Yes, well this pretty accurately describes (IMHO) the true Bush Republicans. NOT all Republicans. And thankfully not the majority of Americans. We already know without question that the straight ticket voters who are pro-gun, anti-choice (yeah, yeah..."pro life"), pro death penalty, pro school vouchers, pro prayer in school, pro tax cuts for the rich, etc., they will vote for Bush no matter what he says, thinks or does for over the next year. Fortunately this minority does not control our elections. The people who are capable of making decisions based on competence and timeliness do. The often talked about "undecideds". Why campaign at all if not for the "undecideds"? They by definition are the only voters who can have their votes affected by a campaign. The "decideds" already know who they are voting for. Maverick and Pabst need no campaign. They already KNOW without a doubt what the outcome will be. They already KNOW without a doubt who he best candidate is. They already KNOW without a doubt where they themselves stand on every issue likely to be raised during the next campaign. It is a great thing that the information on where candidates stand on issues is easily found. Howard Dean's website and the text of the speech cited by ARogueTrader should be (but won't be) read by those who have already made their minds up to vote against him. They may as well know what it is they are voting against. They already know what and who they are planning on voting for. Preaching to the choir gets cheers. Preaching to the doubters may actually get a message across. As is clear, some voters don't care what the message is. I pride myself on listening to both sides of any political argument. I have never voted a straight party line. I make an effort to enter the voting booth with some knowledge about the candidates. It is not always possible to know about every candidate on a polling ticket. So yeah, when in doubt, I will vote against one party (generally). When no party affiliation is designated, if I am not familiar with the candidates, I will generally vote against the incumbents in small town positions. If the local dog catcher has distinguished himself, I will be aware he has done a good job and deserves another term. If I have never heard his name mentioned, I figure give the next guy a chance. But that is not as it should be. Unfortunately, that is the reality. I don't believe that it is possible to be informed about every candidate for every position on election day. This is why we see so many signs on the side of the road. The most effective way to get elected to a school board position (for example) is by name recognition. Whoever has the most signs wins. Fortunately, when it comes to national politics, we have the ability to really get to know the positions of the candidates. Unfortunately, many people are not interested in what these positions are. Their minds are already made up. Maverick has proven that. Pabst too as far as I can tell. For Maverick to say that ARogueTrader is a member of the Dean "fan club" because he posted text of Dean's speech goes to prove the point of closed mindedness. Not on ART's part, but on Mavericks. Peace, RS
So you assumed fact not in evidence about which candidate I would vote for. Typical. You continue to build a case for you being a person of shallow thought and simple mindedness. Well based on the fact that you have posted about 50 articles about Dean and zero from any of the other candidates I concluded that you are a Dean supporter. Fine, if you are not supporting Dean, let's see if you are confident enough in your choice to tell us who you do favor. Oh wait, I already know your response, that is how predictable you are. You are going to say Mav, I don't have to tell you who I'm voting for or you will say you are still undecided which is bullshit because you have not posted one freaking article from anybody else. What, don't you peruse their websites as well? Unless someone votes party line without thought, unless someone votes for the incumbent without thought, unless someone votes for Bush without a thought, reading the ideas of both leading candidates who are running from president makes sense. Now ART, I know you are old enough and wise enough to know that candidates from both sides, yes even the evil republicans, are only going to tell you what you want to hear. Basing your decision on their rhetoric would be like me asking a criminal I just arrested for murder if he really did it and if he said, no, I didn't, then I would just release him and move on to the next case. That's how stupid that is. Judge a man by what he does, not by what he says. Rather than debate any of the points in Dean's speech, you resort to your base and typical approach. Dull, dull, dull. I'm not going to debate all his talking points. I told that I was not a fan of his appeasement strategy and I recommenced a better democratic candidate in Gephardt. there is something I care to post, I will post it, without or without your insipid prompting. No, I call you out on all these threads and like a little girl you run away and start another thread from some bullshit article. You keep doing this acting as if those on here don't have the ability to read the news on the internet. I called you out on Rush Limbaugh and you ran for your life. All you do is post articles from the internet. You don't have an once of original thought inside that head of yours.
Typical exaggeration from Mav, when you don't know the facts, just make them up and exaggerate to attempt to make a point. Bwahahahaha!!!! I like how you don't even provide any facts that my 50 posts line was an exaggeration. LOL. It looks like the kettle is calling the tea black! How do you know I don't peruse their websites? You never post anything from any of the other candidates websites and you don't even make any interference to them. In fact, I'm not sure you have even talked about any other democratic candidate then Dean. LOL. Yeah, shame on me for thinking that you liked Dean. LOL. That you think you know who I am going to vote for is bullshit, more assumptive bile from Mav. Bwahahahahaha. Boy did I call it or what. I told you that you wouldn't say who you liked. You are too afraid to. Because you know as soon as you tell us then you will have to defend not only that candidate but your point of views and defending your point of views is exactly what you do not want to do. Why? Because you can't, again this goes back to you not having an original thought inside that head of yours. Just copy and pasting links. Bwahahahahahaha. Looks like I am going to have to coin a new phrase, "Mavisms" which means to assume, exaggerate, and keep the mind closed. LOL. You can coin all the phrases you want, you still have not expressed one idea or thought that is your own. So why bother with debates? Since you view them all as pandering liars. Bwahahahahaha! I hate to break this to you but about 3% of the voting public admits to making their voting decisions based on debates. Debates are created as a way for candidates to interact with each other and see how they think on their feet and how they handle the pressures of being challenged. What actually gets said in debates is pretty much useless. You don't really listen to the rhetoric in debates and making your decisions based on that do you? God I hope not. You are comparing the political process to arresting a suspected murderer? What a fine view you have of the political process here in America. Yup, same thing. Listening to what a candidate tells you he is going to do is no different then listening to a criminal make excuses. And I will say the same thing about Bush just to be bipartisan here. I never believed a word that came out of his mouth in any of the debates. Are you happy now? See, I can be very bipartisan. If we judged Bush by what he had done and not what he said he wouldn't have been elected. Yeah he would have because he was still better then Gore. Bush had a history of tax cuts in Texas and being a pro-growth governor. The American people voted for that over the tax raising Gore. So you are unable to debate ideas and concepts....no surprise there. No, I think you misunderstood. His rhetoric is all the same. Bush is evil, we shouldn't have gone to war, nobody around the world really wants to hurt us, we should just leave them alone. Bla bla bla bla bla. Heard it all before. I don't feel the need to dignify anything that gutter trash says with a response. You use the word "appeasement" in the same manner as Hannity, what a surprise. Does Dean not want to appease the enemy? I would love to see you back that up with facts. Show me how Dean's approach to Iraq is not appeasement. Congress would not function without appeasement, or better stated, negotiation, compromise, etc. Bwahahahahaha!!!! You want to compromise with a cold hearted dictator??!?!!?!?!?!!? Are you freaking serious? Yeah and I guess we should have just sat down with Hitler and asked him to re-think this whole terminating all the jews thing. I mean I'm sure if he had given this a second thought he would have seen the error of his ways and changed his mind. Wow man! You are really scary. Negotiate and compromise with the Stalin's, the Hitler and the Saddam's of the world. You know, maybe we should negotiate and compromise with Charles Manson and Ted Bundy too. Maybe we can come to some sort of understanding between them and society so they can go back out on the streets and start killing people again. Yeah good idea. It is only when you have people who are unable and unwilling to admit they might be wrong, that there are different sides to a story, when they are fundamentalist religious fanatics who point to their way as the only way is there no room for progress. At that point all you can do is resort to primitive conflict. Dude, are you even listening to what these islamic fundamentalists are saying to us. They are saying we want to kill every american man, woman and child and completely destroy their society. They are the lunatics. We are not saying that, they are. And yet you attack our values and beliefs as if we are imposing our way of life on them. You can't be serious. You cannot be serious. You make a fool out of yourself on all of these threads and just confirm the stereotype of a brain dead ditto head right wing fanatical conservative. What are you talking about? You are the one that starts these empty threads and then when you start getting challenged you run off and start a new one. You never face the heat. Once your ideology crumbles and you have nothing left to stand on, you lay low for a few days and then post another link to another article in which you never add anything of your own original thought to it. That is what I call brain dead. You called me out on Rush? You have a strong fantasy life Mav. You bet your f*cking ass I called you out on that. I explicitly asked you what the point was to the thread after I told you I felt Rush was guilty and he should go to jail. You never responded, you just ran. I asked what the point was to the whole thread and you stayed silent. I asked you why you even bothered to start like the 10th thread on this one guy and you had no answer. You ran like the chickenshit that you are. You will never own up to anything. Do you know what a character assassination is? It's when somebody comes out of the bushes and attacks someone else's character and then runs away as fast as they can so they don't have to answer any questions. That is what you did and it's very childish. You really need to start being a man and start defending your threads a little more. You don't need to hide under the bed and be scared.
I have no reasonable choice left having reached the obvious conclusion that you suffer from a mentally defective mindset and are incapable of intellectual honesty and civil debate. Done.
How big a landslide do you think Bush will get (assuming Dean gets the nomination), in terms of electoral college votes? Also, which of the Dem candidates do you think stands a better chance against Bush? Finally, are you betting on Bush to win? Current odds place his reelection chances around 72%, and I'm thinking of taking a wager.
Bush will win handily against any Demo ticket. If he had even the slightest vulnerability Clinton would be entering the race. Don't be surprised to see California and New York go Bush.
"Famous liberals/socialists: Jesus Christ (his heart bled for the poor and oppressed) Robin Hood (Robbed from the rich to give to the poor) Gandhi" Robin Hood wasn't a socialist - he was against state power, as his thefts were of tax recepits which were originally extorted from peasants under threat of violence. In other words he was a propertarian/libertarian, a right-winger, returning property to its rightful owners. He certainly didn't advocate collective ownership of the means of production, forced wealth redistribution, or any other socialist policies. Jesus also didn't advocate collective ownership of the means of production. He was hostile to the moneychangers, but equally he preached against theft and in favour of charity, thus going against forced wealth-redistribution. So again, he is clearly not in favour of core socialist principles. Gandhi advocated forced seizure of the means of production, forced wealth redistribution, and was a genuine socialist. The atrociously poor living standards prevailing through most of India, 50 years later, are testimony to the failure of that policy. Literally tens or even hundreds of millions of people have been condemned to grinding poverty and sent to an early grave as a result of the poor economic growth resulting from the socialist policies advocated by Gandhi, his friend Nehru, and their intellectual followers. Gandhi is therefore responsible for more deaths than Hitler, concentrated overwhelmingly against the poorest members of Indian society. He is therefore a killer and oppressor of the poor, whose policies ensured an incredibly unequal class-ridden elitist society in which social mobility was non-existent and only the very rich can thrive. To be fair he did this due to ignorance and stupidity, rather than malice, but that does not diminish the size of the terrible holocaust that he perpetrated on his own people. The main hopes for Indians nowadays of a better life come from economic opportunities offered by capitalism, in the form of outsourced labour, rapidly growing technology companies listed on the Bombay and Nasdaq stock exchanges, and the industrial concerns built up by entrepreneurs. They are providing jobs, and the income for adequate food and healthcare, which the socialist Indian state has utterly failed to do over the last half century.
"Famous powerful capitalists: Julius Caesar Genghis Khan The Sheriff of Nottingham and Prince John" All 4 people you mention built their empires through the use of force, specifically theft and violent intimidation. None of them derived the bulk of their wealth or power through voluntary trade, or the employment of capital to make investments and thus derive an economic return. In fact, they all *suppressed* the activities of capitalists, by levying taxation, regulating commerce to the priveleged few by a system of licenses, banning competition, and other anti-free market policies. Secondly, even if they were capitalists (there are evil capitalists, such as Crassus, from ancient times), it is their non-capitalistic behaviour that would be wrong - the capitalist aspects of their behaviour (trading goods, investing, hiring people etc) would be not objectionable in the slightest. If one could go back in time and stop them perpetrating all their evil deeds, the extent to which they indulged in capitalism would be *increased*, not decreased. So basically, by mentioning their names, you support increased capitalism, rather than argue against it.