criddic3 wrote:If, for example, a woman has been raped and doesn't want a baby. Is it right for her to kill the baby inside her to "undo" the crime? Two wrongs don't make a right. In fact, instead of making her feel better it may make her feel more guilt. A new life can be seen as a good thing coming from a bad one, rather than becoming an even uglier situation.
I'm probably going to regret saying this, but:
It's the absolute disgusting height of arrogance to speak speculatively about a situation that actual women are actually in. It is presumptuous indeed to tell them what is morally appropriate for them to do in a situation which you've never been in and never will be.
criddic3 wrote:If, for example, a woman has been raped and doesn't want a baby. Is it right for her to kill the baby inside her to "undo" the crime? Two wrongs don't make a right. In fact, instead of making her feel better it may make her feel more guilt. A new life can be seen as a good thing coming from a bad one, rather than becoming an even uglier situation. IF she cannot afford a good home, why not find one? (this is something that the movie Juno advocates rather effectively.)
My god, I'm not even going to touch this one. Your logic is actually beyond scary.
Okay, I will touch it. My stance has always been, why are all these pro-lifers who care so much about unborn fetuses, the same people who deny adoption to gay parents, or an overhaul of the atrocious foster care system in this country or human rights for "born" people who are already alive? Where exactly do you think all these unwanted babies are going, criddic? I don't think you care about life at all. You're just towing your party's line on the subject.
"The mantle of spinsterhood was definitely in her shoulders. She was twenty five and looked it."
Where to start? Well, first of all pro-life stance is not the same as governmental racism or homophobia. It is not about the woman, it is about the baby. That's the part that abortion advocates always forget. Pro-lifers are not against women's rights, they are against murder. The issue has been twisted into a women's rights issue because that is the only way that people can possibly listen to the argument. It veils the true activity. It makes the idea of life irrevelent and substututes it for the right to pleasure without consequence.
If, for example, a woman has been raped and doesn't want a baby. Is it right for her to kill the baby inside her to "undo" the crime? Two wrongs don't make a right. In fact, instead of making her feel better it may make her feel more guilt. A new life can be seen as a good thing coming from a bad one, rather than becoming an even uglier situation. IF she cannot afford a good home, why not find one? (this is something that the movie Juno advocates rather effectively.)
As I said before, if you don't like how the money gap is widening and the corporation are going to keep doing what they do, find another way other than trying to shut down businesses and penalizing the wealthy.
I don't think that government should dictate how healthcare is gained by Americans. I believe they should have choices, and I believe that there should be healthy competition in the field of medicine so that the best medicines will be available and affordable. I do not believe in Universal Healthcare as advocated by the Democratic candidates, because it puts the burden of cost and responsibility to hand out such care to the government, which is not the way its supposed to be. People should be helped by government, but should not be given everything by the government. People should work for what they get. I don't mind subsidizing some of people's needs, but giving healthcare to everyone will bankrupt our country.
I'm sure that some people find loopholes, etc. in their tax forms but I bet they still pay more than most people. And that is still not a good enough reason to penalize them, because there's no way to know how many actually get away with such schemes and how many pay their fair share honestly. This would assume too much, which is what I think you are doing when you point the finger at the rich.
Iraq was logical because of its strategic placement and its history of aiding terror and using terror. They did not attack us, but they could and would aid those who want to under Saddam Hussein. I will not change my mind on that. Regime change was the policy of America before Pres. Bush ever came to office.
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"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021
Where to start. First of all, life beginning at conception is an OPINION, something not everyone believes in. We've been over this many times and while none of us advocate abortion as a form of birth control, but the government should not be allowed to tell a woman she has to carry a pregnancy to term. That's an invasion of her privacy.
What if the government said that b/c the "moral" majority believed gay sex was illegal that they came INTO your home and told you you couldn't have sex with other men. Or, is it right for the government to come into a black man's house and tell him he can't have sex with a white woman. They are all invasions of privacy. You cannot defend one while attacking another.
But do you realize how virtually impossible it is with the corporate climate for small business to begin and succeed. The power of the conglomerates is so much that they can rob you of your livelihood by just being competitive.
And you know what you're entirely missing and won't ever seem to understand. Cheap labor drives jobs away from American citizens forcing them to take lesser paying jobs, forcing them to buy cheaper items, thus forcing them to buy the goods of those companies who shipped their jobs overseas. And you have be middle class and have excellent credit to get a loan to start up any new business, again, because the lower class has difficulty paying its bills, their credit score is damage, thus further isolating them as the lower class. You don't apparently get how corporations are furthering the wealth gap in this country and they don't give two shits about it.
And how many rich people actually pay their fair share? I doubt very many. With tax loopholes and other benefits, they can get out of paying a sizable portion of their taxable income and defer payment on others by making it non-taxable. They may have a higher tax burden according to the pre-deduction percentages, but when they figure in deductions, they pay a significantly smaller percentage than the working poor.
And you brought into this fight government-subsidized health care... yet you support Social Security. yet, the president you lionize robbed the Social Security rescue surplus that existed and depleted it long before 9/11 even occurred. So, while you support it, you don't want it adequately funded.
And all these tax cuts were supposed to give people more money and thus stimulate the economy, but what happened? the economy has fallen into a recession (a majority of leading economists agree, so don't throw in the president said it wasn't so...he also said that Iraq tried to buy yellow cake uranium, which wasn't the truth, either). So, for all that talk about trying to bolster the economy, Bush helped destroy that economy by making it easier for money-hungry corporations to create the credit/mortgage crisis and fool unsuspecting Americans into believing that with their miniscule tax cut they could afford to live the American dream and buy houses they couldn't have otherwise afford. And the rich got richer off of it. So, a few men lost their shirts in the deal but there were hundreds who made and pocketed plenty of cash.
I don't know how Iraq was a "logical" step to any war on terror. Bin Laden and Al Qaeda weren't in Iraq. Iraq was not causing instability in the region. In technicality, Israel was the state causing instability in the region. Thus, with Israel's battles comes the U.S. But, Israel's not even entirely responsible. Saudi Arabia has played quite a large role in that instability and they've done it while trying to fool the West that they are on our side, yet they have some of the worst human rights violations in the world. The only reason Iraq became a battlefront in the war of terror was that it had a smaller military, had a large oil reserve and had a "history" with the U.S. that made it easier to convince the foolhardy and gullible (that's you, criddic) into believing that they were part of the war when they were barely on its map.
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
dws1982 wrote:I think you mostly wasted a poll, criddic, given that you left out Mark Sanford, Sarah Palin, and Marsha Blackburn, all of whom I'd say are more likely choices than about six of the people listed. (Especially someone like Romney, whom McCain would never choose.)
I think Pawlenty is probably the most likely pick, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Hustchison or Blackburn there either. Sarah Palin (and Bobby Jindal) probably needs to wait another four to eight years to be a serious VP contender.
Romney has been touted as a possiblity, and the two have made nice since McCain became the nominee. That's why he is on the list.
I'm not sure if those you mention would make it either, but that's why I chose to include a space for "other."
"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021
OscarGuy wrote:Criddic, you just shoot yourself in the foot. We have something in this country called a Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion and several other freedoms I don't feel like enumerating.
You say some people "believe" that life begins at conception, whereas others don't. You're saying we should legislate morality. We should legislate what what group believes and not what others believe. We should rob a woman of her rights just to make those who "believe" that life begins at conception feel better? They need to protect their own souls instead of going after others'.
Iraq was every bit a central character in the War on Terror as Rosie Cotten was a central character in The Lord of the Rings. She was minor and fractious and had no true impact on the story, other than a brief emotional one. There was never any evidence that Iraq had cooperated with or provided assistance to Al Qaeda, the real center of the War on Terror. But, since Pakistan isn't an oil-rich nation, we needed to help Bush and Cheney's old friends get richer. Which is far more central to the war on terror than any presumed (and proven false) connections between Iraq and the war on terror.
I'm not blaming ALL of the rich. I'm blaming the ones that are moving jobs overseas so they can make more money for themselves and for their stockholders, putting working families out of a job who then have to take on lower-paying jobs, pushing them further under the poverty level. Anyone who defends the corporate rich deserves to have their job outsourced and be forced to find one that pays a pittance and then have to subsist off of no government aid since that too was eliminated when the rich got their tax breaks.
You're argument is that the laws should permit abortions to occur on the basis of "freedom of speech," which is clearly not the real issue. It is not a right to kill someone else, regardless of whether the being is fully formed or if it is in your body. It is another lifeform. The decision, the "choice" occurs before pregnancy in most cases. Most abortion cases do not occur because the "life of the mother is in jeopardy," etc. These are falsehoods created by proponents of the supposed "right to choose." If this was really about an infringement of the freedom of speech, and that were all it was, then millions more women would support abortion rights than currently do. It is a matter of life and death and whether or not we have the "right" to dictate who lives or dies. Before you compare this with the Death Penalty, remind yourself that that issue is about criminals of a heinous nature rather than innocents who have yet to see the world. It's not the same kind of judgement and the Death Penalty is a decision by a jury of the accused persons peers. Not a woman deciding, usually for selfish reasons, to abort a developing life.
We also have an economic system where there is competition. If you want to build a company that keeps all of its jobs in the country and makes all of its products in the USA, then go ahead and do it. That is the capitalist society, the businesses go where the money is. That is progress. Is it fair to everybody? No. Is it right? Not necessarily. When consumers decide to buy only USA products and fill the jobs that are here in the U.S. en masse, that's when huge corporations will listen and change their practices. If you are a company that can get cheaper labor and cheaper materials outside the company, therefore enabling you to make more of your product and to have better marketing campaigns for that product, that's where you go.
I also do not agree that the "rich" were the only beneficiaries of the tax cuts. If the rich pay more than anyone else in taxes, they should get tax cuts along with the lower income people. As I said, penalizing them for having more money is absurd. Everytime I see the taxes on my paycheck, I too think how nice it would be if there weren't so many. We're all taxed more the more we make. But I'd rather pay taxes that go to infrastructure, defense and social security than have huge government-run healthcare programs that would eventually bankrupt the country. Government is part of the solution, but not "the" solution.
I don't think you are a bad person for believing what you do, but I do believe that the policies you advocate are wrong. I know I'm probably not the best person to debate these things, as I'm not going to change any minds here, but there is a right and a wrong way to do things. My view is that the Republicans have the better ideas, even if they aren't always good at implementing them. We've seen a lot of overspending and expansion in many areas, and that can lead to a government that isn't really helping the people. In other words, all the good intentions of expansion of programs like medicare and healthcare can create a situation where we eventually can't pay for anything that really matters, like national defense and in the process prevents people from doing more for themselves.
Iraq was the logical place in my view to attempt to change the landscape of the Middle East and make it at least possible to end the centuries of seething violence there. It is a part of the War on Terror, not 9/11. 9/11 was a part of the War on Terror, as well (or as John McCain puts it, the "Terrorists' War on Us"). See that's the difference between us. You don't see the bigger picture. I do.
I don't agree with everything many Republicans do. I think there is a place for gay rights and that immigration laws should be made to reflect the realities of the border, as well as the human element.
There is another reason I don't vote for Democratic Presidents. The wording of many candidates and their supporters often sounds very blameful of America for so many things and is often more pessimistic than the Republican viewpoint. They talk about how gloomy everything is, to the point of exaggeration. If things are going well, they have to bring up something that isn't. When the economy was recording record back-to-back months of job growth, it wasn't talked about or reported much, but the jumpy gas prices were. When something good happened in the Iraq progress, they always downplayed any success and suggested withdrawal. These aren't minor differences in the way each party sees the world. Reagan was optimistic, Carter was all gloom. And it really made a difference in how their administrations worked. Look at how successful Reagan was in the mind of a majority of the people, while Carter is seen as one of the worst Presidents of the 20th century.
Obama may buck this trend, but that might change as he becomes the nominee and begins to make things sound gloomy unless he gets elected. McCain will stay optimistic and could very well win. Polls show him already closing in on Obama and Clinton.
Edited By criddic3 on 1205549797
"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021
I think you mostly wasted a poll, criddic, given that you left out Mark Sanford, Sarah Palin, and Marsha Blackburn, all of whom I'd say are more likely choices than about six of the people listed. (Especially someone like Romney, whom McCain would never choose.)
I think Pawlenty is probably the most likely pick, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Hustchison or Blackburn there either. Sarah Palin (and Bobby Jindal) probably needs to wait another four to eight years to be a serious VP contender.
I'm guessing Kay Bailey Hutchison. If the Dems nominate Obama the Republicans could gamble on disenfranchised fems coming over to them. If the Dems nominate Clinton the they could gamble on neutralizing the fem vote.
Why are we having the same old argument about "family values" or whatever we're calling "moral issues" this time around? This election is going to be decided on the economy and the war.
Criddic, you just shoot yourself in the foot. We have something in this country called a Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion and several other freedoms I don't feel like enumerating.
You say some people "believe" that life begins at conception, whereas others don't. You're saying we should legislate morality. We should legislate what what group believes and not what others believe. We should rob a woman of her rights just to make those who "believe" that life begins at conception feel better? They need to protect their own souls instead of going after others'.
Iraq was every bit a central character in the War on Terror as Rosie Cotten was a central character in The Lord of the Rings. She was minor and fractious and had no true impact on the story, other than a brief emotional one. There was never any evidence that Iraq had cooperated with or provided assistance to Al Qaeda, the real center of the War on Terror. But, since Pakistan isn't an oil-rich nation, we needed to help Bush and Cheney's old friends get richer. Which is far more central to the war on terror than any presumed (and proven false) connections between Iraq and the war on terror.
I'm not blaming ALL of the rich. I'm blaming the ones that are moving jobs overseas so they can make more money for themselves and for their stockholders, putting working families out of a job who then have to take on lower-paying jobs, pushing them further under the poverty level. Anyone who defends the corporate rich deserves to have their job outsourced and be forced to find one that pays a pittance and then have to subsist off of no government aid since that too was eliminated when the rich got their tax breaks.
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
Demonizing pro-life, pro-national security, pro-moral beliefs is hardly a way to have a civil debate about those issues, but they are polarizing.
Personally I do believe in the rights of the people, gay or straight or whatever. The issue goes deeper than the misleading "rights" you suggest. For instance, many people believe that life begins at conception, since the development of the child is beginning to form in a microcosmic sense. So just because the child is forming within the body of the mother, it is not a matter of the woman's "right" to her body. There is another life at stake.
The War on Terror indeed has to do with Iraq, and vice-versa. Just because Iraq didn't attack us doesn't make the move any less sensible to me, because Iraq was a central area of terror in the Middle East that could easily aide the groups that would or could harm us. This did not begin with President Bush, as some conveniently like to forget.
Businesses should be allowed to thrive, since that helps the economy. Your argument is the same as that against people who become rich. Everyone wants to be rich, but they like to blame those people for all society's ills. Some are corrupt in each case, but the fact is that many big companies and many rich people help the country and other people in many ways, too. I'm considered below the poverty level income-wise, so I have no reason to prop up corrupt rich people, but I do think that it is unfair to blame wealthy people or unjustly penalize them for the status.
"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021
Yes, your political beliefs. You mean attacking innocent civilians while waging a war that wasn't even remotely linked to the purported "war on terror", denying equal rights to gays, allowing the government to force itself into a woman's life, allowing the rape and abuse of our natural ecosystem, allowing corporations to become filthy rich while the people struggle to find a way out of their own debt.
Your political beliefs are so righteous.
My prediction went to Mitt Romney, though Minnesota's governor also makes sense. The strategy of choosing a running mate is to pick a state that could easily flip in the race. While Mass might not, it's possible with a VP from the state. Northern states are more attractive for a southern candidate like McCain. That way he appeals to people in all regions of the country. Crist would also be a wise choice as Florida is a tipping point state that can help determine the election.
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Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
criddic3 wrote:I know some of you won't vote for Senator McCain in any case,
some?
I'm certain that there are a few on this board who would consider voting for McCain. I considered both Dem candidates briefly, but they are really at odds with my political beliefs. My instinct may be to vote Republican, but I never shut out the possibility of the other party offering a viable candidate. I always try to listen to what they say, which is why I watched some of their debates throughout the season. Because this is a Democracy and their are many choices, I expect (maybe foolishly) that others give the process a chance and consider all the candidates.
Remember, my favorite candidate was Giuliani from the beginning. John McCain was not my first or favorite choice, but not for the same reasons that some other Republicans had. However, he does have good credentials and is better than either Obama or Clinton.
"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021
