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At 5/20/03 08:50 PM, FUNKbrs wrote: Lincoln. He started a Civil War on an issue that was slowly being settled peacefully by previous presidents, congress and senate, and then took all the credit for the fruits of their labor, the freedom of the slaves.

If you think the issue was being settled peacefully before Lincoln came along, then you're pretty far off.

The decade of the 1850s saw a complete and total breakdown in North-South relations. First came the Kansas-Nebraska act in 1854, which called for the issue to be decided in those territories by popular sovereignty. This angered Northerners who wanted to halt the spread of slavery. Then violence broke out between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces in Kansas, and then came such things as the Dred Scott case and John Brown's raid. These things deeply divided each side, and neither was willing to concede anything to the other. Finally, when Lincoln was elected without any Southern support whatsoever, the South saw they no longer had the political pull to preserve slavery, and the North could pretty much dictate policy over them. Thus, they decided to secede.

The only thing Lincoln did to cause secession was get elected, and since he did not view secession as legal, that pretty much meant war was inevitable.

Take a history class sometime. You'll learn quite a bit.

As for most overrated president... Clinton by a mile. Any idiot can take credit for a booming economy. Nevermind that Alan Greenspan has far more influence over the course of the nation's economy than the president, and that one man cannot possibly have that much influence over it anyway. Oh, and there were his "extracurricular activities", too.

Jeez...

Did I really post something that long ago?

There are some anti-Bush cartoons that I actually do find to be funny. This wasn't one of them. This cartoon just accused Bush of deceiving people, and really did nothing to make me laugh.

At 5/15/03 02:44 AM, OSC wrote: Iraq was never a threat. Bin Laden was and still is and we're just letting him do what he wants while we focus on Iraq. Well, up until that attack in Saudi Arabia. Bush vowed justice for that attack. Yeah, he did such a good job last time. *rolls eyes*

Whether or not Iraq was ever a threat is up for debate, but you agree with me that Iraq is currently not a threat. And if Iraq is currently not a threat, then why keep sanctions in place (which was my whole point, in case you don't remember)?

The French will lose the oil to the US. There's no proof they were against the war solely for that reason. There could've been proof if we had a shred of proof for having the war and they still strongly opposed. However, all we had was bullshit and lies. Why should the French support that?

Once again, the "proof" thing is up for debate. We provided what evidence we could without compromising our war strategy. Some were convinced, others were not. It's possible that France genuinely thought that a peaceful solution was possible. But it's also possible that they were interested in protecting their oil contracts with Saddam. The most likely scenario, in my opinion, is a little of both (as it is with the US). They probably figured, "Yeah, Saddam's a bad dude, but maybe we solve this crisis peacefully, avoid war, and at the same time, keep our oil! Yay!"

In one situation, a country gets oil, and a dictator is removed. In another situation, a country gets oil, and a dictator stays in power. Which sounds better to you?

See? Proof Bush brainwashed the pro-war crowd into believing blood-for-oil is a good thing. The protesters were right and they still are made to look like they were wrong.

I can see your point about "peace is better than war". That's just a fundamental disagreement between pro-war and anti-war crowds. One thinks it's more important to maintain peace, while the other thinks it's more important to remove a threat. Oil, in my opinion, has always been secondary. It's a nice bonus, to be sure, but the main purpose has always been removing a threat to world security (whether it was an actual threat is, again, up for debate).

At 5/16/03 02:11 PM, bumcheekcity wrote: Yer. A war is a two-way thing. Wouldn't it be fun if Iraq fought back? Now that would be a larf.

If it meant fighting for a scumbag like Saddam Hussein, I wouldn't fight back either.

At 5/14/03 09:54 PM, Jiperly wrote: Who are we to assume the next leader of Iraq will be a benviolent one? And also, isn't it, in the end, the UN making this decision, not the French? Did you know that if there are 10 votes for the subject in the security council, A veto cannot be used. So reguardless of what America thinks of France, they aren't keeping the sanctions on there- Americas inablity to solve issues diplomaticly is. If they convince 10/15 memebers that the sanctions should drop, then they will.

Yeah, it is the UN that makes the decision. Maybe I shouldn't have singled out the French (but it's just so much fun to single them out :)), but they do, after all, have the Russians, Germans, and Chinese on their side. Maybe the US could round up enough votes to override a French veto. But that doesn't keep me from being irritated at the French and their buddies.

And trust me--we won't let another dictator take power in Iraq.

At 5/14/03 10:49 AM, Nirvana13666 wrote: I am all for the ads. The Truth ads in particular because they are so creative and unconventional. They are using a form of sarcasm to inform society. It is true that big tobacco companies sponsor these commercials but it is most important to notice the message being sent through them. I am a smoker and a drug user but I inform myself on every piece of information available on a substance before I put it into my body, most people don’t do that but I guarantee all of them watch TV.

From what I understand, the Truth ads (the ones that actually work) aren't sponsored by the tobacco companies. The ones the tobacco companies put out don't say anything about WHY you shouldn't smoke. They just say some dumb stuff. Keep the Truth ads, they're fine. But dump the ones sponsored by the tobacco companies.

At 5/14/03 12:07 PM, Jiperly wrote: Saddam was not a direct threat to America- please tell me how a missle would get to the other side of the earth on trucks that can barely reach Isreal. Oh, But what about the terrorists?? After all, Mr. Bush said they were there.....although the FBI/CIA could not find any evidence of terrorists.....and it would be incredabily stupid for a man who has been in control of his nation with an Iron Grip for the past 30 years to invite "Freedom Fighters"(or terrorists, depending on what side of the attack you're on) into his country to defend him from a Nation on the other side of the Planet, not to mentention how stupid it would be to ARM them with WMD, and expect them to use it on Americans rather than using it on Saddam and taking control of the entire country and all its WMD(assuming they exist now)

If I recall correctly, our troops found an extremely large terrorist training camp just south of Baghdad. I'm not sure how stupid letting terrorists in would be, but apparently he did.

You're right.....by selling the worlds most expensive commondy at a cheap price for a Nation that invaded you and now have soldiers roaming through the streets, so Americans can use their SUV's, thats going to be fair and equal.....

What was "fair and equal" before? You seem to be suggesting that the Iraqis wouldn't be willing to do something for an "invading power", and that we'd make them sell it cheap to us and only us. The reason oil prices would drop here is that we weren't big consumers of Iraqi oil before, and once we start buying from a new source, increased supply will result in lower prices. Simple economics, my friend. And common Iraqis will have the opportunity to recieve a share of oil money. Did they have that opportunity under Saddam?

Huh? funny....it's my understanding that AMERICA placed those Sanctions in place, to keep Iraq from turning into a power hungry feind.....And since Iraq is being liberated and not occupied, doesn't that mean the Sanctions should still exist until we believe Iraq is no longer a threat? But No, cause then America can't use the precious oil from it.....

The power-hungry fiend, Saddam Hussein, is gone. Iraq IS no longer a threat. We may have been the ones who originally put the sanctions in place, but now we're the ones who want to lift them, but the French don't want to lift the sanctions, because they're worried about losing the oil to us. They had oil contracts with Saddam, which I believe is why they opposed the war in the first place. In one situation, a country gets oil, and a dictator is removed. In another situation, a country gets oil, and a dictator stays in power. Which sounds better to you?

The war was never about oil. It was always about removing a threat to the security of the nation and the world.

But yes, we knew that there is oil in Iraq. And the oil will soon be flowing, some of it to American shores. We aren't just illegally siezing the oil; we are going to legitimately buy oil from Iraq. The US will benefit tremendously from this in the form of cheaper oil prices and reduced dependency on OPEC. Iraq will benefit in the form of money flowing into the country--money that, for the first time in years, will actually be seen by the people of Iraq, not just a dictator who uses it to build more palaces and more weapons.

And all this will be happening soon--that is, if the French (surprise, surprise!) will quit being assholes and let the UN lift the sanctions. With Saddam gone, there is no longer any need for them, but I heard that the French want solid evidence of weapons of mass destruction before they'll do that. It seems like they just want to continue to piss us off even after the war is over. Someone smack Chirac. Please.

I take back what I said earlier about al-Qaeda lacking the organization to mount a major attack. I just did some reading up on the attack in Saudi Arabia, and if they were responsible, then apparently they are organized enough to mount organized attacks. I don't know about in the next six months, though.

At 5/13/03 01:23 AM, karasz wrote: 1) Dean, by attacking Kerry will win New Hampshire Primary

I question the effectiveness of negative advertising.

2) Al Qaeda was the source behind the recent Riyadh explosion

Haven't heard about it, wouldn't surprise me.

3) Al Qaeda will be hitting a major target within 6 months

I don't think that they are strong or well-organized enough at this point to do anything major. If they reorganize, maybe.

4) Bush will get the $550 billion dollar tax cut that he wanted originally

Sadly, the Dems won't let it happen. We'll probably get something smaller, though.

5) JFK's affair with an intern is a big surprise

Can't say that it was.

Yeah, it's the tobacco companies that put out those ads. I believe they were required to put those ads out as part of the big settlement. Apparently, they weren't required to put out effective ads. So they put out lame, stupid ads that studies show actually make kids want to smoke more, which is probably what they had in mind all along. I say put an end to those ads; they are doing more harm than good.

To blame federal tax cuts for the failure of local education systems is ludicrous. The feds may provide grants and such, but ultimately, state and local governments must be held responsible for education. The states spend most of the money on it, and the states are the ones who need to fund it better.

As for the commercial, it does sound like it was a little in "bad taste" to me.

1. Fox is no more biased than any other news source. Often, the media slants to the left, and when Fox reports on stories that no one else will, people accuse them of "being biased to the right." Sure, they lean a little to the right sometimes, but it's not like other news sources are completely balanced.

2. Click the link. Fox didn't write that article themselves. It was from the AP.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,86554,00.html

This article would seem to suggest that US efforts to find weapons are going to continue...

Hmm...

If this is true, it would seem to be a major, major story. Why is only the Washington Post reporting it?

Keep in mind that the UN inspectors never found the weapons because they were being led around by Saddam's cronies. We never said they would immediately pop up after Saddam was deposed. It DOES take time, and if the world was willing to allow the UN's inspectors more time, why not allow our troops more time?

Also, Jiperly, your link doesn't work. Hmm...

At 5/8/03 02:47 PM, D2KVirus wrote:

At 5/7/03 04:01 PM, nitroxide wrote: Braveheart is a true story it is an epic but the best has to be kubricks full metal jacket.

True stories aren't factually inaccurate. Braveheart is, to the extent it involves figures walking around a couple of centuries before they were, you know, BORN.

Can you give some more specific examples of historical inaccuracy? I'm not arguing with you, I'm just curious. There may be some parts that are inaccurate, but I believe there are also some parts that do happen to be accurate.

But in the end, I don't really care about historical accuracy. Braveheart was a damn good movie.

You know, left_for_life, not all of those assassination plots you mentioned were necessarily bad things. Some of those people are/were genuine threats to the United States. Now tell me this... if you are trying to paint the US in a negative light, then why did you put a guy like Osama on your assassination plot list? I'm sure that even you agree that he deserves it.

A few things...

1. There will be no all-out assault on the Middle East. We know when to quit, and don't really have much reason to overthrow the entire region.
2. If we did have another war in the region, it would not be with Pakistan. I believe we still consider Pakistan an ally, in fact.
3. It would not surprise me at all if the weapons were moved to another country, but for now, we should keep looking in Iraq. I'm kinda irritated that people are saying that the weapons don't exist after we've only been looking for one month when those same people were willing to give the UN inspectors SIX more months.

Bill Clinton... much can be said about him.

I personally don't think too highly of him. As president, he didn't do too bad of a job (though I personally prefer Bush). There was that whole health care plan fiasco during his first year in office. But after the Republican Congress came into office, he shifted his political positions toward the center, and he and Congress managed to get a few things done (whereas today's congressional Democrats refuse to compromise with Bush and force deadlock).

But Clinton's scandals and some of his military "actions" bother me. Obviously, the impeachment was very political. But Clinton committed a crime and got away scott free. I wasn't too hot on the whole impeachment thing, figuring that the crime wasn't serious enough and that they could always prosecute him when he left office. But he managed to weasel his way out of getting prosecuted after office too. And I didn't like his military policies either. Granted, he did what needed to be done in Kosovo, but then there was an unqualified disaster in Somalia, and, of course, once the impeachment proceedings got underway, he decided to divert attention from that by bombing Iraq. Now, some may argue that the reason Bush went into Iraq was to divert attention from a weak economy. But what can you say when Bush got what needed to be done done, while all Clinton did was just drop a couple of bombs on Saddam and then say, "whoops, it's Ramadan, better stop since I'm just doing this to distract... oops, I mean so I don't offend Muslims." Clinton just wanted to create a distraction and didn't have the balls to go all out on Saddam. That is why I don't like Bill Clinton.

Oh joy, oh joy. Another entry into the already-crowded field in the contest to see who gets to lose to Bush.

I just don't care about the race for the Democratic nomination anymore.

Don't we all just love reviving old topics?

Exactly how would a system without money, where people did their jobs for the sake of enjoying their jobs, work? It could work on a small scale, but on a large scale, I see the need for receiving money for work done and spending it for goods and services, even in a Communist society (it would be divided pretty evenly, but still be needed nonetheless).

Jeez...

These are the people who sought a peaceful solution to the Iraq crisis? And yet they couldn't be peaceful themselves whenever the food staff walked out?

Sorry I had to mention that, but as the Commander said, it's one of the most ironic things ever.

Hehehehe... chaos at the UN... my dream come true... :)

Moderate-to-conservative, somewhat libertarian. Registered Republican.

At 5/2/03 11:01 AM, FUNKbrs wrote: my question is this: If the police just use tear gas to disperse a crowd, why cant our soldiers do the same? And what ever happened to non-lethal rubber bullets and bean bag guns? If this is a "police action", we should act a little more like police and less like imperialists. Of course, I still maintain we should get the fuck out of there and leave it to the UN.

One problem is that the treaty banning chemical weapons even bans the military use of non-lethal chemicals such as tear gas (only local police can use it). I suppose we could get around this by enlisting the aid of Iraqi police to help control unruly crowds, and giving them tear gas. I also like the idea of rubber bullets and such.

We're not going to be there any longer than is needed to stabilize the country. We need to make that clear to them, and we also need to keep our own troops under control and keep them from hastily firing into civilian crowds.

At 5/2/03 10:23 AM, DarkBlueFlame wrote: i don't think anyone did but my experience with a catholic highschool was a positive one its had all types of after school activies to get into from band to drama to debate to quizbowl.But after my second year of highschool i got transferred to my local public highschool Denby or "Dumby" as i call it were the the class of 2002 started with over a 100 kids freshmen year and over the course of 4 years the number dropped because deaths prison sentences or in hiding from the police I ended up graduating with only 185 kids really sad when ya think about most of my fellow graduuates could only read at a 6th grade level and were just pushed outta the school because they needed to save space.

Went to a Catholic school that was good, but then had to a public school that sucked? Hmm...

Living in the suburbs, I did go to a good high school, but we in OKC too have problems with inner-city schools. And with DarkBlueFlame mentioning a positive experience in a private school followed by a bad one in a public school, this can naturally bring us to debating the infamous Voucher Programs™.

So what does everyone think? Are vouchers a good idea, or not? I'll hold off and wait for what everyone else has to say.

At 5/1/03 09:26 PM, MarijuanaClock wrote: American troops murdered dozens of iraqi citizens, because they threw rocks ..... anyone here who trys to justify that is quite insane.

Are you referring to my post? I did say they shouldn't have fired on the crowd...

At 5/1/03 06:10 PM, Mr_Destruction wrote: this should really be in the politics forum...

This kind of post would be frowned upon in the Politics forum. Mass flaming and such, as intelligence is generally preferred by the regulars there, and this post is devoid of intelligence.

At 5/1/03 06:49 PM, PreacherJ wrote: That's interesting. I didn't know that. Hmm. I wonder if any tapes exist for it somewhere in the realm of downloadable media sharing software?

Hehehe... that would be funny. But I don't think so. The closed-circuit broadcasts were pretty carefully controlled, and only family members and survivors were allowed in. And I doubt anyone brought a camera in.

But bringing back public executions... now there's an idea! Televise an execution, and I'm sure it be a big ratings smash! :)