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At 5/5/04 04:39 PM, mrpopenfresh wrote: If politics didn't exist, then your mom wouldv'e probably eaten you at birth.

no, i think that "a modest proposal" was politically motivated...

At 4/29/04 11:12 PM, Stevie_Blade wrote: Bush is cool

i'm cooler.

At 4/23/04 01:56 AM, FatherVenom wrote: I wasn't aware cons were making money though. Do they really earn anything by working at the license plate factory?

1) yes, that's how they make money for cigarettes and such.

2) you don't necessarily spend your whole life in jail for a felony. (i.e. grand theft auto, intent to sell, etc.)

At 4/22/04 04:54 PM, Zalbun wrote: Am I the only one who's noticed Californians already vote like 14 year olds?

zing!

At 4/22/04 10:11 AM, TheGooie wrote: I'm an anti-Met fan, however, the Yankees suck this year

eff tha yankees. go red sox!

At 4/22/04 02:19 AM, IllustriousPotentate wrote: $10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

you wrote all that out, then complained that his statement was a waste of your time?

anyway, it would be less...umm...stupid to write that number in scientific notation. you dig?

At 4/22/04 10:09 AM, TheGooie wrote: They look for people like Frankie, Ruthie and other out-of-control people to join the cast because it makes good television.

but if there is no conflict, there is no show. of course they're gonna pick out-of-control people, because that is what the viewers want. america loves to see this kind of thing. MTV, in reality, is just a pawn in all this. yes, they could just stop picking people with serious problems, but then the real world, which america loves, would not be so loved. viewers would be angry, disappointed, and eventually stop watching mtv's highest rated (this is just speculation, i don't really know) tv show.

so i think this isn't really reality-tv's fault, as much as it is the american public's fault.

At 4/22/04 02:00 AM, NoHitHair wrote: 1. Taxation Without Representation There is no way for people under 18 (for this particular argument, those of the ages of 16 and 17) to have any power whatsoever in a Democracy without the ability to leverage power through voting. Voters and the government could impose whatever they felt like on those under 18 and as long as the majority had the vote, their voice would be irrelevant. That is a prime example of taxation without representation.

i'm glad you pointed this out, because i didn't learn about it in seventh grade history class

2. Maturity Line There's been a bit of talk concerning the immaturity of a 16 year old versus an 18 year old. This is a difference of two years. Honestly, in two years, at that late in life, you believe there's an inherent maturity line? That's ludicrous. The opponents to lowering the voting age consistently point to all the hardships of life, how 16 year olds don't understand what 18 year olds do and I find that so laughable.

laugh all you want, it's still true. just like there is a maturity difference between 14 and 16 year olds, or 12 and 14 year olds, etc. during adolescence, which typically doesn't end until age 18-21, two years makes a hell of a lot of difference in maturity. thus the maturity argument. in the grand scheme of things, sure, it's a small amount of time. but in the scale of growing up, it's a huge gap.

You know what -- you're absolutely right! 16 year olds don't have jobs, they don't care about money, they aren't worried about drugs, sex, society... As a matter of fact, let's just say they're not real people. I wish I could roll my eyes back farther.

weren't you judging red for his use of the slippery slope argument?

3. American Citizenry Now I will address such a weak and pathetic argument, I feel a migraine approaching at the mere thought of it and again, it falls directly into Skvnk perpetual use of slippery slope logic.

why, yes, yes you were.

I say people who work are taxed unfairly if under 18 since they can't choose -- Skvnk turns it into I said that all kids of all ages should vote since they buy stuff from stores and that stuff is taxed.

i believe he was saying that if you're gonna push it back 2 years, eventually people will argue that it should be pushed back another two years, so on and so forth.

Bottom line: Skvnk's arguments, the one who's doing the most arguing on this topic, are juvenile at best.

no you di-in't!

So, is there anyone else out there that I can lend an eye to so that I can read actual thoughtful argumentation concerning this?

i believe there are quite a few of us that are arguing regularly in this thread. but, since your arguments, up to this one, have not reflected that you are paying any attention to others' arguments, i can only assume that you just haven't been reading any others.\

talk about weak arguments.

At 4/22/04 01:44 AM, IllustriousPotentate wrote: It can't be that remarkable--we don't have enough money to cover our spending!
Enough with your empty statements. The percentage of income I collect from my paycheck is remarkable, too. Nearly 100%! Wow! Big deal!

on average, about 20% of a person's paycheck is taken out for taxes. that varies from state to state, since a small portion of income tax is state tax, but the majority is federal. considering the total income of all americans, that's a pretty
remarkable amount. we can't cover our expenses because, unfortunately, our national debt is in the millions.

Ours right now is roughly $5x10^11. Your point?

thank you for clarifying that. i believe he was exaggerating, stating that our national debt would be too high to write out, so it would have to be represented by scientific notation.

be nice, he made a concise statement and presented a valid point in the argument.

hmm...what other sports are gettin big now?

in baseball, i think that the mets are gonna do really well this year. they have the best infield in the league this season, mike piazza is back without injury, and that new matsui guy is a real breakout rookie. i was hopin that the phillies would do well (philly represent!) but after their 1-7 start i'm not too sure.

if noone likes baseball, then start talkin about another sport. this is our new political sports lounge.

raven, if you are as intelligent and well-rounded and ready to handle the real world (not the mtv one) as you claim to be (and i believe you may be, based on your posts in the bbs), then good for you. but you are an exception. the difference in maturity levels between almost all sixteen year olds and almost all eighteen year olds is pretty wide. you want proof? how about the fact that those of us old enough to vote have been through the age of sixteen, and most of us are willing to admit that, at sixteen, while we thought we were mature enough to make a responsible choice in regards to voting, we, in hindsight, were not.

sorry about tha long sentence... i think it still makes sense, though.

i don't know quite how to word this, but there have been a rash of people new to the politics board creating, like, six topics at a time. i mean, i don't new kids people creating a topic, but they always take people's arguments personally because they aren't used to our debating. they seem to think it's just a place to bitch about something they don't like, then get offended when someone disagrees with them.

i guess i'm tryin to say that if you are gonna create a topic, know what to expect in response to it. should we limit how long you've been around before you can create a topic?

At 4/21/04 09:38 PM, NoHitHair wrote: So, at sixteen, you're fully aware of the value of human life, but you're not smart enough to vote?

i'm not saying that at all. at sixteen, you can have a strong political view and state what you want to say very clearly and convincingly. but, as someone has already said, sixteen year olds are more likely to be idealistic and not as much realistic about how to solve a situation. that's the problem. if politics were run by ideals, things wouldn't work, because ideals have fundamental errors. that's what makes them ideals and not realities.

I really disagree.

i figured as much.

by the way, gooie, sorry about your friend.

At 4/21/04 09:43 PM, TheGooie wrote: The last thing the producers should find in the house is a dead body.

imagine how much ratings would shoot up if one of the members of "the real world" killed themselves. i mean, even if they cancelled that season because of it, the next season would have so many more viewers just because everyone would have heard about the suicide. mtv could have made a lot of money off of that, if she had ended up dead.

this topic was started at twenty-till ten, how long before it is closed? i'm takin bets starting now.

At 4/21/04 09:14 PM, BWS wrote: The peace symbol, however, represented an upsidedown broken cross.

i always heard that you could find the letters to spell out "no nukes" in the peace symbol, but i've never really been able to find it.

i gotta agree with jlop on this one, and say Lyndon B. Johnson. he did what he knew was right in regards to civil rights, and wouldn't listen to anyone who told him differently. unfortunately, he was never thought of pulling troops out of vietnam, so he got a bad rep for all that.

At 4/21/04 09:07 PM, NoHitHair wrote: What I'm confused about is where the correlation between age and correct decision making comes into play when its a matter of a few years.

it's called adolescence. while you may think you have fully matured by age 16, and feel that you are an adult, you are not fully mature. hell, eighteen year olds still have maturing to do, but they are much closer from those two years than a sixteen year old. you are still growing and maturing, mentally, whether you want to believe it or not. in two years you will know what i'm talking about.

And what about those old enough to vote but vote as many would believe "poorly"? Should we stop them from voting? And if we don't, then why are we stopping the younger from voting?

again, adolescence is the overriding factor here.

The thing that irks me about the voting age is as I said in the opening post -- 16 year olds can be executed on death row. They can get full-time jobs. They're no longer required to be in school. But yet they don't get to vote on any of these issues. Is that really that fair?

sixteen year olds can be executed because if you kill someone at sixteen, you are fully aware of the value of human life.(or, at least, you should be) children aren't executed because this is a concept that they do not truly understand. true, you don't have to be in school, but being a highschool dropout doesn't make you any more intelligent or ready to face the real world. and, unfortunately, neither does holding a full-time job as an assistant manager at mcdonalds, which is about the only full-time position you would be allowed to hold at sixteen.

At 4/21/04 04:38 PM, darkphantom wrote: The only thing I find confuseing is that the woman was willing to harm herself on national TV Most pepole with this condition have very low self esteem and consider there cutting a shameful thing, and is often rarley talked about and even more rarely seen... I wounder if that woman is just looking for the attention and a reason to get in the tabloid newspapers?

have you watched the show at all? she's definitely just doing it for attention. and, unfortunately, it worked. i know a lot of people like frankie, and it just gets annoying watching them pretend they hate themselves and making it publicly known just so others will feel sorry for them. she was looking for attention, so she performed this elaborate play because she knew that they would focus at least an entire episode around it. that's what mtv looks for in real world stars. people who will do anything for attention, including creating controversial situations.

At 4/21/04 01:17 PM, wiatt wrote: on the parties statment of principals it sais they want to end the income tax so there

c'mon, guys. he said "so there", we're defeated. let's just admit it.

now i don't usually get involved in affirmative action threads, because they go nowhere (even though red is whoopin this kids ass), but i would just like to say something.

i come from the philadelphia area, and we are a pretty racially diverse crowd. i picked a college in western pennsylvania, which turns out to be a sort of "redneck" part of the state. racism runs rampantly out here. a lot of the people i know that go to my college and grew up around the area have had very little experience dealing with black people. now, since my college, being a college campus, is ethnically diverse, they have a much better understanding of why racism is wrong, because they have, in two short semesters, been exposed to more minorities than they have encountered throughout almost their whole lives. affirmative action promotes diversity, which is a serious part of erasing racism. so if you want to argue that it is a racist practice (which i truly don't believe it is), then realize that it is a small amount of "racism" to help erase a much larger amount. it makes the world a better place.

At 4/21/04 01:24 AM, CrassClock wrote: As much as I appreciate Fat Mike's and all those band's effort to raise political awareness within the punk community, I never liked compilations.

how can you like punk music and not live off of compilations??

they're cheap, they're fast, they're hard. it's so punk rock.

the decisions that politicians make about those under 18 are usually not going to be unfair, because they know that these are the people who are going to be voting for them in a few years. also, the parents of these kids are doing the voting, too, and a lot of them will vote for what's best for their kids.

keep the voting age at the legal emancipation age, it just makes sense. if the law says you're not old enough to be outside by yourself after 11, it's gonna say that you're not old enough to vote, either.

At 4/21/04 12:14 PM, bumcheekcity wrote: I hear what you're saying, but if they're making $8bn, I dont think I'd have much of a problem with taxing them.

well, like someone already said, 8 billion divided up between all the native americans is relatively small when compared to the cost of living and per capita incomes in california. that tax wouldn't really provide that much revenue for the state. anyway, we took the land from them, then we gave them their own land, stole that, repeated this pattern a couple of times, then finally gave them their own little patches that they are allowed to self-govern (pretty much). let's give them some room.

...although if they waged war on us, they'd probably lose...

At 4/20/04 11:06 PM, Cinghiale wrote: In 2012 the world will end. The Mayans apparently had this great celestrial calender/equation for figuring out dates. I'm not sure what exactly, but it abruptly stopped working after 2012. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 0_0

the egyptians predicted that the world was going to blow up on september 9, 1999, according to their celestial calendar. the weird thing about that is, when they made it, they didn't know that the date was going to be 9/9/99.

ooooooooooo creepy.

At 4/21/04 11:03 AM, wiatt wrote: the libertarian party is also agres to eliminate the nncome tax

first of all, look at the sentence above. what you're doing there is proving your youth by showing us that you don't feel that it is important to have well structured statements in order to win an argument.

second of all, the libertarian party, or at least the more extreme side of it (which you seem to be on), also wants to put a gun in one of my hands and a crackpipe in the other, so i don't usually put too much stock in what they have to say.

At 4/21/04 02:55 AM, Skvnk_Warden wrote: Check your title deed a little closer.

ZING!

At 4/20/04 03:25 PM, mrpopenfresh wrote: Not sure about that one. Personally, I can't stare at a picture of Nixon for more than a coupple of seconds without being scared of his face. Ford was kind of scary too.

most all presidents, in their prime "good-looking" years, reflected what was the all-american handsome man at the time. ford, for example, was a well built, athletic college student at one point.

by the way, you know who else had affairs as president? fdr. jfk. oh wait, almost every president. that means nothing. it's just that today's culture is more obsessed with sex.

At 4/20/04 07:14 PM, wiatt wrote: i would rather live on the streets and that is a promise

well, you'd better not ask for money from any passers by either, because that would go against your whole philosophy. according to you, that would be stealing.

i guess our employers shouldn't be paying us, either. their company made the money. they should be able to keep it. we're just stealing from them. and president should just be a volunteer job, or he should live off of and pay for all our country's services thru 6-8% sales tax. (oh, wait, that's right, sales tax is a state tax...