Empire of the Iguanadons

So. The long hard campaign is finally over. No more campaign ads. No more political pollsters bothering you during dinner time. No more mailings. No more listening to pundit after pundit drumbeating for their guy. Well. At least for the next 18 months.

So I guess congratulations are in order. The liberal media got what they wanted. They got their Marxist Revolution through. Protect your wallets people, you're about to have them picked clean. If you're "rich" that is. If not, then open them wide up because Obama is about to fill them full of other peoples' money. I realize that there are an awful lot of people who think that's just fine. I guarantee you the vast majority of them either weren't alive during the Carter administration or have gone senile since then, leaving those of us who are lucid and still have those memories as the only ones who were and still are raising the alarm.

The final results:

Barck Obama: 63,507,800 [52%] popular votes - 349 Electoral votes.
John McCain: 56,151,859 [46%] popular votes - 163 Electoral votes.

Senate: 56 Democrat, 40 Republican, with 2 Independents. Apparently 2 more races are left to call?
House: 254 Democrat, 173 Republican. Oi.

The only good news here? The Senate fell just short of being filibuster-proof. But not by much. This is a massive swing in favor of Marxism/Liberalism in the US and spells certain disaster. Sad to see there are so damn many stupid people in this country. Almost enough to make you want to pack up and head for Canada. Where ironically enough they're in the middle of a conservative awakening after 40 years of heavily oppressive liberal policies.

My only hope is that there will be another conservative awakening here in 2-4 years. It clearly depends on how bad the damage is by the time the next Congressional cycle is due up. 2 years is a long time to suffer. 4 years will be devastating. God help us if Obama gets re-elected in 2012.

So what's an Obama administration mean? Here's the deal:

1. Higher taxes on everyone making $150,000 or more in income per year. This will fall squarely on the backs of small businesses rather than most individuals. That's assuming of course the $150K figure doesn't drop again before January. If they have their way then there's plenty of evidence out there to suggest Obama really wants this set closer to $50K. Surprise! I bet you had no idea you're rich! Don't bother selling anything of significant value for at least the next 2 years either. Capital gains taxes are about to double. If you're thinking of rolling something to avoid it, get it done before January. Or move your assets to a Cayman Islands account. But be quick about it either way.

2. Surrender in Iraq in no more than 16 months. He's made that case pretty damn clear. The troops will be coming home. Whether we've achieved our final result or not. Despite the fact that we've more or less won the thing. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory is something the Dems do best. But our boys in Europe and South Korea? They get to stay put. Bosnia? Sorry, you're not going anywhere. The logic here escapes me.

3. Massive cuts in military spending. Barney Frank said it clearly and in the open. To his credit, it was an honest statement. Defense spending can expect to see at least a 25% reduction, similar to that under Clinton. The reason for this is because they can't find any other way to pay for their pending mountain of giveaways. Cutting spending where it actually should be cut hasn't even crossed their minds. Once these deep military spending cuts have time to take hold, you can probably expect terrorist attacks against the US to increase. Potentially even culminating on another strike here at home.

4. A very deep and very painful recession, bordering on an outright economic depression. This ties back into #1. As taxes go up, businesses will have to cut costs. The very first thing Corporate America does when it comes time for cuts is to reduce headcount. That means massive layoffs. If that's not enough, and there's every indication it won't be, then they simply raise prices on their goods to make up the difference. Which is paradoxical since you just fired 20% of your workforce. The 500+ point drop in the DOW today pretty clearly indicates that Corporate America knows exactly what's coming.

5. Tied directly to #4, unemployment figures will skyrocket. It's been reported on several news outlets that we could be looking at 10% within a year if Obama actually goes ahead with everything he wants. And Congress is now positioned to give it to him with barely any resistance. If you have a job now, for God sake, don't quit. If you're out of work now ( like me ) it might be time to consider finding those bread lines.

6. The Fairness Doctrine. Democrats have made it perfectly clear they were pissed off when that got tanked by Reagan and they were never able to get it back. The 2 year window they had with Clinton got chewed up on other crap like Hillarycare. Thank God for that, but don't think they haven't already got this on the agenda. Obama wants it. Reid wants it. Pelosi wants it. And their target will be right wing talk radio and blog sites. Just like this one. So don't be at all surprised if somewhere down the road this site vanishes. The old saying about "I wasn't a Jew" or however it goes applies perfectly well here. Just remember, when they come for you, nobody will be left to protect you.

7. Citizenship/Amnesty for 30 million illegals. What? You thought there were only 12 million? That 12 million figure is rather old at this point. All objective estimates put the figure much higher, some as high as 50 million, some as low as 15 million. 30 million is probably a safe estimate. What does this mean? It means a whole hell of a lot of Democrats waiting in the wings to vote in 2-4 years. Legally anyway. Anyone with a brain knows they've already been voting in large numbers illegally. Which just means it will be that much hard to root the liberals out of power in the future. Which is exactly how they want it. The big danger here is that McCain will probably side with these bastards and make it that much worse.

8. Russian aggression will be sharply on the rise. Putin himself laughed his ass off at Obama's pathetic response to the Georgian crisis. One need only look at today's headline to know what's to come. The Russians are already vowing to begin a second Cold War. Of course, chances are Obama is going to cave in and cancel the missile shield and leave our allies twisting in the wind like never before.

9. Unrestricted negotiations with Iran. Yep. Forgot about that I bet. Obama made it very clear on many occasions that he'd sit down at the table with Ahmadinejad. Without setting any preconditions. Such as no more nuke program. Count on the Iranians accelerating their aggression and their nuclear program over the next 2 years while the window is wide open.

10. Liberal judges on the US Supreme Court. I bet nobody bothered to think of this either. An Obama appointment will mean major setbacks for those of us on the right for decades to come as many decisions which began to undo the liberal stranglehold on our courts will swiftly be undone. The really bad part about this is, even if the country wises up in a hurry, if someone on the Court dies next year, you can count on the Senate rushing to confirm whoever Obama picks and you can count on a bitter and destructive effort on their part to crush any potential filibuster by the Republicans. You haven't seen activist judges until you've seen a Court filled with the likes of Ginsberg and Stevens. We should be damn thankful the last two appointments were Bushies.

11. Skyrocketing interest rates on housing and car loans. Don't beleive me? Ask your parents how much their mortgage rates were back in 1977. You might just have to pick your jaw up off the floor. My parents got bit by this one firsthand. Their mortgage rate was 21% and they had AAA rated credit back then. Gone are the days of 4% home loans. Inflation due to higher taxes will see to that.

I'm sure there's more I've forgotten. So feel free to add to the list. And welcome to the United Socialist States of America. Leave your money in the box to your right.
.........................
"It is pointless to resist, my son." -- Darth Vader
"Resistance is futile." -- The Borg
"Mother's coming for me in the dragon ships. I don't like these itchy clothes, but I have to wear them or it frightens the fish." -- Thurindil

Well. I guess that's that then.

Wait, Samson! Are you sure you remembered to press one before you typed all that into English? :(
Hmm, how does one say "socialist" in Spanish? Ah, never mind, Google's got me covered: Bienvenido a los Estados Unidos Socialistas de Nuevo Mexico!

For those who don't desire to press 1 for English, here's this page in our soon to be new national language:
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.iguanadons.net%2FThe-Marxist-Revolution-241.html&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=en&tl=es

Unless y'all think we should all be learning Russian, German, or perhaps even Kenyan instead....

Oh, hey Samson, how many of that 15-50 million illegals include all the Kenyans who'll be joining us in the land of opportunity now that they're fellow citizen managed a bloodless coup to become our new dictator?

I don't know if it works if I say "I'm sorry for your loss," since I did, after all, root for the man whose election you are disappointed by. But I hear you, and I sincerely hope that, going forward, we all find ways to put the country on a better path.

And if we do end up the United Socialist States of America, well, we promise that there will be no re-education camps.

I left my money in the No on Prop 8 box, by the way. It appears not to have done a whole lot of good there. So there's one to cheer you up a bit.

And a note re: the Supreme Court, the oldest members and hence the ones most likely to die or retire soon are Stevens and Ginsburg. The three youngest are Alito, Thomas, and Roberts. So while Obama will, I'm sure, be appointing liberal justices if he gets the chance, he will most likely be continuing the court's current makeup, not changing it. You only have to worry if Scalia has a stroke.

Thank you for your sympathies, Regina.

I very sincerely hope that you're right that there will be no re-education centers or concentration camps or other such facilities, but I'm not going to sit back and relax and count on you being right about it.

On that particular one, I'd have voted with you, but to Samson's pleasure, I don't get a vote out there. ;)

Good point, hopefully no ill-timed 'accidents' befall any of our younger Justices while Obama's in office either.

Re-education camps AKA modern respected universities.

Oh, hey Samson, how many of that 15-50 million illegals include all the Kenyans who'll be joining us in the land of opportunity now that they're fellow citizen managed a bloodless coup to become our new dictator?

Oh, the Kenyan influx hasn't been counted yet. They're not all here yet after all. Give them time. I'm sure they're on their way with their newly expedited entry visas.

But I hear you, and I sincerely hope that, going forward, we all find ways to put the country on a better path.

I tried. The other 52% of Americans thought I was nuts and thought Marxism was the better path. I sincerely hope we find out that they're wrong and people realize it.

hopefully no ill-timed 'accidents' befall any of our younger Justices while Obama's in office either

Indeed. Otherwise a rather coincidental and equall ill-timed 'accident' will befall our new Messiah and the left will get the Second Civil War they've been scaremongering everyone into thinking will happen if they don't "set aside racism and vote for Obama".

Oh. I wonder if having an Arab-American president now will finally put an end to all this racial divisiveness since they can no longer claim the black man is being suppressed?

I was just thinking of how I'm a states' rights fan and how the united states of america, even before modern times, has totally destroyed any sovereignty that states demanded upon the creation of this union.


So I now propose we rename this country to reflect its new values.

The Socialist Republic of America.

Or SRA.

Then some day in the socialist future people can write about Obama's courageous speech demanding the western world to "tear down these walls" in Berlin. And like the USSR the United States of America will be only a cruel, brutal memory of a regime.

Oh. I wonder if having an Arab-American president now will finally put an end to all this racial divisiveness since they can no longer claim the black man is being suppressed?

Actually, a lot of people on both sides of the spectrum are hoping for that, in all seriousness.

And @ Retnur: I'm in my third year at a respected US university and I'm not a socialist yet!

I didn't say re-education camps work on everyone. If you're trying to say the propaganda there doesn't exist, then I guess they've changed a lot in 4 years since I was at one. ;)

Depends. What was the propaganda you got?

Regina said:
I don't know if it works if I say "I'm sorry for your loss," since I did, after all, root for the man whose election you are disappointed by. But I hear you, and I sincerely hope that, going forward, we all find ways to put the country on a better path.

What she said, and for my own part I'm very tired of partisan bitterness, governmental and otherwise.

That said, I disagree with essentially everything in that initial post, which I may discuss anon, however, while I'm being disagreeable, I must disagree with:

Regina said:
And if we do end up the United Socialist States of America, well, we promise that there will be no re-education camps.

I'm not really supposed to tell you all this, and do so on condition of anonymity, but there WILL be re-education camps. However, as befits modern leftism, you should find them reasonably agreeable. There will be kittens. Also cookies, and kool-aid. I recommend taking the kittens, but not drinking the kool-aid.

Regina said:
And @ Retnur: I'm in my third year at a respected US university and I'm not a socialist yet!

Speaking as a 7 year veteran of higher education, and thank you for that master's degree, it's that fourth year you've really got to watch out for. Although I suspect that in your case, classics is hardly full of raging socialists. While the Romans WERE into spreading the wealth around, it was usually more about spreading other folks' wealth to them. With pointy objects.

For my own part, history had less than you might think, although one does gain a healthy respect for the evils of imperialism, as well as the evils of reading 600 pages worth of dead white dudes per week, which I can assure you from personal experience leaves one scant room for the persuit of socialism, or much of anything else for that matter.

(will not mention the mind control rays. no.)

Samson said:
Indeed. Otherwise a rather coincidental and equall ill-timed 'accident' will befall our new Messiah and the left will get the Second Civil War they've been scaremongering everyone into thinking will happen if they don't "set aside racism and vote for Obama".

Indeed, but instead of the blue versus the gray this time it'll be the blue versus the red.. and those poor blues are going to fighting for a rather strangely split country judging from the election maps.. especially if each side is chosen by their precinct's votes rather than their state's electoral decision. We reds will certainly have the lion's share of the nation when we're done... I wonder how the blues will support their isolated pocket precincts, especially if after we win that civil war we require visas/passports and inoculations for admittance.. :P

Dwip said:
I'm not really supposed to tell you all this, and do so on condition of anonymity, but there WILL be re-education camps. However, as befits modern leftism, you should find them reasonably agreeable. There will be kittens. Also cookies, and kool-aid. I recommend taking the kittens, but not drinking the kool-aid.

I knew they'd have the drugged kool-aid and enforced kumbya camp fire sessions, but I had no idea they'd be using kittens too! Someone call the SPCA to save us! The horror! *gasp* (Can I at least bring my dogs with me, they'd have uses for the kittens....)

I would hate to live with the fear that you people posses. Must make it hard to get up out of bed each morning and iron your tin foil hat, cut out the secret messages from all the news papers and stick them to the wall, look outside the blacked out windows of your house for FBI brand ice cream vans, all before downing 27 cups of coffee to help you stay away because you know if you fall asleep that they will implant some mind control device into your body, or give your 27 cats a probing and steal your hard fought pile of plastic shopping bags.

9. Unrestricted negotiations with Iran. Yep. Forgot about that I bet. Obama made it very clear on many occasions that he'd sit down at the table with Ahmadinejad. Without setting any preconditions. Such as no more nuke program. Count on the Iranians accelerating their aggression and their nuclear program over the next 2 years while the window is wide open.

Diplomacy first, is a good policy, build their trust and faith to find a unified solution to the problem. As you said, Without setting any preconditions. There is always the option to go to war against them, its just not the first and only option of former president bush.

This is also the reason why all the work to try and find a solution to the Palestinian and Israeli issues have failed. bush sent mixed messages, diplomacy in one place, hate and war in others, and threats of wars to others still. Have a unified message across the board and there will be inroads made in solving a lot of the issues in the middle east.

Yes. Kittens with mind-control rays. Their purring contains subliminal messages.

(in which we also wonder if the img tag obeys me)

The fact that the Alsherok.net image blocker denies me posting here is pretty hilarious, all things considered.

This should work.

Regina said:
Yes. Kittens with mind-control rays. Their purring contains subliminal messages.

I remember those television ads, the FCC never did catch on, did they? "Meow, meow, meow.. meow, meow, meow.. meow, meow, meow.."

Dwip said:
The fact that the Alsherok.net image blocker denies me posting here is pretty hilarious, all things considered.

While that certainly does sound mildly ironic, what I'm seeing is an image that says (even if I click on the link you provided in your second post) "Image has been replaced! If you would like to share our images, please copy the image to your server and host it from there."

But I AM on your server, Alsherok! Why, why must we fight? Why?

What's furtherly interesting is that I can see my image JUST FINE.

The internets are confusing. I blame Al Gore.

StifflersMOM said:
Diplomacy first, is a good policy, build their trust and faith to find a unified solution to the problem.

Sounds familiar. Seems to me Chamberlain tried that back in the 1930s with a man by the name of Adolph Hitler. Hitler happily obliged the diplomacy and used that time to build Germany's army up to a point where he could conquer most of Europe. All while the peaceniks of their time continued to attempt to appease him.

At some point you need to realize that not everyone can be negotiated with. Iran is such a place. Ahmadinejad has made it very clear his goal is nothing short of the total destruction of Israel. At least to his credit, he's not hiding it the way Hitler was. You cannot negotiate with evil dictators. The only solution is their quick and hopefully quite painful death.

BTW, I'll let you in on a little secret. Iran today is Carter's fault for having told the Shaw where to stick it and leaving him to twist in the wind while the Islamic mullahs took the place over. By the time Reagan took office it was too late to do anything other than threaten to carpet bomb the entire country if our hostages weren't released.

Oh, and on the subject of image bans, yes, it's probably rather dumb that Apache handles things that way. If I could figure out how to set the referrer check up to ignore the IP address of the server then alot of problems like this would go away.

Sounds familiar. Seems to me Chamberlain tried that back in the 1930s with a man by the name of Adolph Hitler. Hitler happily obliged the diplomacy and used that time to build Germany's army up to a point where he could conquer most of Europe. All while the peaceniks of their time continued to attempt to appease him.

And the difference here is that Germany was an economic and manufacturing power house and was in a position to be able do do such things. Iran on the other hand is a piss ant state that is nothing economically or militarily and is unable to amass anything more than spit wads and sling shots.

They are a country that is wanting to provide electricity for their people, within that there are a lot of options and a lot of room for negotiations. The issue of them wanting nukes is nothing more than fear mongering, if anyone wants nukes and the materials to build them there is plenty of that stuff floating about and unprotected in former Soviet states.

And while Iran talks big on Israel, once there is a reasonable solution to the Palestinian issue Iran will back down on its tough guy stance, as all they are doing is backing up their Arab brothers who they see are being injustly treated by Israel and there can be no doubt that Israel has not been making things easy for anyone in these regards. What they need is a more moderate government and then things might actually shift in the direction of good.

And the difference here is that Germany was an economic and manufacturing power house and was in a position to be able do do such things. Iran on the other hand is a piss ant state that is nothing economically or militarily and is unable to amass anything more than spit wads and sling shots.

The problem with your logic, or apparently the total lack thereof, is that where nuclear weapons are concerned one's country doesn't need to be anything more than a piss ant state in order to wield terrible destructive power in a reckless manner. And even then, you are vastly underestimating the ability of Iran. Iraq made the same mistake back in 1980 under Saddam Hussein.

They are a country that is wanting to provide electricity for their people

They have more than enough petroleum reserves to handle this need without nuclear energy. The entire issue of peaceful generation is a crock, you don't need 6,000 centrifuges for that.

And while Iran talks big on Israel, once there is a reasonable solution to the Palestinian issue Iran will back down on its tough guy stance

Chamberlain though the same thing about Hitler and Poland all while trying to reach a similar so-called reasonable solution to the Czechoslovakia situation.

Israel needs to do what they should have done 2 years ago. Fly in and bomb Iran's nuclear installations. But they made the fatal mistake of listening to Bush and showing "restraint" in the matter. Obama will simply drop the pretense and tell them to surrender outright. To which my response as Israel would be a great big "FUCK YOU OBAMA".

12. The most disturbing proposal is Obama's civilian national security force.

http://conservablogs.com/bluecollarmuse/2008/07/16/what-in-the-world-is-obamas-civilian-national-security-force/
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/07/obamas_civilian_national_secur.html

"We should have a civilian corps that is as effective in what they do as our military is in what it does, and we don't have that right now" - Obama

What the hell is that? Just what are they going to do?

“We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”

- Barack Obama, July 2008 at a speech in Colorado.

Um.... yeah. I'll tell you what this reeks of. Gestapo. Only a Gestapo that's given actual armed power instead of phantom power like the one Hitler had. No surprise that this got buried so deeply and never came up again. Also makes you wonder how he plans to pay for it. And if he means as powerful and well-funded as our current military, or as powerful and not-so-well funded as the one Barney Frank wants to decimate it into.

Well you can get a glimpse into the kind of hatred and division Obama is planning to support by his selection of Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff. There isn't a more despicable, partisan, hateful person on the face of this Earth than Rahm Emanuel. So much for the tolerant and inclusive Obama administration he promised us. Another campaign lie.

Sounds good to me if they are used to police the hatred and division offered by the moral police of the religious right, with your god wont let me touch myself, but its ok to let the minister do it or your discrimination towards gays and people of race.

Poor narrow minded soul that you are Mr Samson, in 4 to 8 years time you will still have your hate cloak over your eyes and will not be able to see any good in what Obama will bring to this nation. At least the rest of us can see the good things that bush did achieve in his time in office, like the No Child Is Left Behind policy in the education system.

You yourself are partisan and hateful of anything that disagrees with your narrow view of the world, a would be quasi dictator filled with images of your own self importance. Take a step down from your soapbox, breath and stop being the quintessential stereotypical American that most of the world hates.

As for demographics, let me take a look at yours, we know your white, male, mid 40's early 50's most likely single if not divorced with no dependents, you have few if any real life friends, you argue a lot with your neighbors, find it hard to hold down a job or are unemployed, have trouble with authority figures and your immediate superiors because you cannot take criticism or direction from anyone you consider to be below you. Might i suggest that you seek some professional help for the very real dictator complex you possess.

Dear StifflersMOM:

Posters on this site put up with each other and respect each other, even when we think the particular people we are arguing against are being total whackjob loons. I very often completely disagree with Samson and many of the other posters here, but I view an ad hominem attack such as the one you just made to be totally irresponsible and unbefitting an adult.

Your points will be far better received on this site if they are given with a measure of civility. Telling someone that they need to seek psychological help, in addition to being extremely rude (in the manner you did so), will not convince anyone to agree with you or even consider whether your arguments have merit.

Now then, I had something else to say originally, which was in response to this:

There isn't a more despicable, partisan, hateful person on the face of this Earth than Rahm Emanuel.

Now, now. I thought that was Nancy Pelosi.

And, more importantly, to this:

Only a Gestapo that's given actual armed power instead of phantom power like the one Hitler had.

Are you suggesting the Gestapo wasn't powerful? As in they didn't make their own decisions, or as in they didn't have power to round up and terrorize the Jews?

I am in agreement with Regina on this one SifflersMOM,

Whilst i disagree with the left on most things and agree with the right on many things, I still have respect for the people i discuss the issues with. Also, I strongly suspect that if Obama tries this Obamalitia of his he will be met with two great problems.

1) How will it be funded and the people participating in it be paid.

2) The problem becomes circular because you'll tax the people you are paying to do it, just to pay for it. So in effect making them work for probably half of the value of the work they do.

But yeah, chances are he's gonna be just another politician in the white house, 4 years of him then we get a chance at someone new. Besides if he wants to abridge my rights he'll find out that i am a firm believer in the 2nd Amendment. Besides, no matter how many gun restrictions you lay down on the law abiding citizens, the criminals will always have guns, and illegal ones at that. How does it go? "If you outlaw guns, only Outlaws will have guns."

I will third Regina.

In other news:

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/obama_win_causes_obsessive?utm_source=embedded_video

There's a few things you missed for sure, but I don't think they're bad. Speaking as a foreigner (Canada... so not that foreign :)) my opinion of the USA has gone up significantly. From what I've been fed by the media, Bush was a fucking moron. The entire -world- felt this. The entire world was also cheering for Obama (except for Al Qaeda) but mostly because they (we) aren't affected directly by his in house policies. To say the least, the worldly image of the US has just skyrocketed. We like you guys now ;).

Obama also has on his agenda to renegotiate the NAFTA treaty. I'm unsure about how good or bad this is. One of the comments was to take "advantage" of the 6 month opt out and no longer participate in NAFTA. We (Canada) are being blamed for massive layoffs in Ohio I believe, and he wants some sort of labour negotiations to take place to ensure an increase in jobs for the USA. Should negotiations go south, and the US leaves the treaty, we'd most likely end up selling all our lumber, oil, water and other natural resources to China as they're the only ones close enough with enough demand to fill our supply. He's looking a lot into the international trade stuff. I believe he also has something planed for south korea, as they send you guys millions of cars, and in return only take in a few thousand US automobiles. I believe these attempts are to make up for the expected cuts to come from the US major companies. Increasing the foreign demand to offset the cuts of the local demand plumitting seems like not a -bad- idea. We'll have to see if it works.

I believe that part of the economic crash was psychological. In that, most of the world had little to no respect for your former president, whereas now, they all have the utmost respect for Obama. Simply the iconic figure that is your president may bring you good tidings. Keep in mind, I only said -part-. I believe this will simply give it a slight boost upwards, the rest of it will lie on him to fill the promises he's put out there. The man has got to have an unbelievable amount of pressure.

Look at it this way. The current direction of your society is putting -huge- gaps between lower, middle, and upper class citizens. This could level things out by making the poor a little richer, and the rich a little "poorer". Doesn't Obama have many hugely rich people backing him that will be the ones largely effected by his policies? These people couldn't be so ignorant as to not realize the effect it'll have on their own bank accounts (never mind the campaigning fees!)

All in all, I think at the very least you guys should accept this for four years. It makes your country look good to the rest of the world. You guys often act like you're the only country in the world that matters, and that's simply not true. The opinion of the other great nations of the world should matter to you guys and FWIW it's a high opinion now.

On a more personal note, I'm so pleased to see a black president of the USA :D. Coming from an African American heritage, it brings a smile to my heart to see a nation built on slavery lead by the enslaved race :D (please take that with a grain of salt, it's simply my opinion.)

Sounds good to me if they are used to police the hatred and division offered by the moral police of the religious right, with your god wont let me touch myself, but its ok to let the minister do it or your discrimination towards gays and people of race.

Did it ever occur to you that statements like this are exactly why most Americans don't care much for the radical left? You seem to have absolutely no qualms about squashing the rights of others if they fail to agree with you. In all my life I've yet to find one single person from the right who would even consider trying to crush dissent in the manner you support. Quite the opposite. Many of them joined our armed forces in order to defend your right to be an anti-American despicable person.

will not be able to see any good in what Obama will bring to this nation

There would have to be something good for him to bring. Everything he's promised us in the campaign will require Marxist policies of stealing from the rich to enrich the poor in order to pull it off. Our first indicator that the corporate sector realizes what's coming has been the massive sell-off on Wall Street since the election, and the anticipated rise in unemployment expected to be announced tomorrow which is a direct result of damaging policies already advanced by the left since taking over Congress in 2006. I do not take politicians at their word, not even George W. Bush. Obama has to prove he can deliver on what he promises, but history bears out that this isn't terribly likely.

At least the rest of us can see the good things that bush did achieve in his time in office

I'm not sure you know what you're talking about here. I think I've made clear mention on more than one occasion that I support Bush's foreign policy. His handling of two wars, and the strengthening of our military since taking office. The Federal government is constitutionally bound to do this and really not a whole lot else. So it was good to see him take it seriously. No Child Left Behind was good on paper, not so good in practice. You can't throw money at something like that and expect results. It never pans out. Ask anyone here in California. A state which spends 55% of its budget on education and has the poorest standardized testing results of any state in the lower 48. All while under management by the left.

Might i suggest that you seek some professional help for the very real dictator complex you possess.

Nice. Tells us exactly where you stand. Right wingers are worthy of nothing more than psychotherapy because there must obviously be something wrong with them mentally. You're really not in any kind of position to be rendering judgment about my belief system at all given some of the racist hatemongering you've brought to the table here.

Davion said:
All in all, I think at the very least you guys should accept this for four years.

We hardly have a choice but to accept it. Unlike a lot of other countries it's not in our nature to overthrow a government we neither agree with nor accept judgment from. Instead, we show up to the polls and boot the bastards out of office again. I have never cared one way or the other what countries like France think of us. They cast hatred and scorn our way out of jealously because their own systems don't work. They're happy as clams right now because they know that Obama is all about bringing us down to their level instead of how Bush kept trying to help bring them all up to ours.

On a more personal note, I'm so pleased to see a black president of the USA

Never made any difference to me one way or the other, even though Obama is in fact an Arab-American. Other than his citizenship status which still has yet to be resolved. To me it was always about his extremist left wing views, and his eventual revelation that he's a Marxist. But apparently 52% of Americans now believe in Marxism, so whatever.

StifflersMOM said:
Iran on the other hand is a piss ant state that is nothing economically or militarily and is unable to amass anything more than spit wads and sling shots.

It seems to me that folks in Israel might just disagree with that assessment. In fact, those subject to car bombs, suicide bombers, acts of terrorism, and so on might as well. Iran may have given you the impression that they cleaned up their act since the 1980's, but I wouldn't believe it, not for one second, they're not our friends over there.

Samson said:
Israel needs to do what they should have done 2 years ago. Fly in and bomb Iran's nuclear installations. But they made the fatal mistake of listening to Bush and showing "restraint" in the matter. Obama will simply drop the pretense and tell them to surrender outright.

I agree that Israel should take stronger measures, but they have good reason to at least try to appease the major world powers (especially) the U.S. when it's possible to do so, and very few can fault them when they counterstrike against their known enemies. I don't think it was a fatal mistake, but I agree that it was a mistake, or at least poor advice at the time. If Obama were to do that, I can't imagine that Israel would respond with any response other than something along the lines of "Never! Are you absolutely insane? Thank you so much for your well intentioned advice, Mr. Obama, now please leave so that your safety can be ensured in the fighting that's about to proceed as scheduled."

Tyche said:
12. The most disturbing proposal is Obama's civilian national security force.

Samson said:
Um.... yeah. I'll tell you what this reeks of. Gestapo.

OMG! How'd I miss hearing about that? I expected that Obama would be considering abusing "Homeland Security" in a similar fashion, but I'd never begun to imagine that he'd also want this sort of thing as well. :(

Samson said:
There isn't a more despicable, partisan, hateful person on the face of this Earth than Rahm Emanuel.

I'm sorry, I'd never met the fellow.. in fact, I can't say that I even recall having ever heard anything about him before and give that his last name is even spelled the same way as my legal first name, you'd think the name would've caught my attention. Regina seems to think Nancy Pelosi fits this bill, personally, I rather had the impression that it was Janet Reno.. :shrug:

Oh, and I also have to fourth Regina about StifflersMOM's post, that was just totally uncalled for and not the right way to get a positive response. :( ...we won't even bother with the obvious fact that she could have very easily found out the truth of some of her erroneous assumptions about Samson's "demographics" just by reading the previous posts here.

Finally, Samson, I have to also reiterate Regina's final query as well, what do you mean by saying that the Gestapo only had phantom power? Every bit of history I've seen about them sure looked like they had far more power than they ever should've been allowed to.. every bit of it brutally real. :(

Clyos said:
2) The problem becomes circular because you'll tax the people you are paying to do it, just to pay for it. So in effect making them work for probably half of the value of the work they do.

Um, you could just as easily say the exact same thing of our current military. Every one of our soldiers is paid from tax dollars and they are taxed exactly the same as every other citizen of the U.S. twice a month and once a year. I could show you old pay "stubs" to prove that one from when I was still active duty.

I do agree that there are other problems with this nonsense beyond how are they getting paid, but this particular argument simply doesn't work. (Incidentally, most firemen and police officers are also paid by tax dollars, albeit usually state/county/city/municipality tax dollars, and they are certainly taxed the same as everyone else too.)

Clyos said:
But yeah, chances are he's gonna be just another politician in the white house, 4 years of him then we get a chance at someone new. Besides if he wants to abridge my rights he'll find out that i am a firm believer in the 2nd Amendment. Besides, no matter how many gun restrictions you lay down on the law abiding citizens, the criminals will always have guns, and illegal ones at that. How does it go? "If you outlaw guns, only Outlaws will have guns."

Unfortunately, many Germans felt exactly the same way when Hitler took office and were just as surprised to find that the Gestapo didn't care how they felt once Hitler made it national law/policy to only allow firearms to his own soldiers.

Davion: (Sorry, too much to quote.. wait, did I just say that? ...)

First, let me just say that it's nice to see you over here too. :)

Unfortunately, no, Al Qaeda is probably cheering too, the world thinks such wonderful things of the US for having elected Obama because of his great oratory skills and because he's a good enough diplomat to ensure that everyone heard what they wanted to hear, but he's made promises everywhere, sometimes even when they conflicted with earlier promises, and now every one is watching to see how he expects to fulfill those pledges. Al Qaeda, and others like them, are undoubtedly still giggling over the election results, they know that Obama wants peace at any price and will give them free reign worldwide as long as they occasionally have someone meet with him to discuss peace, even if their attacks are on U.S. soil. :(

Robin hood would've continued to be really popular once the balance of wealth was shifted enough that those who initially had been the poor became the very rich he robbed from too, right? No, his campaign contributors probably understood what was coming and felt that they had sufficient loopholes already weaved into his plans to cover their own hides.. on the other hand, they did back him despite his public plans, maybe they were that ignorant.. more likely, what I said first though, or that they were those who felt Obama was most likely to win no matter what they did and they wanted to back the winning horse.

Well, contrary to popular world beliefs, it's largely a matter of human nature to feel like your country is the only one that really matters and we can't help it if we're a country of such importance that the rest of the world watches to see our every action and hear our every word and attribute their own flaws to us and...

Somehow I don't see myself gloating were the situation that a Jewish person had won the seat of power over Egypt.. but, if it makes you feel that blacks have been somehow vindicated for their enslavement by this election, then, by all means, congratulations. I can honestly say that no one in my family, past or present, ever owned a black slave or even were Americans at the time that slavery was still practiced. On the other hand, I can say that my heritage includes folks affected by Hitler and the Inquisition and the Egyptians and ...

Samson said:
We hardly have a choice but to accept it. Unlike a lot of other countries it's not in our nature to overthrow a government we neither agree with nor accept judgment from. Instead, we show up to the polls and boot the bastards out of office again. I have never cared one way or the other what countries like France think of us.

The funny thing about that statement is that our country was founded exactly that way, by a group of our forefathers who felt that a government we neither agree with nor accept judgment from could not be allowed to continue to sit over us. Even if it meant sacrificing a whole shipful of tea. ;)

But I will agree that what the rest of the world thinks of us is less concerning to me than what I think of them would be to them, and I'm sure they don't give a damn what I think of them.

Conner said:
Unfortunately, no, Al Qaeda is probably cheering too, the world thinks such wonderful things of the US for having elected Obama because of his great oratory skills and because he's a good enough diplomat to ensure that everyone heard what they wanted to hear,

Truth be told, Al Qaeda isn't really a group looking to kill mass amounts of people. Their first and for most target has always been the economic structure of the USA. As far as we can tell, it's McCain that would have continued with the down spiral of the US economy. I get filtered news up here, so I can only base my views off canadians who are anything but unbiased when it comes to US politics ;). Bush wasn't exactly the greatest choice for you guys. Most of us are still laughing about him getting elected to a second term, but then again, look who he ran against. Take a look around google for Al Qaeda cheering on McCain. There's a few interesting reads about it. Lets not forget here. Obama is an (alleged)American. When push comes to shove, he pulls out a hand gun.

Conner said:
Robin hood would've continued to be really popular once the balance of wealth was shifted enough that those who initially had been the poor became the very rich he robbed from too, right? No, his campaign contributors probably understood what was coming and felt that they had sufficient loopholes already weaved into his plans to cover their own hides.

I honestly don't think higher taxes for high income earners would shift the plates that much. It most likely will only cut down the gaps between classes, rather than flip them upside down. Honestly, paying 40% taxes on $250 000 still means you're making around $150 000. I really don't think that's going to send them to the poor house. Maybe these obscenely rich people have no problem paying such high taxes? Have you ever thought that these people (obviously sound business minds) may believe that this is a good thing for the people of the USA? A true socialist society is much, much worse that what is happening here. Someone making $250 000 would likely pay 75% in a Marxist eutopia. You guys aren't even near the rates of Sweden yet ;).

Conner said:

Well, contrary to popular world beliefs, it's largely a matter of human nature to feel like your country is the only one that really matters and we can't help it if we're a country of such importance that the rest of the world watches to see our every action and hear our every word and attribute their own flaws to us

I have a sneaking suspicion that China doesn't even know who Obama is ;). Or India for that matter. Don't be -too- full of yourselves! America's business is business. They have roots in many of the economic infrastructures of world (Walmart, MacDonalds to name a couple.) It's really not hard to attribute flaws of that nature to America when they have such a high hold on the western worlds economy.

Conner said:

Somehow I don't see myself gloating were the situation that a Jewish person had won the seat of power over Egypt.. but, if it makes you feel that blacks have been somehow vindicated for their enslavement by this election, then, by all means, congratulations. I can honestly say that no one in my family, past or present, ever owned a black slave or even were Americans at the time that slavery was still practiced. On the other hand, I can say that my heritage includes folks affected by Hitler and the Inquisition and the Egyptians and ...

You've got me all wrong. I'm not saying this is a vindication, nor am I gloating. I'm more pleased to see the advancement of human beings as a whole to look past all that's happened, move forward and embrace a future. It's warming. I grew up in a rather hate filled community when I was little and was called some pretty nasty names (I'm not even black skinned! I just have an afro :P) because my dad was black. And now, to see this, I can hope very few people, if any will have to endure what I did.

Davion said:
When push comes to shove, he pulls out a hand gun.

Don't tell his voters that, they were trying for a good democrat who'd properly suppress the 2nd amendment (gun rights), amongst other qualifying traits. ;)

Davion said:
I honestly don't think higher taxes for high income earners would shift the plates that much. It most likely will only cut down the gaps between classes, rather than flip them upside down. Honestly, paying 40% taxes on $250 000 still means you're making around $150 000. I really don't think that's going to send them to the poor house. Maybe these obscenely rich people have no problem paying such high taxes? Have you ever thought that these people (obviously sound business minds) may believe that this is a good thing for the people of the USA? A true socialist society is much, much worse that what is happening here. Someone making $250 000 would likely pay 75% in a Marxist eutopia. You guys aren't even near the rates of Sweden yet ;).

Ah, but while these obscenely wealthy folks might be able to bear a little extra tax burden without too much concern, they, being of obviously sound business minds, can't like the idea that they will be getting taxed more heavily in order to create "tax cuts"(?) for folks who aren't currently paying taxes, so it seems rather likely that they already know some thing of Obama's plans that we don't if they supported him.

Besides, the fact that we're no where even near the rates of Sweden is completely irrelevant, we created this country due to many factors, one of them was that King George was over-taxing us (at a far lower rate than we tax ourselves today).

Davion said:
I have a sneaking suspicion that China doesn't even know who Obama is ;). Or India for that matter. Don't be -too- full of yourselves! America's business is business. They have roots in many of the economic infrastructures of world (Walmart, MacDonalds to name a couple.) It's really not hard to attribute flaws of that nature to America when they have such a high hold on the western worlds economy.

I'll bet your suspicion is mistaken, from what I've seen in the news it seems far more likely to me that every leader in every nation makes it their business to be aware of what happens in the good ol' USA. It's not a matter of being full of ourselves, it's just recognizing that the world, as a whole, watches what happens here for their own reasons, and they've been doing so since a little before WWI began, though some countries (at the time) may not have really been nearly as concerned about us until after our participation in WWII, but by that time we'd quite thoroughly demonstrated to the world, for better or worse, that every one needed to keep an eye on us.

Davion said:
You've got me all wrong. I'm not saying this is a vindication, nor am I gloating. I'm more pleased to see the advancement of human beings as a whole to look past all that's happened, move forward and embrace a future. It's warming. I grew up in a rather hate filled community when I was little and was called some pretty nasty names (I'm not even black skinned! I just have an afro :P) because my dad was black. And now, to see this, I can hope very few people, if any will have to endure what I did.

My apologies if I misunderstood what you were saying then. It is great that the world is changing such that even in America we just don't discriminate the same ways that happened in our youth, let alone before that, any more, though frankly, discrimination is still almost as prevalent, it's just not so drastically in favor of the white christian male anymore and it's not quite as mainstream in the publc eye anymore. I fully understand (and can relate) to the sort of upbringing that you may have had due to being from a black family as I was from a Jewish family (especially considering that my mother was our primary household wage earner as well which rather rankled folks within the jewish community as well as among our neighbors even back in the seventies) and probably had a very similiar upbringing, at least outside the household itself. I had no objection to a woman or a black person taking the presidency, what I objected to were Hillary Clinton and/or Barak Obama. Each for different reasons but primarily for their political positions and histories. While I happily consider myself a republican, many more hard liners would probably call me a swing voter or a conservative liberal of some sort as I tend to vote based on the issues rather than the party, but race and gender really weren't the issues, even in this campaign, for me.

13. Will Obama's proposed changes to 401Ks effectively be a seizure of your assets by rolling them into the social security system? I don't know. I only found a few sketchy things on this which include the following, (a) automatic 401K enrollment, (b) social security system disburses the funds, and (c) upon your death your 401K account gets rolled into SS. If the Dems even float these, especially (b) and (c), what happens when those close to retirement get scared and lump sum dump their 401Ks?

Conner said:
Ah, but while these obscenely wealthy folks might be able to bear a little extra tax burden without too much concern, they, being of obviously sound business minds, can't like the idea that they will be getting taxed more heavily in order to create "tax cuts"(?) for folks who aren't currently paying taxes, so it seems rather likely that they already know some thing of Obama's plans that we don't if they supported him.

Sorry, I'm not privy to some of the details of his platform, but how can someone receive a tax cut when they don't pay taxes in the first place? My understanding would be, you'd pay less taxes on your taxable income, or is he simply raising the well fair rates?

Conner said:
Besides, the fact that we're no where even near the rates of Sweden is completely irrelevant, we created this country due to many factors, one of them was that King George was over-taxing us (at a far lower rate than we tax ourselves today).

It's totally relevant, especially when people are crying "socialist!". The point I'm trying to make, is that you may have taken a step towards Socialism, but you're not even close to it yet. A little to soon to be calling Marxism, etc. I'm not saying your taxes aren't high, just not enough to be any where close to a socialist reform. It's a bit extreme to be stepping there. It makes the McCain campaign look fairly petty, and desperate to even suggest this in the first place when you compare tax brackets from actual socialist countries. Just take a look. Compare the US to Sweden, or Korea for that matter. Some of the Korean tax brackets are as high as 70%!!! That's insanity.

Conner said:
I'll bet your suspicion is mistaken, from what I've seen in the news it seems far more likely to me that every leader in every nation makes it their business to be aware of what happens in the good ol' USA.

I'm sure the leaders are. I'm speaking of the country as a whole. The 2.5 billion or so people in those two countries who don't know or care who Obama is or what the USA is doing. They're far to involved with their own society to even care with ours. To say "the whole world is watching" is a pretty bold claim when almost half the population of the world could give a rats ass ;). But maybe China and India aren't included in an Americans eyes as part of the world. It makes me wonder if the US is even the #1 super power in the world. US economy crashed... China... spent nearly half a billion dollars on the fireworks for the opening ceremony for the Olympics. Now, not saying this is huge money for a country, but where every ones economy around the world is crashing, I do believe that China's is in fact still growing.

Conner said:
what I objected to were Hillary Clinton and/or Barak Obama. Each for different reasons but primarily for their political positions and histories. While I happily consider myself a republican, many more hard liners would probably call me a swing voter or a conservative liberal of some sort as I tend to vote based on the issues rather than the party, but race and gender really weren't the issues, even in this campaign, for me.

I have some objections with them as well. Mostly with the NAFTA stuff. I can't honestly say I heard a lot about McCain's platform. Nearly every single speech, or note to the public that we got up here were snipes at Obama. I think McCain's campaign was more involved with trying to smear Obama's name rather than tell the world about what they intended to do. It's almost as if they knew Obama was way up there and they simply spent most of the time trying to bring him down to their level; that is, show the world that Obama is simply a politician rather than some savior.

A few comments.

1. Obama doesn't want to steal money from the rich to give to the poor, he wants to steal more money from the rich than he steals from the poor. Big difference there.

2. Why can't we just pull out of Iraq and let those dumbf***s fend for themselves? This war cannot be won because we'll never be able to turn Iraq into a respectable nation, the population is too retarded, religious, or whatever it is. The most effective way to stop terrorism is kicking out the non citizen arabs and stopping muslim immigration.

3. If we pulled our troops out of nations where they do not belong and put them right here in the USA we could cut military spending and still be a lot safer.

4. Bush is still largely responsible for not taking better care of the economy and spending.

7. I agree that amnesty would be the end of the USA as we know it.

11. Taxation doesn't cause inflation, printing more money does.

Tyche:
Sorry, I don't know the answers to give you and I'm a little afraid to find out, but I assume we all will sometime pretty soon now that Obama's been elected and the house and senate are both well packed with democrats in strong majorities.

Davion:
Too much to just respond to, so I'll tyr to do it in sections as you did.

Davion said:
Sorry, I'm not privy to some of the details of his platform, but how can someone receive a tax cut when they don't pay taxes in the first place? My understanding would be, you'd pay less taxes on your taxable income, or is he simply raising the well fair rates?

Our best guess is that he'll be using the stimulus package approach that Bush tried, except he'll call them tax cuts so that they can be ongoing instead of one shot deals. Otherwise, you're right, the only way he could accomplish what he's pledged to the non-rich would be welfare increases of some sort, as I see it. But, honestly, for all I know with certainty, he could just as easily be planning a stunt like the one Vlad the Impaler pulled whence he rounded up the people and locked them into a barn and told them he couldn't accept their tributes since he was there to help them but rather that he was going to relieve them all of all of their daily burdens as his tribute to them, then he had his men set the barn aflame and execute any who escaped the fire.

Davion said:
It's totally relevant, especially when people are crying "socialist!". The point I'm trying to make, is that you may have taken a step towards Socialism, but you're not even close to it yet. A little to soon to be calling Marxism, etc. I'm not saying your taxes aren't high, just not enough to be any where close to a socialist reform. It's a bit extreme to be stepping there. It makes the McCain campaign look fairly petty, and desperate to even suggest this in the first place when you compare tax brackets from actual socialist countries. Just take a look. Compare the US to Sweden, or Korea for that matter. Some of the Korean tax brackets are as high as 70%!!! That's insanity.

Yes, the tax rates in Sweden or Korea are clearly sheer insanity, but the reason for calling Marxim and/or socialism isn't strictly based on taxation rates but intent and methods.

As for McCain's campaign, it was actually pretty clean until Obama's campaign started using smear tactics and misrepresenting statements & facts regarding McCain and Palin. Did you watch the clip Samson posted of the interview with Obama's running mate yet? Unfortunately, that's far from an isolated instance from their campaign.

Davion said:
I'm sure the leaders are. I'm speaking of the country as a whole. The 2.5 billion or so people in those two countries who don't know or care who Obama is or what the USA is doing. They're far to involved with their own society to even care with ours. To say "the whole world is watching" is a pretty bold claim when almost half the population of the world could give a rats ass ;). But maybe China and India aren't included in an Americans eyes as part of the world. It makes me wonder if the US is even the #1 super power in the world. US economy crashed... China... spent nearly half a billion dollars on the fireworks for the opening ceremony for the Olympics. Now, not saying this is huge money for a country, but where every ones economy around the world is crashing, I do believe that China's is in fact still growing.

Sorry, I thought we were talking about world leaders, not every day folks, I'm sure that I couldn't tell you who the leaders are of many other nations, let alone the vast majority of every day folk out of the 7 billion or so that make up the world population. Hell, I wouldn't know who most of the several hundred million US citizens are either. I'll bet you can't say much better yourself, do you know the John Smith who lives in Toronto? (Random example..)

No, the Chinese economy doesn't seem to be hurting too badly from where we sit, but who knows, it's not like their government is about to tell us squat about anything they don't feel that they absolutely have to, even down to the age of their olympic athletes. ;)

Davion said:
It's almost as if they knew Obama was way up there and they simply spent most of the time trying to bring him down to their level; that is, show the world that Obama is simply a politician rather than some savior.

I can't believe you'd put Obama on that pedestal, Davion. Even if you really do feel that he might be the best thing for this country and, consequently in it's own ways, the world at large, I still wouldn't go nearly so far as to title him a savior. Under the best of circumstances, Obama is just a politician, even he wouldn't be so bold as to decree himself any body's savior, I think.. I hope. :rolleyes:

Superman:
1. *L* Whether you're right or not, what he said during his campaign was more of the Robin Hood ideology.
2. Extreme, but nicer than my take on it. ;)
3. As long as others don't have the ability to attack us with nuclear weapons of intercontinental missiles or aircraft or naval vessels and so on such that we only had to worry about ourselves and our next door neighbors, that would be entirely true, unfortunately that's really not the world we live in and total isolationism just wouldn't work for us anymore.
4. Bush may very well have mishandled spending and the economy and the national budget, but he's hardly responsible for things that were put in motion a decade (or more) before he even took office and he's hardly responsible for the practices on Wall Street that haven't really changed since Wall Street began operations. Sorry, scapegoating doesn't really solve anything.
7. I'm not certain it'd be the end of the USA, but it would certainly be a pretty drastic situation. In a way, the very fact that Obama won the election has already ended the USA "as we know it", as does any major change that occurs within a given day.
11. Well, taxation can impact inflation by forcing businesses to raise their prices to compensate for increased taxation. Greed and other things besides printing more money also contribute to inflation.

Davion said:
Just take a look. Compare the US to Sweden, or Korea for that matter. Some of the Korean tax brackets are as high as 70%!!! That's insanity.

It is insanity. And that's exactly the reaction Reagan had to it in 1980 as Carter was being driven from office. Our highest tax bracket was 70%+ before then. Obama is smart enough to realize you can't simply revert back to that level in one shot. So he's taking baby steps. But it's very obviously Marxism that describes the basis of his plan. Take the money from the rich and give it to the poor, whether they themselves are paying taxes or not. When you go down this road it ceases to qualify as socialism.

It's almost as if they knew Obama was way up there and they simply spent most of the time trying to bring him down to their level

More likely it's that your press chose to manipulate what they report to you in order to make McCain look bad since there were several instances during the debates where McCain very clearly stated what his plans were. The media glossed over them and used their power to convince people McCain had no plan at all. Yet now, after Obama's election, I'm hearing several networks ask "So. What's Obama's plan?" Excuse me if I have to ask why that wasn't questioned before the election.

Superman said:
Obama doesn't want to steal money from the rich to give to the poor, he wants to steal more money from the rich than he steals from the poor. Big difference there.

An interesting take on it, except for one small problem. The poor don't pay taxes in the USA. At least not income taxes, and that's what Obama has been claiming he's going to cut. Quick math lesson. What's half of 0? :)

Why can't we just pull out of Iraq and let those dumbf***s fend for themselves? This war cannot be won because we'll never be able to turn Iraq into a respectable nation, the population is too retarded, religious, or whatever it is. The most effective way to stop terrorism is kicking out the non citizen Arabs and stopping Muslim immigration.

Might I suggest you talk to Petraeus? He'll tell you we've already won. What we're doing there now is more of a backup/training role than an active military effort. But, I'll play. I see your Iraq and I raise you one Europe, one Bosnia, and one South Korea. Your bet. You want to talk about illegal wars? South Korea was never declared by the US Congress at all. Truman justified it by way of the UN, which is not in charge of our country. So constitutionally the Korean Conflict was an illegal war. No treaty was ever signed either. It exists in a state of armistice to this day. The rest of your reasoning applies equally well - Europe is too retarded, religious, or whatever it is. The most effective way for them to solve their problems is to kick out the Arab illegals. Much like here in the US, the easiest method to stop our problems would be to remove the illegal Mexicans who have invaded our southern region. It's the 900 pound gorilla in the room nobody even admits exists, let alone is standing right there in front.

Bush is still largely responsible for not taking better care of the economy and spending.

Bush is in no position to take any better care of it than he already has. We had phenomenal growth rates, the lowest unemployment in 40+ years, and the stock market was continuously setting record highs every month or so. This despite the 9/11/2001 attacks, the Afghanistan War, the resumption of the Iraq War, two massive hurricanes, and a Clinton economy that was already starting into recession before the election in 2000. And despite all that, cutting taxes is what stimulated growth. It's undeniable. Things didn't start to go sour until the Democrats seized Congress in 2006. Regardless, the housing crisis is something McCain has seen coming for 15 years and has tried several times to fix, but the Dems kept blocking it at every turn. I will admit though, we blew our shot at fixing it when we had control. McCain still tried though, poor bastard. Nobody was listening to him because a lot of Republicans despise him as much as the Democrats do.

Taxation doesn't cause inflation, printing more money does.

Taxation at normal levels doesn't. But Obama's excessively oppressive taxation will as the rich will pass the tax increases along to the poor in the form of higher prices. It is inevitable. That is after all how the rich got to be the rich. And keep in mind. Rich according to Obama can get as low as $50,000/yr in income. He campaigned on $250,000 but Biden let it slip several times that they'd brought that down to $150,000 and that they were discussing $50,000 at some point.

Obama doesn't want to steal money from the rich to give to the poor, he wants to steal more money from the rich than he steals from the poor. Big difference there.

I'd just like to point out here how absurd that statement is.

12% of 100 is $10 is nothing and 35% of &100,000 is $35,000.
$35,000 is more than $10.

So the government has long been stealing far more money from the "rich", or middle class as I would call it, than the poor.

Obama just wants to steal even more from these people than he already is.

If you had a flat tax of even 25% it would STILL be more money from the rich. That's how percents work.
25% of 100 is $25 (refunds would give it all back anyways) and 25% of 100,000 is $25,000 dollars.

But wait, I guess that is what you liberals would call "giving a tax cut to the rich" since they'd have to pay the same percent as everyone else.

Might I suggest you talk to Petraeus? He'll tell you we've already won.

General Betray-us as some of our liberal friends might say. You might have a hard time convincing them that he is a legitimate source.

Here's some more proof of our success in Iraq: Obama stopped talking about it and started focusing on Afghanistan. The media has practically stopped reporting on it. McCain, even though it was his strategy that won this war for us, gets no credit.

To Davion: The united states has been socialist for a LONG TIME. No, we're not communist yet. Yes, we are socialist. You can't use the argument that you're not as socialist as other countries. McCain is a republican. He's not as far into Republican conservative ideals as I am. Do you think that matters?

The whole idea that the government exists to provide a good economy is socialism. We should just get rid of the stock market and the free market and just let the government tell us how much each stock is worth.

The truth is this country hasn't had such a golden age because we were like Europe of even Canada. Even in the 1800's socialism was on the rise in Europe. There's a reason the united states has became the superpower it has. And there's a reason it's going to lose its status in the world as we lose our fundamental pricipals of fairness and liberty for all. Especially the wealthy. (Why is it so wrong to be wealthy these days? It means someone worked hard to get where they are.)

I'm sick of people deciding that being wealthy is a sin, and that it's unpatriotic to not want to "spread the wealth."

The entire shift from the view in law and government that it's no longer the consumer's job to beware and alert reeks of big brother socialism. The fact that this country has so many lawyers and so many lawsuits from ridiculous things proves this. It's like the classic case of the woman spilling coffee on herself and suing for millions. There's a point where you have to draw the line.

Ok, just because this is driving me nuts:

Massive wealth redistribution through taxation is not Marxism. Marxism holds that the workers themselves should control the means of production, usually through collective action. It's been a few years since I've read the Communist Manifesto, but that's what I remember from it.

Conner said:
unfortunately that's really not the world we live in and total isolationism just wouldn't work for us anymore.

Sometimes I wonder if that really is the case. If we would stop playing political and military games and just concerned ourselves with trade the middle east would quickly find someone else to be annoyed with. I agree that you can't ignore everything, but we have a tendency to pick battles we shouldn't be fighting anyways. Bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq sounds hauntingly like the socialist mission of ending poverty to me, especially since it's ultimately at the tax payer's expense and 4000 military deaths later Iraq is still an unstable powder keg.

4. Bush may very well have mishandled spending and the economy and the national budget, but he's hardly responsible for things that were put in motion a decade (or more) before he even took office and he's hardly responsible for the practices on Wall Street that haven't really changed since Wall Street began operations. Sorry, scapegoating doesn't really solve anything.

I was surprised McCain never attacked the community reinvestment act. Check out this article: http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo125.html

7. I'm not certain it'd be the end of the USA, but it would certainly be a pretty drastic situation. In a way, the very fact that Obama won the election has already ended the USA "as we know it", as does any major change that occurs within a given day.

To a degree we're already doomed by doing nothing because of birthright citizenship.

11. Well, taxation can impact inflation by forcing businesses to raise their prices to compensate for increased taxation. Greed and other things besides printing more money also contribute to inflation.

You've got a good point there, but lower taxes for the poor also means they get by with lower wages.

Samson said:

An interesting take on it, except for one small problem. The poor don't pay taxes in the USA. At least not income taxes, and that's what Obama has been claiming he's going to cut. Quick math lesson. What's half of 0? :)

I make a clear distinction between handouts and not paying taxes. Not paying taxes of course means you get to use utilities such as roads that other people pay to build and maintain, but it's not a handout like food stamps are. The first is freeloading, the second theft.

The most effective way for them to solve their problems is to kick out the Arab illegals. Much like here in the US, the easiest method to stop our problems would be to remove the illegal Mexicans who have invaded our southern region. It's the 900 pound gorilla in the room nobody even admits exists, let alone is standing right there in front.

Most Arabs are legally in Europe, the problem is that they'll eventually have a majority and start a war for religious supremacy like we've seen in the Balkan, Kashmir, Indonesia, the six day war, etc. Mexicans will be content to turn the USA into a 2nd world nation, a less troublesome alternative.

Samson wrote:
Regardless, the housing crisis is something McCain has seen coming for 15 years and has tried several times to fix, but the Dems kept blocking it at every turn.

I was amazed McCain didn't attack the democrats on the community reinvestment act, there's an interesting article about the whole thing here: http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo125.html

You've left out the high inflation, the massive increase of the national debt, and the social security drama. Given the Democrats are no alternative the Republicans should have done better than they did.

Superman said:
Sometimes I wonder if that really is the case. If we would stop playing political and military games and just concerned ourselves with trade the middle east would quickly find someone else to be annoyed with. I agree that you can't ignore everything, but we have a tendency to pick battles we shouldn't be fighting anyways. Bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq sounds hauntingly like the socialist mission of ending poverty to me, especially since it's ultimately at the tax payer's expense and 4000 military deaths later Iraq is still an unstable powder keg.

It's hard to say, what you're talking about isn't total isolationism and might be a viable alternative, but without a certain amount of postering much of the rest of the world [leaders] begin to see us as having gone soft or weak and begin to think we'd make an easy (easier?) target instead of just forgetting about us, after all, we're the "land of golden opportnity", right? (Lately perhaps we've become the land of golden opportunity to become unemployed, struggling, etc..)

Superman said:
I was surprised McCain never attacked the community reinvestment act. Check out this article: http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo125.html

McCain made a few mistakes in this campaign, as it is folks have already posted here that the media presented him in such a light as to make it seem that all he ran was a smear campaign, but we're also told that during this campaign we saw a totally different McCain from who he really is due to influence by "professional" campaign makers. From what I gather, this was the very sort of bill that he'd opposed while in office previously though.

Superman said:
You've got a good point there, but lower taxes for the poor also means they get by with lower wages.

On the surface one might easily think so, but if the big businesses are being forced, by the new higher/additional taxes, to raise their prices and fire employees, then even with lower taxes the same wages aren't enough to cover the cost of living anymore.

Superman said:
I make a clear distinction between handouts and not paying taxes. Not paying taxes of course means you get to use utilities such as roads that other people pay to build and maintain, but it's not a handout like food stamps are. The first is freeloading, the second theft.

Just so that I understand you, let me clarify, you're saying that if I lose my job and can't afford groceries for my family so I accept state issues food stamps while I'm also bringing in unemployment looking for a new job in our rather soft current economy, I'm now a thief? Or that if I work two jobs to keep my family alive even if just below the poverty line such that I don't owe taxes according to the IRS codes, then it's an act of theft for me to drive on the roads that tax payers have built in order to get to and from my two jobs?
Thft is such a strong word when taken strictly out of context and just generally applied broadly like that. When Samson says that illegal immigrants are criminals, I can't argue the point, they are criminals by very virtue of being illegal immigrants, but calling someone a thief because they accept welfare or for using utilities that the state provides via tax funding is much harder to agree with, there might well be extenuating circumstances and that person may very well have worked for many years having paid high taxes towards funding both the utilities in question and the welfare system before finding themselves in their current position.

Superman said:
Most Arabs are legally in Europe, the problem is that they'll eventually have a majority and start a war for religious supremacy like we've seen in the Balkan, Kashmir, Indonesia, the six day war, etc. Mexicans will be content to turn the USA into a 2nd world nation, a less troublesome alternative.

Personally, I'm not sure that I see Mexicans turning the USA into a 2nd world nation as less troubling than the Arabs starting yet another religious war somewhere else, especially considering that I don't live somewhere else. I know, Davion would happily point out that this is a case of Americans being _too_ full of themselves, but be that as it may, I've never said that I felt the rest of the world was anywhere nearly as important to me as my own home is, and I can't imagine why it should be, can you? On the other hand, you say this all as though it's a first (as in no one else would do such a thing) and a terrible thing that the Arabs might act this way, yet the Christians have done it several times, even to the Arabs in the past. Ever hear of the Holy Crusades? How about the Spanish Inquisition? Just to name the two most fameous...

Superman said:
Given the Democrats are no alternative the Republicans should have done better than they did.

Yes, they should have, unfortunately, they didn't and this country is set up in such a way that other parties are welcome to run in the election but only with full knowledge that they don't really stand a chance at the polls. *shrug*

Connor said:
Thft is such a strong word when taken strictly out of context and just generally applied broadly like that. When Samson says that illegal immigrants are criminals, I can't argue the point, they are criminals by very virtue of being illegal immigrants, but calling someone a thief because they accept welfare or for using utilities that the state provides via tax funding is much harder to agree with, there might well be extenuating circumstances and that person may very well have worked for many years having paid high taxes towards funding both the utilities in question and the welfare system before finding themselves in their current position.

Alright, your logic is sound and mine wasn't. What causes my unease is government handouts to the poor. I understand this works for the short term, but in the long term it could be disastrous. If you believe nature trumps nurture (statistics indicate it does) the government is actively encouraging the lower class to out breed the middle class. This creates a very difficult dilemma (historically tainted) with several options: let things slide with the decline of our society as a result (the symptoms are everywhere), stop handouts and watch the underclass suffer and struggle with the possibility of a revolution, add large tax cuts for having children which would encourage the middle class to have more children, promote genetic engineering or embryo selection, encourage people not to breed (only give welfare if you have no children). Possibly various small policy changes would have a desirable result without having to cross ethical lines. This is an issue neither the left nor the right dares to address, but one day the government will have to address the fact that not the quality of the schools but the quality of the children is the problem.

Personally, I'm not sure that I see Mexicans turning the USA into a 2nd world nation as less troubling than the Arabs starting yet another religious war somewhere else, especially considering that I don't live somewhere else. I know, Davion would happily point out that this is a case of Americans being _too_ full of themselves, but be that as it may, I've never said that I felt the rest of the world was anywhere nearly as important to me as my own home is, and I can't imagine why it should be, can you?

Europe is currently our strongest ally, if it turned into an Islamic stronghold, including the nuclear arsenals of France and the UK, that'd put our grandchildren in a difficult situation. You really need to visit Paris or Amsterdam and see half the women on the street wearing headscarfs for the reality to sink in. I'm also not sure if we are safe from an Islamic demographic invasion ourselves.

Europe is currently our strongest ally, if it turned into an Islamic stronghold, including the nuclear arsenals of France and the UK, that'd put our grandchildren in a difficult situation. You really need to visit Paris or Amsterdam and see half the women on the street wearing headscarfs for the reality to sink in. I'm also not sure if we are safe from an Islamic demographic invasion ourselves.

That's a pretty ignorant statement. A woman wearing a headscarf does not equal a jihad'i agenda nor does a rise in the Muslim faith. The vast majority of Muslim people are peace loving, religious tolerant and they understand that it is the twisted notions of a few who make the Muslim faith look like a war machine rather than a religious faith.

Throughout history we have had idiots who would rather push dogma and ideology over faith, The Catholics and the Protestants have each had their own turns at the killing, the Jews have had their fair share as well both on the receiving and the giving and now, in the current age, it is the Muslim radicals who with their extreme dogma and misguided understanding of scriptures that are dealing out the killing in the name of God.

But, what has to be understood, is that these radicals are the minority, not the majority. I have Muslim friends and colleges, who are open to discussing these matters and they are embarrassed and shamed by the actions of a minority.

Superman said:
Alright, your logic is sound and mine wasn't. What causes my unease is government handouts to the poor. I understand this works for the short term, but in the long term it could be disastrous. If you believe nature trumps nurture (statistics indicate it does) the government is actively encouraging the lower class to out breed the middle class. This creates a very difficult dilemma (historically tainted) with several options: let things slide with the decline of our society as a result (the symptoms are everywhere), stop handouts and watch the underclass suffer and struggle with the possibility of a revolution, add large tax cuts for having children which would encourage the middle class to have more children, promote genetic engineering or embryo selection, encourage people not to breed (only give welfare if you have no children). Possibly various small policy changes would have a desirable result without having to cross ethical lines. This is an issue neither the left nor the right dares to address, but one day the government will have to address the fact that not the quality of the schools but the quality of the children is the problem.

I wasn't trying to assail the soundness of your logic, just to point out that things aren't quite that black and white. Something that many people conveniently forget when the topics get politically charged and turn toward welfare and taxation and such is that not everyone receiving welfare is the undeserving and even those who don't pay [income] taxes in this country are not always simply taking advantage of the costs of others. In my own case, I have certainly had to accept welfare in order to be able to feed my family in the past and I've also held jobs that certainly entitled me to eventually benefit from my fair share contributions to the social security system.

While I think I understand what you're saying in general, I'm a little afraid to as what exactly you're advocating here. Are you saying that the British had the right idea when they subjegated the Scottish and decreed that all Lords had the rights of Prima Nocte so that they could breed the Scottish out of Scottland? (Or something akin to that, but for the classes of America?)

Superman said:
Europe is currently our strongest ally, if it turned into an Islamic stronghold, including the nuclear arsenals of France and the UK, that'd put our grandchildren in a difficult situation. You really need to visit Paris or Amsterdam and see half the women on the street wearing headscarfs for the reality to sink in. I'm also not sure if we are safe from an Islamic demographic invasion ourselves.

Europe is not exactly a single nation.. if we're going to go there, one could say that NATO is our strongest ally since it's comprised of even more nations than Europe and happens to include most of the European nations, even though we know that, as an organization, it's actually quite nearly useless and devoid of power.

If Europe turned into an Islamic stronghold, would we really be able to see a difference? There are already enough Islamic/Muslim (sorry, stupid white jewish male American, I don't really know the difference between the two that well...) peoples spread everywhere that absolutely insist on doing things their way as publicly as possible that I think it'd be awhile before anyone noticed a real change.

Wait! You mean that it hasn't already happened here? You've clearly never been down on the NW end of Massechusettes Ave. in Washngton, DC during the daily [prayer thingy] they do when every Muslim in the area stops what they're doing to kneel, facing the east, and pray for half an hour or so, even if they're in the middle of the street at the time... At least the Mexicans just want us all to learn their language and eat their favorite foods.. ;)

So, are we done stereotyping entire religions and nations yet?

Wow! I hit post and immediately thought, "oops, I missed a post while I was posting", then I read what you just said, StifflersMOM, and I'm mildly flabbergasted. Which peoples, exactly, have the Jews ever "had their fair share of" killing over "dogma and ideology of faith"? Please, though the curiosity is nearly unbearable, include citations too if possible.

Have you actually read the Koran? Ever? There may very well be many of the Muslim faith who are religiously tolerant and peaceful, but the Muslim faith itself is absolutely not either of those things, it's not even tolerant of it's own people within the faith. Your Muslim friends and colleagues would undoubtedly be quite pleased to hear you defending their honor as such, and I fully agree that it's asinine to assume that a woman in a headscarf is any sort of indication of jihad'i agency/agenda, but it's equally ridiculous to look at a religious nation people who've spent the last couple of millennium starting wars in the name of their reilgious and call them "peace loving and religiously tolerant".

Maybe I'm confusing Muslim with Islam again, but I can't honestly say that I've been able to find, even on the great and powerful internet, where a distinction between the two covered what I'm talking about, perhaps you can and you can then provide us with a link or two while you're citing sources for us as to which peoples the Jews have made suffer as much as they've been made to suffer...

Conner said:
While I think I understand what you're saying in general, I'm a little afraid to as what exactly you're advocating here. Are you saying that the British had the right idea when they subjegated the Scottish and decreed that all Lords had the rights of Prima Nocte so that they could breed the Scottish out of Scottland? (Or something akin to that, but for the classes of America?)

Not quite. That sounds like an oppressive kind of nationalism to me where the needs of the individual come second to the needs of the nation. Perhaps useful in times of war, but such a system requires a powerful government, which is known to be both ineffective and unmanageable.

What I'm saying is that socialism breeds poverty, whether socially, genetically, or both. Hence the dilemma, do we let society slowly decline or do we take action? It's not of much relevance though since there is a scientific battle to be fought, and then there is public opinion. There's no point talking about a solution if the majority doesn't agree on the cause of the problem.

If Europe turned into an Islamic stronghold, would we really be able to see a difference?

It would change allegiances, there'd probably be Islamic nuclear submarines patrolling our coasts. I could see Africa getting invaded and being Islamized, the big version of what is going on in Darfur right now, with little we can do about it. It'd be a major headache, especially since Islam spreads a lot better than communism.

Maybe I'm confusing Muslim with Islam again, but I can't honestly say that I've been able to find, even on the great and powerful internet, where a distinction between the two covered what I'm talking about

The Islamic faith is militaristic, oppressive, and nothing like modern Judaism or Christianity. To a degree I don't think it will ever reach enlightenment because the koran not only dictates morality, but also dictates how a society should be governed, known as the sharia.

What I think confuses people is that the koran tells muslims to be peaceful and law abiding as a minority in a non Islamic nation. Turkey is the only secular (hence non Islamic) muslim nation, but it's not a good place to live as a Jew or a Christian, and it's becoming less secular every year.

To StifflersMOM:

Large West European cities are a good example. If you had followed the news you'd know that Jews and homosexuals are getting harassed and beaten up by gangs of muslim youths. From what I've seen the extremists are a minority, but so are the muslims who speak out against extremism, while the majority is frighteningly silent.

Most communists are nice people too, but if you get too many of them you've got a big problem.

and I'm mildly flabbergasted. Which peoples, exactly, have the Jews ever "had their fair share of" killing over "dogma and ideology of faith"? Please, though the curiosity is nearly unbearable, include citations too if possible.

I do not have time to go trawling back though the old testament, but im sure the Amonites were one such people who God instructed the Jewish nation to annihilate and lets not forget the city they marched around 7 times before blowing their horn and killing everyone.

My point with the Jews was not so much that the killing they did was dogma and ideology, but more so that historically, the Jewish nation has on more then one occasion been instructed by God to annihilate entire populations and races of people in the name of Yhwy.

Large West European cities are a good example. If you had followed the news you'd know that Jews and homosexuals are getting harassed and beaten up by gangs of muslim youths.

The largest Muslim nation is Indonesia, it is democratic and has very western laws in regard to terrorism and the like. There are also other moderate Muslim nations, Turkey, Arab Emerites as well as some of the African Nations like Egypt. So again i will say that the vast majority of Muslims are normal peace loving peoples and that those who promote hate are actually a very small minority, with a disproportionately loud voice on the world stage.

Islamic extremists while being the minority have in many ways managed to paint the Muslim faith as war mongering anti everything non Islamic, they blame others for their problems, for them it is the USA who they have labeled the blame upon, just as hitler blamed the Jews for all of Germany's woes.

StifflersMOM said:
The largest Muslim nation is Indonesia, it is democratic and has very western laws in regard to terrorism and the like.

Tell that to the three fourteen year old christian girls who were found decapitated in 2005.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4387604.stm

And that is not an isolated incident, Indonesia has a long history of islamic violence against christians.

Regarding having western laws.. kissing in public is a crime in Indonesia. In the Aceh province there are already sharia courts. Everything indicates that a majority of muslims are in favor of strict abidance to the koran, and the hate it preaches against unbelievers.

Islam is awesome.
13-year old girl stoned to death for being raped
/sarcasm

Indeed. The notion that Islam is a religion of peace is pretty silly when you examine closely the doctrines of hatred and intolerance they teach. Of course, I'm sure people really meant a religion of piece. A piece of this, a piece of that, a piece of you, a piece of me....

These people only value peace and tolerance when they're not in the majority. But that's only because the Khoran tells them to be submissive until they have sufficient numbers to violently overthrow the system of authority where they are. Just look at England. It's already moving that direction with the establishment of a secondary sharia law system. It's only a matter of time before they find themselves in the middle of a war.

I'm so glad that someone else choose to address that portion of StifflersMOM's post. I was just going to let it stand on it's own rather than dignify any of it with a response myself. But, given that others have dealt with that aspect...

StifflersMOM said:
I do not have time to go trawling back though the old testament, but im sure the Amonites were one such people who God instructed the Jewish nation to annihilate and lets not forget the city they marched around 7 times before blowing their horn and killing everyone.

Perhaps you should make the time to go "trawling back through the old testament" then because what you're talking about were hardly matters of the Jewish people giving others treatment that even resembled what they've always been given but rather the Jewish peoples rising up and striking back at other nations once they'd recieve god's blessings to retaliate. That's not exacty a matter of persecuting others in the name of dogma as you initially described, in fact, it's much closer to acting self-defense only after determining that there were no other options. Oh, and that city was called Jericho and the city, which is mentioned some 70 times in the bible, has been built and rebuilt so many times that archeaologists still have a field day with it even today, but at the time in question, Joshua led the attack against it, according to the bible, but historians to this day strongly dispute the veracity of the tale. Interestingly enough, the Amonites you mentioned were what the folks living in Jericho were called. And the few internet sites I was able to find about them (which also refer back to the bible) basically indicate that they were the same as those living in Sodom, which God destroyed without the use of the Israelites.. here's about as much info as I could find for you, enjoy the religious fiction that is shared there, (it's all about the bible so it must be gospel, right?) [url]http://www.mcfarland.co.uk/andrew/exhortations/2003-03-16[/url].

StifflersMOM said:
My point with the Jews was not so much that the killing they did was dogma and ideology, but more so that historically, the Jewish nation has on more then one occasion been instructed by God to annihilate entire populations and races of people in the name of Yhwy.

Isn't this exactly what Samson accused you of earlier? Making a statement that was so offensive and ludicrious that it couldn't be defended and when confronted with that fact and asked to provide support for your statement you have to change the subject and try to claim that it's what you meant to say in the first place, even though your new statement is still a bit rediculous? Afterall, can you find something other than the bible (which, despite religious zealotry, ultimately is just a ficticious book about history as described by a handful of monks in the dark-ages) to validate your point here by proving that the Jewish Nation (which didn't exist until Israel's founding on May 14th of 1948 except in "biblical times") has, even on one occassion annihilated an entire population or race of people whether in the name of Yahwey or not and whether under God's instructions or not? I certainly don't need to fall back to the bible to find you examples of historic events in which the Jewish peoples were persecuted (nearly to extinction, in fact).

I'll leave the rest of your post to the comments already posted...

Superman: I apologize for essentially ignoring your response to me, StifflersMOM's post was just.. too distracting for me. I felt rather that if I responded to your post, I'd have to respond to hers, and I was trying really hard to pretend I could just ignore what she'd posted, but I wasn't trying to slight you. In fact, let's see if I can try to address your points now that I've gotten her post out of the way..

Superman said:
but such a system requires a powerful government, which is known to be both ineffective and unmanageable.

Wait, for a government to be powerful it has to also be ineffective and unmanageable? and here I thought being effective and manageable were what made a government powerful...

Superman said:
There's no point talking about a solution if the majority doesn't agree on the cause of the problem.

I'm not so sure that I agree with this either, I think that most historic changes and problem solving have been done entirely sans majority approval.

Superman said:
It would change allegiances, there'd probably be Islamic nuclear submarines patrolling our coasts. I could see Africa getting invaded and being Islamized, the big version of what is going on in Darfur right now, with little we can do about it.

Aside from my curiosity wondering if Islamized is a valid word... I think I'll stand by my earlier statement "would we really be able to see a difference?" ;)

Superman said:
It'd be a major headache, especially since Islam spreads a lot better than communism.

So does influenza, but we can solve that with a simple shot supposedly, perhaps medical experts should seek to find such a shot for Islam as well? ;)

Superman said:
To a degree I don't think it will ever reach enlightenment because the koran not only dictates morality, but also dictates how a society should be governed, known as the sharia.

Given that fact, you honestly think the Islamic militants, even should they manage to take over Europe, would advocate using high technology like nuclear submarines to "patrol" our waters? Or do you suppose that they would simply choose to look at such devices as modern really big swords to live/die by?

Superman said:
What I think confuses people is that the koran tells muslims to be peaceful and law abiding as a minority in a non Islamic nation. Turkey is the only secular (hence non Islamic) muslim nation, but it's not a good place to live as a Jew or a Christian, and it's becoming less secular every year.

So, which part of what you said contradicts what I'd said? (I must've missed it.. I really hate to confue Muslims and Islamics but I honestly can't usually determine what the difference is between them...)

@Conner: You make some very valid points one of which i wish to address, You say that historically the Jewish Nation has retaliated for after being persecuted and this is the justification for their actions. Do you understand that this is the same argument that the Islamic extremists use as their justification for their attacks on us, that they are being persecuted by US interests and that their God says its ok to retaliate because of this. If it is ok to retaliate when persecuted then what the extremists are currently doing is justified and this is the problem with arguments on killing on grounds, each side thinks they are right and the other is wrong and each has prophesy, prophets and scripture as well as idiots who wish to interpret it to suit their own ends and justify their actions.

Until someone stops and says ok this is stupid we cannot go on like this, there will be no change at all, only a continuation of religious bigotry.

StifflersMOM,

There's only one problem with your logic. The United States as a matter of policy has not had any interest in the extermination of Muslims. In fact, it's the opposite. Muslims have had as a matter of policy an interest in the extermination of the United States. One need only go back to the Barbary Coast incidents in the very early 1800s and see what happened when Jefferson tried to reason with those who were attacking our merchant shipping without provocation to see that. The response to his attempts were more or less along the lines of "we kill you because you are infidels" and Jefferson decided to retaliate by wiping out the problem. Which more or less established the standing tradition of "we do not negotiate with terrorists". The Muslims have had it in for us ever since, but until 9/11 had never been able to strike a blow directly against us on our own soil.

It was quite different in the case of the Jews, for they have been repeatedly enslaved throughout their history. The Bible is one of the most detailed accounts of this, going back some 4000 years or so. Try and ignore the religious dogma the monks laced it with and pick out the historical facts, most of which are confirmed through scientific verification. The Egyptians enslaved them. The Romans enslaved them. The Assyrians and Babylonians enslaved them. The Moors and Saracens simply tried to wipe them out. Even the Germans attempted this, and that wasn't exactly ancient history. Genocide is an act of pure evil.

So I'm going to have to agree with Conner that they were simply engaged in acts of self defense. The Jews are in fact the true freedom fighters in all this. Self preservation is a righteous cause.

Conner said:
Wait, for a government to be powerful it has to also be ineffective and unmanageable? and here I thought being effective and manageable were what made a government powerful...

The capitalist market model kind of implies that decentralization increases efficiency, but with decentralization you give up power and control, hence manageability. I guess in theory it is possible in a perfect world, but in practice effectiveness and manageability are mutually exclusive.

I'm not so sure that I agree with this either, I think that most historic changes and problem solving have been done entirely sans majority approval.

Historically, but we live in different times. Surely going against the majority isn't unheard of in a representative democracy, but one has to agree with the majority on the majority of the issues. Someone who advocates segregation isn't going to get elected.

Aside from my curiosity wondering if Islamized is a valid word... I think I'll stand by my earlier statement "would we really be able to see a difference?" ;)

Other than Israel being kicked out of the euro song festival? ;) Like I said, it'll be a major headache, another cold war. As far as I can tell we're already in a cold war of sorts with oil as the soothing lubricant that keeps relations from grinding to a complete halt. I can only guess at what will happen when Europe falls, just that I wouldn't want to be there when it does.

(I must've missed it.. I really hate to confue Muslims and Islamics but I honestly can't usually determine what the difference is between them...

Islamics isn't a word as far as I know. Islam is the faith, a Muslim is an adherent of Islam.

StifflersMOM:
As much as your last post cries out to me for a response, I'm going to just let Samson's response stand by itself, he said it much more eloquently than what I'd initially thought to say anyway.

Superman:

Superman said:

Conner said:
Wait, for a government to be powerful it has to also be ineffective and unmanageable? and here I thought being effective and manageable were what made a government powerful...

The capitalist market model kind of implies that decentralization increases efficiency, but with decentralization you give up power and control, hence manageability. I guess in theory it is possible in a perfect world, but in practice effectiveness and manageability are mutually exclusive.

So, a government, in practice, apparently can't be both effective and manageable. Not quite what you'd said the first time, but I can see your point now. It would be most manageable with fewest bodies to report to, yet most effective with decentralization. But I still don't think you can have a powerful government without it being at least effective or manageable.. ;)

Superman said:
Historically, but we live in different times. Surely going against the majority isn't unheard of in a representative democracy, but one has to agree with the majority on the majority of the issues. Someone who advocates segregation isn't going to get elected.

Well, sure, one's not likely to get elected by taking an unpopular stance, but elected officials are generally part of the bureaucratic beast, not those who really make historic changes anyway.

Superman said:
Other than Israel being kicked out of the euro song festival? ;) Like I said, it'll be a major headache, another cold war. As far as I can tell we're already in a cold war of sorts with oil as the soothing lubricant that keeps relations from grinding to a complete halt. I can only guess at what will happen when Europe falls, just that I wouldn't want to be there when it does.

Again, I have to ask: would we really see a significant difference if we'd see any difference at all? ;)
As you say, it's already been a form of cold war (along side the not so cold version) for some years now, and Europe's never really had that much love for Israel and her people anyway. Hitler only got the attention of all of Europe because of the sheer numbers involved and the fact that he also exterminated blacks, homosexuals, "deviants", Christians who sympathized in any way with the aforementioned groups, and because (this is the big one) he invaded other countries beyond Germany's borders, not because he wanted to exterminate the Jewish peoples. Spain and most of the Middle East had already tried that before themselves.. even England, Russia, and a few other European countries wouldn't have even felt badly about that aspect alone. *shrug*

Superman said:
Islamics isn't a word as far as I know. Islam is the faith, a Muslim is an adherent of Islam.

*L* Touche! :)
Well, at least that explains why I can never seem to find what this mystical distinction is between Islam and Muslim.

Conner said:
Again, I have to ask: would we really see a significant difference if we'd see any difference at all? ;)

I guess Europe falling would be significant psychologically for the white population. Lets turn this around, would we see a significant difference if Egypt successfully invaded Israel?

Superman said:
I guess Europe falling would be significant psychologically for the white population. Lets turn this around, would we see a significant difference if Egypt successfully invaded Israel?

Well, I suppose that, if Egypt ever successfully invaded Israel, the PLO and Zionists would stop fighting/lobbying and there would be small parties worldwide until folks started to realize that they'd lost a major force toward training their special & secret forces, they'd lost a major technological innovator, and many of us would notice pretty quickly when ICQ and other services we use regularly suddenly stopped working permanently, but in general, no, only the Jewish community and those who remain politically "aware"/active would see the differences at first.

But, I understand, and I'm sure that we would see significant differences were the Muslims to take over Europe but they probably wouldn't be in the ways one might think such as how folks dress and act towards Israel, certainly not immediately..