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At 3/1/08 02:12 AM, cellardoor6 wrote: Wow, are you on crack?

1) Americans vote directly for president when it is the presidential election.

Does the electoral college ring any bells? In the presidential election, Americans vote for electors, who then vote for a presidential candidate. Nowadays, electors always vote on the candidate that their state chooses, but they technically can vote for whoever they want. Still, this creates problems because even if only 51% of a state votes for a certain candidate, all of the electors will vote in that direction. The obvious example was the 2000 election where Al Gore won the popular vote, but George Bush had the most electoral votes.

I believe the rationale is that the electoral college allows states to have a greater impact - operating as independent entities instead of one unified country. This would make sense if the United States gave individual states any significant power, but our government is very much a federal one and moving further in that direction all the time.

Most people would be happy pursuing their dreams. You seem to care a disproportionate amount about what other people think of you. If it's really crippling your life as you describe, then perhaps you should see a psychiatrist. You might have a personality disorder which can be eased with therapy and/or medication.

This is a problem with all affirmative action. The intentions are honorable, but it only serves to create a division between white and black people. Just the presence of a divide creates uneasiness between races; in a country that is predominantly white, black people are put at a disadvantage.

I know it's cliche to invoke Martin Luther King Jr., but this is relevant: His dream was of a future where your race didn't matter. Today, people hold up their race as a badge of pride. That's not equality - even if you're saying something positive about a race you're buying into the fact that there is a fundamental difference between races. For his dream to be achieved, we have to cut out this separation of culture in our society.

Start with Cowboy Bebop.

If you like that:
Samurai Champloo
Ghost in the Shell
Trigun

Not odd enough?
FLCL
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Detective Conan

Too confusing for you?
Stick to pokemon.

...but seriously, adult swim's where it's at. Watch yourself some Spaceghost and Sealab.

At 6/18/06 11:52 PM, The_American_Zombie wrote: Try nutmeg.

Only if you like vomiting.

At 6/18/06 11:48 PM, YesMyLastNameIsPoon wrote: Starcraft

...but I have to mention Katamari Damacy.

The truth is that soda is just a gateway drink to much more dangerous substances.

At 6/18/06 11:39 PM, Delrith_Ur wrote: Who beats off to this?. Seriously.

Okay, that one made me laugh.

At 6/18/06 08:33 PM, Dinodoode wrote: I misspelled "looked", in case that is still too hard to decipher, You just take what other people in this thread have posted in response to my posts, and put them into yours.

Nope. I wrote something completely different in each of my posts. If you didn't read or understand them, that's your problem. I only paraphrased somebody elses' post in my last one because you contested my use of "pwned".

But in the meantime, it is illegal, therefore you should obey it. It doesn't matter if the law is just or unjust, until you get it legalized, you shouldn't use it.

I was never arguing for breaking the law. I just think that since the law is wrong, we should be working to change it.

And the government has proof of it being dangerous, (This is a Canadian Website, sorry for the inconvienence) http://www.hc-sc.gc.../youth-jeunes_e.html

http://en.wikipedia..._effects_of_cannabis

http://www.mpp.org/common_q.html
http://www.newscient..th-in-the-brain.html

http://www.drugs.com/Hashish/index.html

There's a few sources proving marijuana's no more dangerous than cigarettes. If you seriously want more, I can find more. And since there is at least a reasonable doubt of, and at more overwhelming evidence against, the danger of marijuana, I think in the spirit of the American legal system it's only fair to lift the ban. You know, for great justice.

The government is a monster because it won't legalize weed?

'Tis not what I wrote. You can tell because it's just a page before your post. I said the government would become a monster if people didn't challenge unjust laws. If they didn't direct the government down the right path. And it would. The weed ban alone doesn't make the government a monster, just a little bit worse than it could be.

I still lack evidence that I was pwned.

Please. It's getting pathetic.

At 6/18/06 06:36 PM, Dinodoode wrote: He didn't dismantle shit, you just look at what he said and copied it into this post and your last one.

I don't understand what that means. Even after reading it three times, it still perplexes me. It seems like a problem with your verb tenses, but whatever way I change them around it still makes no sense. Congratulations, sir. An excellent grammatical labyrinth.

You did argue that the government has the right to ban dangerous substances, and that we have a responsibility to obey the government. Nylo pointed out that the govermnent lacked evidence of marijuana being a dangerous substance, and that your responsibility to make sure the government is doing its job right is greater than your respoinsibility to blindly obey.

He was very nice about it. But you were pwned.

What is with all these comments that I do not support the democratic policies of our nation? I said that if you break a law, you get punished. I also said that the government is telling us that Weed could hurt us, and yet some people choose to do it. I stand by my comments because I love my country and wouldn't turn my back on it for some Marijuana.

There is such thing as an unjust law. As a good American, it's your duty to find these laws, and see that they're changed. That's how the government is kept from turning into a monster.

For the reasons repeatedly stated in above posts, the banning of marijuana is an unjust law.

At 6/18/06 11:43 AM, Dinodoode wrote: He didn't "pwn" me, he is talking politics.

He dismantled your initial statement. "pwning", as I see it, can apply even to the field of politics.

Well, if your government tells you something, and you disobey, then you will be punished. It's just how the world works. And, if you have someone actually TELLING you something could kill you, hurt you or whatnot, and you do it anyways, KNOWING that it could kill/hurt/etc you, then you do not deserve your government, your freedoms and (To a lesser extent) your life.

You seem to forget that this is a democratic country. The government isn't supposed to tell the people what to do. The people tell the government what to do.

The reason for substances to be banned is that people might take them without fully knowing their harmful effects. A drug dealer isn't going to tell some kid he's selling to that crack is addictive, or PCP causes psychosis.

However, there's no reason a well-educated individual shouldn't be given the choice. More fair drug laws would simply make potentially dangerous drugs illegal until you are an adult. Having passed public school requirements, it's assured you know the risks involved. Then it's your own business.

At 6/17/06 10:09 AM, CamelBJE wrote: Exactly, Science does not stop for politically correctness and sensitivity. If the evidence does shooow such results, then live with it.

...but apparently science does stop for political corectness. Dr. Lahn is "moving away" from his research. It seems like a disaster to me.

If people don't want to hear the truth, they may lock themselves in their own rooms. Otherwise, science should be allowed to take its course.

At 6/17/06 01:15 AM, Dinodoode wrote: I'm not pro-weed or anti-weed, but I think that the government has a COMPLETE right to tell us what is and is not good for us! They are actually TELLING US, for christ's sake, that something isn't good for us.

Since Nylo already pwned you, I'll only add one point. There's a difference between the government telling us what is good, and forcing us to do it. As part of our individual freedoms and whatnot, we get to choose what to do with ourselves regardless of the government's reccomendation. It's actaully nice when my government gives me a heads-up that something might be harmful, but I personally feel my opinion should be respected if I don't give a shit.

At 6/18/06 02:24 AM, Wyrlum wrote: The worst thing humans have ever done is... science. What has science done for us? Science gave us the nuclear bomb, the machine gun, chemical weapons... It is time to do away with science one and for all.

In a context so big as to encompass the entire human race, the concept of morality kind of falls apart. After all it was really us who invented the concepts of good and evil. I'd have to say that everything we do, from the perspective of the whole universe, is just neutral. Say we destroy every planet in existence with our reckless techno-magiks. Who's to say that's good or bad? There is no judge.

The reason this quote bugs me is that from a human perspective, I think establishing science is the one great thing we have done. I would't want a single scientific acheivment to be rescinded. Our understanding of the world around us, and our ability to manipulate it in such delicate ways, is what makes us such an interesting species. We'd be boring as hell if it weren't for science.

The standpoints of political parties change as the politicians do. Republicans back in the day were completely different from Republicans now, and the same for Democrats.

With that in mind, arguing about the Republicans track record doesn't seem to hold much relevence. Instead it might be nifty to look at what's going on today. These are completely different, independent people from the ones in the past. They can't be given credit or lose face just because they belong to the same orginization. Judge either party on its current actions.

At 6/13/06 08:34 PM, Begoner wrote:

w/e. The point wasnt the book. Its the quote, and thats basically why it wouldnt work.

Unfortunately, the quote is also irrelevant. In a democratic communist society (ie, real communism), there would be no absolute power since power and capital would be more or less equally distributed among the people, not allowing for any corruption and making for a more democratic system than capitalism.

I think the point is that there could never be a true democratic communist state. The fact that the government is responsible for allocating all resources always will degrade into some sort of dictatorship. The opportunity is there - all that is needed is some ambitious individual to seize power. Since all people have some level of natural greed (which is not a bad thing, just a survival instinct) there will always be somebody willing to go the extra step.

True communism has never existed. It never will, too. The fact is that is fails to take into account humanity's natural tendancy toward selfishness. Capitalism is a much better econimic model because it becomes stronger the more selfish people are. Communism instantly falls apart at the first sign of greed.

At 6/13/06 07:49 PM, JudgeMeHarshX wrote: Only makes it worse that he so strongly fought for something he didn't believe.

Powell is really a loser. He completely sold out to a concept he obviously didn't buy into. How could he be expected to lead an entire country in the right direction if he immediately bowed to the pressure of the Bush administration? I admit I agree with him on many of his own personal opinions, but I would never ever vote for him. Depending on whoever is trying to influence him, he might go meandering off in any political direction. He's a mental weakling.

At 1/3/06 01:43 PM, morefngdbs wrote: Do you want to join a club like that.

Sure, why not? I heard we would all get special headbands and secret handshakes.

As long as it counts as the tenth wonder of the world, and is visible from space, I'm all for it.

At 1/2/06 06:03 PM, Coffin0267 wrote: The only way you can get caught is if they were to either bug your house (illegal without reasonable suspicion or without suspicion of terrorism) or if one was to do it in public , which is already a law (Pee wee found out). So the only way that you can get caught is if they illegally invade one's privacy so any offense would never hold up in court.

Scenarios:
Some dude goes to work, and cracks a joke about masturbation. A co-worker with a grudge narcs on the guy. Armed with probably cause, police are authorized to put a bug in his house. He's in jail within a week.

An undercover cop stakes out a newsstand, and observes some shady dealings. When the newsstand owner next takes aside a customer to sell an "extra special" magazine, the cop arrests them both. The customer is charged with intent to buy pornogrophy, and the owner with posession of masturbation pariphenilia.

A young woman's purse is stolen, but luckily for her a bicycle cop is able to intercept the would-be robber. Before he returns the purse, he cannot help but notice the vibrator poking out. She is arrested and, ironically, the purse impounded as evidence.

As part of a sting operation, the FBI sets up a porno site and logs every IP address that visits it. Probable cause established, each person's house is in turn searched for evidence of masturbation.

Yeah... people don't usually smoke pot out in the open. Yet arrests happen. I think they'd figure out a way.

...another thing. If it were not an all-black college, it would probably become similarly diverse to other colleges. Would that make black people less comfortable to go there? Maybe. But it's America. If these black people can't learn to swallow their discomfort around whites, which some might call racism, they will have trouble in real life. We can't exactly split sections of the country into all-black zones.

At 1/2/06 08:51 PM, MoralLibertarian wrote: Thw whole premise is ridiculous because I don't know a single white person who wants to go to a black school and I don't know single black person who would want to go to a white school. As a matter of fact, all my black friends like black teachers better. They say, "Black teachers just speak to me better."

Maybe some white guys like black teachers more. Probably not. Apparently nobody you know, but why deny those few people a spot based purely on race? Maybe the college is in a convinient location for some non-blacks, or in an acceptable price-range. Possibly a friend went there first.

It's not important that you don't think white people would want to go there. If that's really the case, it can be non-segregated and it will work itself out to be all-black anyway. The way it is, any college that is all-black does a gross injustice to morality, equality, liberty and intangiable good stuff in general.

At 12/30/05 04:23 PM, MoralLibertarian wrote: Yeah, in retrospect it looks worse, but you're making it sound like there wasn't consensus on the issue of WMDs. Even wimpy weapons inspectors like Hans Blix were angry at Saddam for misleading inspectors. I'm so tired of liberals misrepresenting/lying about the build-up to the Iraq War, but it's not worth arguing about it now. We're there and it better be a democracy before we leave.

Actually, UN weapons inspectors were angry because Saddam kicked them out. It's not like that hadn't happened before, and as before the UN decided to pressure him into letting them back in. This in no way constitutes evidence that there are illegal weapons. Everything beyond this fact was pretty damn sketchy, and I challenge you to find a shred of good proof.

Our government leaders should have seen it coming.

True. Some comments from the Administration did appear a little too arrogant and cocky, but when all is said and done, Bush promised a long ride right from the start. Read the radio address before the War.

They did mislead us... by declaring victory when we were far from it. You might remember a photoshoot on an aircraft carrier. Even if they had not mislead us, which can be argued, they shouldn't be getting us into long-term wars without provocation. Iraq and Saddam were in no way connected to any attack on the United States.

I would love to see the budget for intelligence operations vs the original amount requested. I'm wondering how a 2.6 trillion dollar budget doesn't cover that...

Good point, I'm getting mixed up with military operations.

Saudi Arabia is sadly the most influential member of the OPEC Cartel and one of our sugar-daddy when it comes to black liquid. In addition, their investment in our national debt is sizable. Attacking Saudi Arabia outright would be a very, very bad idea for both these reasons, even if they deserve it. All of a sudden, you see why Iraq was a good country to invade, at least in the economic sense.

This is true. Economically, it makes sense. In my humble opinion though, nothing we gain can pay for the lives lost by the Iraqi's and by us. But since the administration claimed to go to war on moral grounds, it is ironic that Iraq was the one attacked. I can think of several places we would have a more valid excuse apart from Saudia Arabia. All of Africa comes to mind.

Civilian casualties are never okay, but they are also exaggerated and rarely intentional. "Torture" is also an exaggerated claim. You know that terrorists in captivity are trained to spread stories of torture not only because Arabs in the region believe it but left-wingers in this country believe it too? You are willing to believe that your country is a piece of shit without an ounce of proof. You think that torture is a giant orchestrated campaign by the president rather than the actions of a couple rogue, idiot soldiers.

I don't think the civilian casualties were reported enough. The army used harsh tactics when attacking, taking out important utilities. Even discounting the large number of deaths from bombings, many died just from heat and thirst. Which I think is worse.

As for the torture, there are some pictures you might be interested in. I'm sure you could find them pretty easily on google. If you really want some more, I could probably dig up some seperate eyewitness reports. Also consider doing some research about the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. Here's one:

http://en.wikipedia...ment.27_of_prisoners

Torture is inexcusable in any case. We're supposed to be better than that.

What President Bush should be doing is recruiting progressive Muslims (who look like Arabs) from this country and sending them over to assimilate to the culture and organize democracy movements or education movements (and perhaps act as double agents and work to thwart terrorist attacks). One thing that can be said about Middle Eastern countries is that they are relatively stable, and democracy or free market reforms aren't going to come about under those situations.

Good idea.

At 12/30/05 03:28 PM, PCHoliday wrote: Terrorism is real and we should be fighting it in a variety of different ways. First, increased security in the homeland (which the press rarely focuses on unless it is controversial), second, offensives against rogue states with undeniable proof of a weapons development program, and third, reduction of global poverty through market and government reforms. The last one is pretty tricky to institute.

Terrorism does exist, but our "War on Terror" is laughable. Afghanistan was a good move, and the execution of it was expertly done. The government admittedly harbored a terrorist group that had recently attacked the US. On the other hand, there was no reason for us to believe Iraq was harboring terrorists and the proof we had of weapons was shaky at best. In retrospect it looks even worse - now that we know there were in fact no weapons there.

Now there is a serious terrorist problem in Iraq, mostly because our invasion has caused so much trouble for the civilian population. I would call that irony, but it wasn't an unexpected outcome. Our government leaders should have seen it coming.

And then there are the real solutions... security and foreign aid. You mentioned both. The budget for intelligence operations is far less than the amount requested. The Department of Homeland Security is a joke. The Middle East is curiously devoid of any efforts to stabilize the govermnents. The one country best-known for producing and harboring terrorists - Saudia Arabia - isn't being attacked. Hell, we're not even trying to impose sanctions or anything. We're giving them money.

At 10/16/05 06:07 PM, TimeFrame wrote:

At 10/16/05 05:19 PM, -SkyCube- wrote:

Unless he's an Arab of course...

Go shove a hippy up your ass.

That was stupid. Take the time to actually form a coherent response if you bother to type it up, especially when the other person has a point. It's documented that American citizens with Arab backrounds are right now being held without having been charged of a crime. If you didn't know this, please go inform yourself.

At 10/1/05 11:31 AM, Rogueboys wrote: China is a capitalist communist nation which is impressive because those 2 should not be able to coincide, they have a capitalist economy mixed with the injustice of human rights and militarily communistic

They can't coincide. Chinacalls itslef communist, but isn't even slightly. Communism and capitalism are two directly opposite economic systems. Lack of human rights is not a characteristic of communism, it's a characteristic of totalitarianism, and polluted socialism.

At 10/1/05 01:33 AM, FAB0L0US wrote: Not only will China not be comparable to America technology wise in 10 years, they will probably be still farther behind. Why? Simple reason. Money. Dont believe me?

That's an excellent link. I wanted to post in response the graph of China's revenues vs. American's revenues over the past 20 years, but I couldn't find it. Unfortunately that means you'll have to take my word for it when I say that China's on a course to overtake America economically, and if that money were funneled into the military it would be signifigant. But whatever.

At 10/1/05 12:42 AM, Rogueboys wrote: I beg to differ on ur opinion that americans are in control economically or militarily, I would say that China is, they have the biggest army, not as technically advanced as the Americans but numbers could sway a battle, and as we all know everything is made in China

If a war happened between China and America now, America would win hands down. You're right when you say China's numbers could sway a battle, but America's technology is so very much ahead. Give it ten years or so and China would be able to squith the United States with its pinky.

That being said, America actually has all of its active troops in some god forsaken desert, so no Chinese vs. American army showdown is happeneing anytime soon.

At 7/7/05 12:58 AM, BeFell wrote: The intelligent thing to do would be for the UN to stop molesting little African girls and militarily stabilize every country that is behaving in a manner which pomotion starvation and war between it's occupants. Thus those countries are stuck in an endless cycle of destabilization while the anti stabilizers bitch and moan about it and demand that we send aide but ignore the politics.

I completely agree. The UN is really not doing a lot to actaully bring stability to Africa. Stable governments, doesn't matter what type, will lead to better conditions.