Jesus *is* god in the Christian mythology in case you forgot, so all the old testament laws were set by him. If he contradicts himself he's a pretty pathetic god, huh?
Christ specifically contradicted many of the old testament teachings.
And he also specifically demanded that you follow every single word of every single one *forever*.
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest part or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place." (Matthew 5:17 NAB)
But don't discount your own argument by providing false or incorrect references.
There are many sections of the New Testament where portions of the Old Testament are reinterpreted or refuted.
Which, of course, is just one of the many contradictions in the bible.
Hey, here's another: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest part or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place." (Matthew 5:17 NAB)
So, sorry, but that directly contradicts your quote.
To miss out on that is to wholly and completely miss the entire point of the gospel of Jesus. This is beyond twisting a few statements here and there. This is a blatant assertion that the message of Christianity is the exact opposite of the gospel of Jesus.
Which is essentially the definition of a contradiction. Congratulations on noticing. You can not follow both of those, yet you must to be a Christian.
In other words: RTFB, newb.
Perhaps you should read the whole thing instead of picking a few specific examples where he pardoned "sinners" and ignore the fact that he stated absolutely that *every single word* of the old testament law would stand *forever*.
People take comfort in comspiracy theories because it makes them think a larger force is at work (same principle religion offers), and therefore that people can't just 'snap' and kill a lot of people, like what happened in 9/11 or the Virginia Tech massacres.
Minor nitpick: I don't think anybody regardless of who all they think were involved in 9/11 thinks anybody involved "just snapped". There's no denying a level of planning beyond that.
Actually, the Bible prophecies that 90% of the world (believers and non-believers alike) will be killed.
Certainly, but a lot of that is God himself killing them if the Left Behind interpretations have any merit.
Nothing that I've read in the Bible (working on my second time through) supports the murder of anyone, with the possible exception of Jericho. Note that I'm not a part of the religious right, though, so I fully believe they want to do what you say...I'm just pointing out that it's against their own primary source to do so.
Well it's both against their source and absolutely required by it. One example out of many:
Deuteronomy 13:6-10
# If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; # Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; # Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: # But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. # And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.
Well, let's get on with the process of being vetted by the establishment then, so that in 15 or 20 years, after we've proven ourselves, we might be allowed the chance.:)
Christians don't have people executed....Truly religious people simply don't act like that, no matter what their religion.
Wow, it truly amazes me that people will talk about things like this without even bothering to open the Bible *or* the Koran. Both are religions of hatred and murder.
Koran: We have prepared for disbelievers Fire. Its tent encloseth them. If they ask for showers, they will be showered with water like to molten lead which burneth the faces.--18:29 Among many others..
Deuteronomy 13:6-10
# If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; # Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; # Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: # But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. # And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.
So, yes, a true Christian is absolutely *required* to murder any close friend or relative who points out that their god is an idiotic delusion and they should grow up and start dealing with reality. There are plenty more absolute commands from god ordering his people to torture and murder people in the most disgusting ways for "offenses" a sane person would consider trivial or laughable.
So, it's a damn good thing there aren't many Christians in the world. I just wish the heretics running around claiming, without one shred of conviction, to believe in him would actually read the fucking book and realize that all their talk of being good decent human beings is banned by the very book they claim to venerate as it commands them absolutely with admonishments that this may *not* be taken figuratively.
Not that the Muslims are much different than the Christians except that more of the Muslims do actually believe in their God and obey him. Unlike the Christians who are almost all lying heretics.
I forsee a complete crash of our system within 20 years. When the system is completely gone, we'll have to come up with SOME sort of system. Hopefully it'll be better. Most likely it will be good in the beginning and then degenerate over time, as history shows over and over.
Well, I certainly can't say I don't think your prediction will come true... maybe not within the timeframe, but don't worry, if it's 30 years I won't come after you to go Ha! Ha!;-) I don't have your hope for it turning out well given the deep seated hatred of the religious right and their bible which demands that they murder people like me who don't buy into their beliefs. I think Heinlein had it right although when reading his stories set in the time of the American Theocracy, Stranger in a Strange Land etc. back when I was a kid I thought the books were cool, but the premise ridiculous. Sorry Bob, you were far more perceptive than I realized.
Which is why I believe that participating in the current system only lends it the appearance of legitimacy, not the fact.
It's a tough point to argue against. All I can say is I think it's better to be counted as a vote *against* both parties rather than not be counted at all.
I am more afraid that, once allowed in the process, third parties will sublimate themselves into the bad. Remember, there have almost always been only two major parties, although not always the SAME ones.
Absolutely. It's unavoidable without an electoral system which has at least the possibility of working which is the most important issue IMO for just that reason. "Good luck with that" as one of my co workers likes to say facetiously in response to pipe dream like goals like that.
Not that there was any real choice in that election, either...which is my whole point.:)
But, dude, Michael Dukakis was a great man, a visionary......
Bah, I can't even keep a straight face that long;-)
The idea of not having prayer in schools even when conducted by the students on free time outside of classes isn't covered.
Nor is it happening. The only thing that's happening is that school officials are being precvented from *forcing* prayer on the students. Some over zealous school administrators have tried to pull the kind of thing you're talking about, but they've been slapped down and rightfully so.
The idea of forcing the schools into not to saying the pledge is a liberal idea and not connected to the constitution.
The idea of a pledge isn't supported by the constitution in the first place. Even if it were, for religious extremists to go in long afterwards and *insert* "under god" into it for the express purpose of forcing religion on defenseless children is a far more egregious violation than anything you have brought up on the other side. Ditto for "in god we trust" on our money. These things did not exist back in the day. They were forced on us by religious extremists. Your failure to understand those basic historical facts is pretty sad.
Actually, the idea of separating the government or church from each other in any way is a new liberal Idea.
Not only is that false, but it ignores pretty much every relevant fact.
"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."
From the Treaty of Tripoli. That's all the way back when Thomas Jefferson was president. *Not in any sense*. That obviously includes the senses that you're attempting to use. You are directly contradicted by a treaty that was approved *unanimously* by Congress. Try to imagine anything getting through Congress with anything like that in it these days. It would be political suicide. That is a deep fundamental radical change in the nature of our elected officials away from the Liberal, Secular basis of this nation and toward a much more extremist religious view.
They are taking existing organizations and using the existing networks, management and so on to distribute funds more effectively to the poor and such like with the faith based inititives.
They are robbing me to fund organizations with a religious, political agenda. These hate based initiatives are a *radical* departure from the founding principles of this country. They are already tax exempt, for profit, political organizations. Robbing me a second time to fund their bigoted delusions is not in any way consistent with this country's founding principles or is it consistent with the constitution.
The idea behind the separation of church and state is so the church cannot obtain the power of the state independently or through the act of forcing certain tests to be present for politicians. Not to remove god or any sort from all aspects of public life. And this is the more modern ideals on the subject that don't mince well with the founding fathers reasons.
So you think it is constitutional to force me to fund an organization whose stated beliefs include an absolute *requirement* that their members beat me to death with rocks and further beat any of their fellow "believers" to death if they refuse to help them murder me if I merely express the opinion that their god is nonsense and they should grow up and ditch him. Good luck attempting to justify that. Good luck trying to deny that simple fact as well. See Deuteronomy for absolute proof. Pay special attention to the statement that these commands can in no way be taken as anything but the absolute literal *command* of their god. Sorry, but that sort of unjustifiable hatred has no place whatsoev
Total restructuring of the entire political is the only way I see anything like this happening.
I agree completely. Making third parties viable is the only way I can come up with to start down that road.
My point is that the selection is done by others, not voters, and thus your vote actually has no real significance.
Indeed, that is the case currently. It's an inevitable consequence of our first past the post voting system.
Of course. Total restructuring of our political process to make all government completely transparent. Not that that will ever happen, even assuming there's a revolution.
Obviously perfect transparency is an idealized state and hence can't happen. How do you propose to initiate a restructuring though? I think the only way short of revolution, which I'm certainly not taking off the table, is to strengthen the viability of third parties.
If you've ever voted for a republican or democratic candidate for Congress or the President, you have voted for evil. Not that I'm syaing you have or that it makes you evil.
Well, my only "crime" in that respect... at least in the last ~15 years or so was Obama. I think the jury's still out on him personally although I certainly understand and mostly agree with your point about that.
"What" he wants them to do is an entirely different story. What I said was that it's a political position and they can and should be fired for political reasons.
That is entirely dependent upon *what* those political reasons are.
"What" he wants them to do is an entirely different story.
"What" he wants them to do is the entire point of this whole affair. The firings are irrelevant.
If the other party is breaking the law then he has every right to tell them to go after the other party; as long as he doesn't tell them to look the other way when his own party breaks the law.
No he does not have that right. He has the right to tell them what *crimes* to go after. Not what political affiliation the criminals should have. The evidence pretty clearly indicates that he (or his minions) did *also* tell them to look the other way.
'm very glad for you that you've realized a 5 year old can parrot what they heard some US representative say on CNN.
Good for you. Does your mommy know that you're posting on Slashdot to parrot what you heard some liar on the news say?
When you grow up from being 5, you usually learn to think for yourself instead of cleverly restating other people's opinions.
So why is it that you have failed to learn that lesson. You're the only one parroting nonsense, Sparky. You keep insisting that the firings were legal in spite of the fact that that is not what is under discussion.
Oh that is so laughable coming from an admitted partisan hack to me, who has never supported a major political party in my life.
Nice try little liar. I'm not dumb enough to blindly buy your bullshit.
Come back when you learn to debate civilly and have learned some history.
You just screech a bunch of partisan hackery, whine that it tires you rather than just stopping like a rational person would do and then claim I'm being uncivil. Right, makes perfect sense. I'm fairly well versed in history, but that's irrelevant to the subject. We're talking about the present.
Swearing, and declaring that we should do things differently than we;ve done in our government for many decades because it's convenient for your party now makes you look like an idiot. "Waaaaaa mommmy he said a dirty word whose definition is entirely consistent with what I was doing. He's a bad bad man".
Thinking I of all people am a Democrat proves you to be an idiot. You have nothing to base that on. I have integrity, so speak out against criminals. That is your sole basis for that judgement. I'm glad that you understand that that is all it takes to despise the pack of traitors in the White House. Your failure to bring up one single accurate point even when several people have demonstrated the falsehood of your statements doesn't speak well of either your integrity or your intelligence.
And when you find a dictionary you should look up "cowardly". I don't think it means what you think it means.
Oh but it does. Having the integrity to admit that you were wrong (even after it's a simple matter of fact) takes some courage. Persisting on spouting ignorant lies in spite of every fact being against you in order to avoid admitting that you were wrong is cowardly.
you are still acting like republicans and democrats aren't controlled by the same people. damn, dude. just damn.
How is understanding that:
1) Discounting the current traitor the largest growth in the federal government since FDR happened under Reagan. 2) The Republican party is *better* at sleazy tactics then the Democrats.
in any way making that statement?
The parties are not identical clones, and they do not even try to appeal to the same sorts of people. I'm not saying that either of them are not sleazy, thieves and lying murderers. Saying that there are no differences whatsoever though between them is incorrect.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I say that opt-out is the way to go. (NOT)
Why not have a robots.txt to opt-in?
Because we're talking about *publicly accessible* web servers.
Putting anything on a section of a web server open to anybody is implicitly opting in to have anyone and everyone look at what you put there.
A thumbnail doesn't give you the full detail of a full-sized image. Try to scale it up and you get pixellated garbage.
;-)
Unless you run into one of those sites that used to be a lot more prevalent where the nitwit who made the site just used imagesize on the full size images making it worse than just having a page of full size images in the first place
I go around with my thumbnails uncovered all of the time (even though they are a bit chewed-up) and I don't care if people can see my nude thumbnails on Google or not.
But what if you just got finished working on your car or in your garden or something?
That's just filthy!
Well, in a way, sure. It's a catch-22. Would we prefer to be totally controlled, having no choices? Or would we prefer to have free will, which apparently leads to our downfall?
I've heard a lot of people say similar things before, but I remain unconvinced of it.
There is no conflict between those things.
If there is an all powerful all knowing being who created the universe, then he created it *exactly* how it is. If he's one of the "damn you to hell for whatever" types of gods people seem so fond of, then he with full knowledge at the time he created the universe determined exactly who he was going to damn and who he was going to save.
That's an unavoidable consequence of omnipotence and omniscience. (throw in "good" "kind" "just" "loving" or any of the other things people try to attribute to him and you're just left with an impossibility, hence no such god can possibly exist in any relation to this universe).
Now none of that has anything to do with free will. You are perfectly free to make whatever choices you want ( within certain "reasonable limits" which I'll wave my hands about ) in such a universe. All of the arguments I've ever seen asserting otherwise have been merely failed attempts at apologetics for religions which set up that conflict by the way they chose to invent their gods. The conflict was created by their definitions and only exists in the context of those definitions.
Well, those punishments are meant for Jews living in Jewish communities. I don't think they were meant to apply to any society.
Except Jesus ( assuming for the sake of the discussion that there ever was such a person, let alone the mystical bits) *was* Jewish. His apostles were *all* Jewish and he was quite clear that all of his followers were bound by every single letter of every single word of old testament law.
So, really, Neo-Jewish and Paleo-Jewish could be accurately used to describe Christianity and Judiasm respectively.
I just think people try to take MANY things from the Bible out of context, because they don't want to put the time and effort in to understanding that context.
I'm sure that's true as well, but it is also true that much of it is just ignored or rejected out of hand. Like most of the sickeningly atrocious things that were finally driven out of civil societies by the rise of Liberal secularism. For example, slow roasting "witches", heretics and the like.
Jehova's Witnesses haven't been around my block for years, but those dang MorMons won't leave me alone.
I haven't actually had anyone knocking on my door in some time. I'm surprised at the Mormons though. I have a 4th/5th floor condo with no elevator. If anybody's in good enough shape to make it up it should be the Mormon missionaries
As for the last paragraph, very true. I've never understood the justification for laws period with no religious source of some sort. Either there are fundamental laws handed down by a higher power, or there is the law of nature. I don't know where people get the idea that moral codes can be evolved without some sort of higher power.
Well, we disagree there.
I have yet to see any evidence for any rational morality coming out of any religion. It's easy to develop at least a basic good system of morals and laws purely from a rational basis.
Murder, theft, rape, and things like that that almost everybody would agree should be banned easily fit into a rational worldview. All of them have been either banned or commanded by religions. Often a given religion will simultaneously ban and command them at the same time. Obviously, that's a recipe for chaos and horror.
Apart from basic things like those which any stable society absolutely requires to survive, it truly is a question of personal morality and that's great as long as people recognize that for what it is. Taking your personal morals whether you picked them out of some ancient book, rationalized them to yourself, or pulled t
Not actually. Many would be killed in the tribulations, but the majority will be killed by the government. Of course, that follows the pattern of normal human history as well. It will be the war to end all wars and refusal to take the mark that kill most people, though.
I'll just mention that the easy way out: God designed everything in such a way as to make all that happen. As soon as you posit a creator, that's entirely his fault.
Granted that's the trivial case. It's kind of like how a huge amount of mathematical proofs go:
Theorem: X has property Y
Let X = 0
Duh!
QED
Assume X!=0
Bunches of stuff which is far from Duh!
QED
This is a bad example. Read it a little more closely. They're not advocating killing people who believe differently, they're advocating killing people who attempt to force through whatever means people to abandon their faith.
Not *force*. Even a suggestion is enough. There are plenty of others though. The Bible advocates stoning for a vast array of "crimes", few of which could be considered a crime in anything approaching a free society (blagh blagh all disclaimers about the silliness of trying to call the US a free society).
(I'm looking at YOU, Mormons & LDSs)
But you repeat yourself
Add in Jehova's Witnesses, and any evangelical sect, of course. Also anybody trying to put the 10 commandments in government buildings, people pushing racial quota based affirmative action, hate (thought) crime legislation, "moral laws", prohibition, the mass of rural subsidies rant rant rant....ummmm hello? where am I? what were we talking about?
No, what is happening is that kids whether naturally in belief of their deity or brainwashed by their parents choosing are being told they cannot pay homage with like people before they start the school day off.
Bullshit. This is not happening.
And I think you better take another look at the undergod and why it was inserted. It really has little to do with religion.
It has everything to do with shoving religion into politics. The "godless communists" were the excuse the nutjob extremists needed.
I have to ask, did some bible thumper kick your ass or something? Did one of these religious people look down on you and hit you with the bible or something?
No, they have stated their goal of eliminating the constitution and replacing it with a theocracy. If they get their way, I will be murdered by them. There is nothing the least unclear about that. There is nothing you can point to in history to indicate that if they get their way there will be massive atrocities.
This is saying that the government isn't controlled by the church and the government doesn't control the church. It doesn't say the government cannot give the church money to perform services it would be paying someone else.
Money *is* control. When it is *my* money going to people whose faith demands that they stone me to death that is a far more serious violation than anything you are talking about by orders of magnitude.
The only hate I am seeing it coming from you.
Then you haven't paid a damn bit of attention to what these scumbags have been doing. An amendment to the constitution for the first time in our history to discriminate against a group of people whose only crime is being born as something they blindly hate?
Seriously, what happened here, did some catholic priest abuse you? Did a nun smack you with a ruler too many times?
You're either a troll or entirely ignorant of history.
They have a 2000 year history of slowly burning people alive for the "crime" of using their brains.
The separation of church and state is the *only* thing that has kept them at bay this long and they are systematically dismantling the only protections that I have from them apart from my own personal arsenal.
That is the reality of that religion.
You would imagine i it meant that much, it would have been specifically included. It wasn't and even if a few people thought that way, the weren't "the founding principles", they were of a minority of opinion that didn't make the cut.
That's the same thing that they said about the constitution itself *before* they added the bill of rights. It was perfectly clear that the government had no powers to infringe any of them, yet some stubborn people insisted that they be put in. Since then we've fallen so far that most people think that those are an exclusive list of our rights rather than an emphasis.
It's the exact same situation with the separation of Church and state. That is absolutely clear when you read the Treaty of Tripoli and note that it was approved *unanimously* and then consider that anyone in Congress voting to approve something with that wording would be run out of town on a rail by religious extremists.
That is a clear demonstration that the attitude toward religious belief in government has undergone a significant shift for the worse in the intervening years and we are seeing the exact same attitude toward it as evidenced by *your* claims here, as we see in all the various entitlement programs toward the rest of the constitution.
If your insinuating the church as an official function advocated harming you, then your boldly mistaken.
Oh really? I'm mistaken? If so, then explain how that is consistent with the fact that the Bible, according to them *the word of god himself* and the only and entire source of orthodoxy states in no uncertain terms that since I'm a heretic according to them that I must be stoned to death. There is nothing in the
Correct me if I'm wrong, Jesus called himself 'the son of God' (to be more accurate, he spoke of God as his father). And he called everybody 'children of God'.
Like so many parts of that wacky myth you're both right and wrong. He's both that and god.
It is not me who is missing the whole point of his teachings.
You are, however missing the point that there most likely never was a "him" even as a mortal man.
You are like a smug little devil trying to find an absolute truth by reading a book instead of understanding it.
Laughable. I understand it just fine. Unlike yourself I haven't automatically assumed from the outset that it must be true, hance my understanding of it isn't premised totally on assuming what I'm concluding.
But since you know the Bible so well, tell me: what happened to all the people endowed with wrath in its stories?
Mostly they were the rulers (Moses etc running around murdering his own people and others for going against the voices in his head ) and the writers of the hate mongering screeds littered throughout the scripture.
Atheists and agnostics have no absolute, written, unchanging, published moral code, so they can never be called hypocrites.
Christians claim to have one, but it is flawed, contradictory and they don't follow it, therefore, they *are* hypocrites.
Anybody can be rightfully called a hypocrite if they engage in hypocrisy. e.g.. if they claim to believe some wacky myth is the word of god and then pick and choose certain parts of it to follow and ignore the rest all the time dishonestly claiming to have some sort of "absolute morals" *which they keep trying to force on decent people* then they are hypocrites by definition.
They act as if they subscribe to the golden rule, but they really don't. Calling someone's deeply held religious beliefs a 'myth' goes against the golden rule, for instance.
How is that against the golden rule? If I was spouting insane delusional contradictory nonsense, or claiming that magical invisible fairies were talking to me or any of the other then, indeed, I'd hope that sane decent people would try to help me.
So, I'm doing unto others exactly what I'd want done unto me.
So, basically, you have no point, you make no sense and you're just mad that I pointed out a couple of the deep seated hypocricies and contradictions inherent in a myth you were silly enough to think was true.
You're a moron.
Factually inaccurate.
I didn't make any statement regarding your political affiliation. Go re-read my comment and apply some reading comprehension. Clearly "you're" in that context is in reference to the people making the accusations (in this case congressional Democrats). Unless you're a Democratic member of the US House of Representatives, I wasn't talking about you.
Reading comprehension glasses *on*.
Come back when you(1) learn to debate civilly and have learned some history. Swearing, and declaring that we should do things differently than we;ve done in our government for many decades because it's convenient for your(2) party now makes you(3) look like an idiot.
I've bolded the relevant words and numbered the various uses of you/your. "You're" didn't even come into it, so you might have gotten confused about what you actually responded to or you just made a grammatical error.
You(1) is referring to me. No doubt about that. Your assertion is that I am both unable to debate civilly and have no knowledge of history. Taken at face value, your motivation in making that assertion is to encourage me to go elsewhere until I have improved in civil debate and historical knowledge.
Is there anything in the least inaccurate about that analysis?
So now we come to sentence 2.
Typically after making an assertion like in sentence 1, a person who is trying to be persuasive will present evidence for their assertions.
So, "Swearing" seems intended to back up your assertion that my debate style is uncivil, and "declaring that we should do things differently than we;ve done in our government for many decades" seems to address historical context of which I'm allegedly completely ignorant.
Following that, we have the other 2 uses of you/your.
These clearly refer to the person and possession (party in this case) of the person doing the swearing.
So, it's quite clear that *an* obvious interpretation of what you said is that I am the "you" in all 3 cases.
If you intended to apply the first sentence to myself and the second sentence to "Congressional Democrats", then you might consider not switching context in the middle of a paragraph. Now what we can say for certain is that if that was actually your intention, it was not at all "clear".
Of course, "makes you look like an idiot" shows that "you" in this case is actually singular, hence can't apply to "Congressional Democrats". Maybe you had one in particular in mind?
So at the very least, you were not at all clear.
Now for the million dollar question which might be able to demonstrate that you're merely ambiguous and confusing as opposed to a liar:
Who was swearing?
I'm overwhelmed by the irony.
You don't know what that word means, do you?
Can Christians really disown half of the Bible?
Check the next quote. The answer is that they can't *and* they have to.
Is the Bible the word of God or not?
If it is he's one really messed up confused magical invisible fairy man.
While I can't dispute the specific Koran texts, quoting Deutoronomy as the teachings of Christ is simply incorrect. Deuteronomy is from the Old testament, and therefore not "Christian" per se. Christ specifically contradicted many of the old testament teachings.
Jesus *is* god in the Christian mythology in case you forgot, so all the old testament laws were set by him. If he contradicts himself he's a pretty pathetic god, huh?
Christ specifically contradicted many of the old testament teachings.
And he also specifically demanded that you follow every single word of every single one *forever*.
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest part or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place." (Matthew 5:17 NAB)
But don't discount your own argument by providing false or incorrect references.
No problem. I did nothing of the sort.
There are many sections of the New Testament where portions of the Old Testament are reinterpreted or refuted.
Which, of course, is just one of the many contradictions in the bible.
Hey, here's another:
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest part or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place." (Matthew 5:17 NAB)
So, sorry, but that directly contradicts your quote.
To miss out on that is to wholly and completely miss the entire point of the gospel of Jesus. This is beyond twisting a few statements here and there. This is a blatant assertion that the message of Christianity is the exact opposite of the gospel of Jesus.
Which is essentially the definition of a contradiction. Congratulations on noticing.
You can not follow both of those, yet you must to be a Christian.
In other words: RTFB, newb.
Perhaps you should read the whole thing instead of picking a few specific examples where he pardoned "sinners" and ignore the fact that he stated absolutely that *every single word* of the old testament law would stand *forever*.
Nice try, though.
I didn't know 'Deutereonomy' was part of the teachings of Jesus. Amazing.
So you didn't know that Jesus is God according to Christian mythology?
At least learn something about the religion before commenting.
The large underground homosexual population of Des Moines, Iowa.
You know what, Stuart? I like you. You're not like the other people here...in the trailer park.
Don't forget about the left handed lesbian midget albino student union.
People take comfort in comspiracy theories because it makes them think a larger force is at work (same principle religion offers), and therefore that people can't just 'snap' and kill a lot of people, like what happened in 9/11 or the Virginia Tech massacres.
Minor nitpick:
I don't think anybody regardless of who all they think were involved in 9/11 thinks anybody involved "just snapped".
There's no denying a level of planning beyond that.
Actually, the Bible prophecies that 90% of the world (believers and non-believers alike) will be killed.
Certainly, but a lot of that is God himself killing them if the Left Behind interpretations have any merit.
Nothing that I've read in the Bible (working on my second time through) supports the murder of anyone, with the possible exception of Jericho. Note that I'm not a part of the religious right, though, so I fully believe they want to do what you say...I'm just pointing out that it's against their own primary source to do so.
Well it's both against their source and absolutely required by it. One example out of many:
Deuteronomy 13:6-10
# If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;
# Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth;
# Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him:
# But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.
# And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.
Well, let's get on with the process of being vetted by the establishment then, so that in 15 or 20 years, after we've proven ourselves, we might be allowed the chance.
Woo Hoo, Corruption here I come!
Christians don't have people executed....Truly religious people simply don't act like that, no matter what their religion.
Wow, it truly amazes me that people will talk about things like this without even bothering to open the Bible *or* the Koran.
Both are religions of hatred and murder.
Koran:
We have prepared for disbelievers Fire. Its tent encloseth them. If they ask for showers, they will be showered with water like to molten lead which burneth the faces.--18:29
Among many others..
Deuteronomy 13:6-10
# If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;
# Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth;
# Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him:
# But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.
# And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.
So, yes, a true Christian is absolutely *required* to murder any close friend or relative who points out that their god is an idiotic delusion and they should grow up and start dealing with reality.
There are plenty more absolute commands from god ordering his people to torture and murder people in the most disgusting ways for "offenses" a sane person would consider trivial or laughable.
So, it's a damn good thing there aren't many Christians in the world. I just wish the heretics running around claiming, without one shred of conviction, to believe in him would actually read the fucking book and realize that all their talk of being good decent human beings is banned by the very book they claim to venerate as it commands them absolutely with admonishments that this may *not* be taken figuratively.
Not that the Muslims are much different than the Christians except that more of the Muslims do actually believe in their God and obey him. Unlike the Christians who are almost all lying heretics.
Think of it that way. Whether the republicans are better at stealing than the democrats is irrelevant. THEY ARE BOTH STEALING.
;-)
I think that the point we disagree on in relation to this is minor enough that we should be running against each other in a federal election
I forsee a complete crash of our system within 20 years. When the system is completely gone, we'll have to come up with SOME sort of system. Hopefully it'll be better. Most likely it will be good in the beginning and then degenerate over time, as history shows over and over.
;-)
:)
;-)
Well, I certainly can't say I don't think your prediction will come true... maybe not within the timeframe, but don't worry, if it's 30 years I won't come after you to go Ha! Ha!
I don't have your hope for it turning out well given the deep seated hatred of the religious right and their bible which demands that they murder people like me who don't buy into their beliefs. I think Heinlein had it right although when reading his stories set in the time of the American Theocracy, Stranger in a Strange Land etc. back when I was a kid I thought the books were cool, but the premise ridiculous. Sorry Bob, you were far more perceptive than I realized.
Which is why I believe that participating in the current system only lends it the appearance of legitimacy, not the fact.
It's a tough point to argue against. All I can say is I think it's better to be counted as a vote *against* both parties rather than not be counted at all.
I am more afraid that, once allowed in the process, third parties will sublimate themselves into the bad. Remember, there have almost always been only two major parties, although not always the SAME ones.
Absolutely. It's unavoidable without an electoral system which has at least the possibility of working which is the most important issue IMO for just that reason. "Good luck with that" as one of my co workers likes to say facetiously in response to pipe dream like goals like that.
Not that there was any real choice in that election, either...which is my whole point.
But, dude, Michael Dukakis was a great man, a visionary......
Bah, I can't even keep a straight face that long
The idea of not having prayer in schools even when conducted by the students on free time outside of classes isn't covered.
Nor is it happening. The only thing that's happening is that school officials are being precvented from *forcing* prayer on the students.
Some over zealous school administrators have tried to pull the kind of thing you're talking about, but they've been slapped down and rightfully so.
The idea of forcing the schools into not to saying the pledge is a liberal idea and not connected to the constitution.
The idea of a pledge isn't supported by the constitution in the first place. Even if it were, for religious extremists to go in long afterwards and *insert* "under god" into it for the express purpose of forcing religion on defenseless children is a far more egregious violation than anything you have brought up on the other side. Ditto for "in god we trust" on our money. These things did not exist back in the day. They were forced on us by religious extremists. Your failure to understand those basic historical facts is pretty sad.
Actually, the idea of separating the government or church from each other in any way is a new liberal Idea.
Not only is that false, but it ignores pretty much every relevant fact.
"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."
From the Treaty of Tripoli.
That's all the way back when Thomas Jefferson was president. *Not in any sense*. That obviously includes the senses that you're attempting to use. You are directly contradicted by a treaty that was approved *unanimously* by Congress. Try to imagine anything getting through Congress with anything like that in it these days. It would be political suicide. That is a deep fundamental radical change in the nature of our elected officials away from the Liberal, Secular basis of this nation and toward a much more extremist religious view.
They are taking existing organizations and using the existing networks, management and so on to distribute funds more effectively to the poor and such like with the faith based inititives.
They are robbing me to fund organizations with a religious, political agenda. These hate based initiatives are a *radical* departure from the founding principles of this country. They are already tax exempt, for profit, political organizations.
Robbing me a second time to fund their bigoted delusions is not in any way consistent with this country's founding principles or is it consistent with the constitution.
The idea behind the separation of church and state is so the church cannot obtain the power of the state independently or through the act of forcing certain tests to be present for politicians. Not to remove god or any sort from all aspects of public life. And this is the more modern ideals on the subject that don't mince well with the founding fathers reasons.
So you think it is constitutional to force me to fund an organization whose stated beliefs include an absolute *requirement* that their members beat me to death with rocks and further beat any of their fellow "believers" to death if they refuse to help them murder me if I merely express the opinion that their god is nonsense and they should grow up and ditch him.
Good luck attempting to justify that.
Good luck trying to deny that simple fact as well.
See Deuteronomy for absolute proof. Pay special attention to the statement that these commands can in no way be taken as anything but the absolute literal *command* of their god.
Sorry, but that sort of unjustifiable hatred has no place whatsoev
Total restructuring of the entire political is the only way I see anything like this happening.
I agree completely. Making third parties viable is the only way I can come up with to start down that road.
My point is that the selection is done by others, not voters, and thus your vote actually has no real significance.
Indeed, that is the case currently. It's an inevitable consequence of our first past the post voting system.
Of course. Total restructuring of our political process to make all government completely transparent. Not that that will ever happen, even assuming there's a revolution.
Obviously perfect transparency is an idealized state and hence can't happen. How do you propose to initiate a restructuring though? I think the only way short of revolution, which I'm certainly not taking off the table, is to strengthen the viability of third parties.
If you've ever voted for a republican or democratic candidate for Congress or the President, you have voted for evil. Not that I'm syaing you have or that it makes you evil.
Well, my only "crime" in that respect... at least in the last ~15 years or so was Obama. I think the jury's still out on him personally although I certainly understand and mostly agree with your point about that.
"What" he wants them to do is an entirely different story. What I said was that it's a political position and they can and should be fired for political reasons.
That is entirely dependent upon *what* those political reasons are.
"What" he wants them to do is an entirely different story.
"What" he wants them to do is the entire point of this whole affair. The firings are irrelevant.
If the other party is breaking the law then he has every right to tell them to go after the other party; as long as he doesn't tell them to look the other way when his own party breaks the law.
No he does not have that right. He has the right to tell them what *crimes* to go after. Not what political affiliation the criminals should have.
The evidence pretty clearly indicates that he (or his minions) did *also* tell them to look the other way.
'm very glad for you that you've realized a 5 year old can parrot what they heard some US representative say on CNN.
Good for you. Does your mommy know that you're posting on Slashdot to parrot what you heard some liar on the news say?
When you grow up from being 5, you usually learn to think for yourself instead of cleverly restating other people's opinions.
So why is it that you have failed to learn that lesson. You're the only one parroting nonsense, Sparky.
You keep insisting that the firings were legal in spite of the fact that that is not what is under discussion.
Oh that is so laughable coming from an admitted partisan hack to me, who has never supported a major political party in my life.
Nice try little liar. I'm not dumb enough to blindly buy your bullshit.
Come back when you learn to debate civilly and have learned some history.
You just screech a bunch of partisan hackery, whine that it tires you rather than just stopping like a rational person would do and then claim I'm being uncivil. Right, makes perfect sense.
I'm fairly well versed in history, but that's irrelevant to the subject. We're talking about the present.
Swearing, and declaring that we should do things differently than we;ve done in our government for many decades because it's convenient for your party now makes you look like an idiot.
"Waaaaaa mommmy he said a dirty word whose definition is entirely consistent with what I was doing. He's a bad bad man".
Thinking I of all people am a Democrat proves you to be an idiot. You have nothing to base that on. I have integrity, so speak out against criminals. That is your sole basis for that judgement.
I'm glad that you understand that that is all it takes to despise the pack of traitors in the White House. Your failure to bring up one single accurate point even when several people have demonstrated the falsehood of your statements doesn't speak well of either your integrity or your intelligence.
And when you find a dictionary you should look up "cowardly". I don't think it means what you think it means.
Oh but it does. Having the integrity to admit that you were wrong (even after it's a simple matter of fact) takes some courage. Persisting on spouting ignorant lies in spite of every fact being against you in order to avoid admitting that you were wrong is cowardly.
you are still acting like republicans and democrats aren't controlled by the same people. damn, dude. just damn.
How is understanding that:
1) Discounting the current traitor the largest growth in the federal government since FDR happened under Reagan.
2) The Republican party is *better* at sleazy tactics then the Democrats.
in any way making that statement?
The parties are not identical clones, and they do not even try to appeal to the same sorts of people. I'm not saying that either of them are not sleazy, thieves and lying murderers. Saying that there are no differences whatsoever though between them is incorrect.