Originally posted by: Craig234
Originally posted by: destrekor
A patriot, imho, is someone who fights and enjoys what is offered by the Constitution of the U.S.
I've sworn my life to it, and well, realizing that, I can see it's not in mint condition these days and has been torn by the predatory hawks in Congress. Checks and balances my ass, so much shit has been let go by the Supreme Court its disgusting.
First, I don't think that 'patriot' is the most important thing. What if your nation does something wrong to the rest of the human race? Do you be a 'good German' or do you fight for humanity against your nation? I'd say you do the latter - looking for a way hopefully to do it peacefully, which our government has made somewhat possible with democracy. Though there's a reason they still teach the idea of Walden Pond in schools, when a man chose prison for not paying his taxes for an unjust war.
But you also need to have principles, not just support the constitution. What if the nation passed an amendment re-allowing slavery, or some other moral disaster? You might choose to support the constitution, but I think you would be morally obligated to flght hard to get that changed.
Now, you have that modern 'I started listening to right-wing radio and I'm pissed off' sound to your comments. The question is whether you will get informed and realize they're manipulating you for agendas I don't think you would much support if you were aware of them.
You're right that there can be problems with 'checks and balances' when the party i able to pressure Congress to 'do as it's told' rather than to represent their constituents - as we saw especially with the Bush rubber-stamp Republican Congresses. IMO, we can use a bit of the unity of Democrats while they get things from Bush reversed, though.
But what are you talking about the constitution being attacked by the Supreme Court, what rulings?
No, it's more or less called I'm mostly just waking up to the government in general. I wasn't legal age to vote in either Bush election. I would have voted as the other candidates were fucking terrible, but nonetheless, I've blamed Bush for some terrible things, but at the same time, some have been acceptable. I'm not going to go out of my way and say everything a president does is great or terrible, just because of a political party attached to the name.
If you think Gore or Kerry were terrible compared to Bush, IMO you are misguded and a menace as a new voter. Hopefully you will read some more diverse things.
It's really not hard, just browse, say, salon.com (check out Glenn Greenwald) or commondreams.org for basic info..
Most of what you just said, I have no idea what you rambled on about.
Patriots and harming humanity? Wait what? I'm not talking about nationalism here, which can and does sometimes blur the line between patriotism and nationalism. IMHO, a typical patriot is going to be someone who bleeds the original American values, and tries to do whatever possible, peacefully, to encourage others to try and get America back on track with the Constitution.
I have no idea why you rambled about slavery and whatever. Those clearly aren't Constitutional rights, in fact it was terrible human judgment to even see Blacks as less than human, same with women. The Constitution provided for the rights for all citizens, and somehow idiotic judgments by large groups of individuals saw those two groups as unequal as citizens. So with more clear wording Amendments came to save the day.
Yet, we have plenty of national laws still, that I'd say are unconstitutional. Hell, some things that are "legal", I'd say don't fall under protected rights and are actually in opposition. But whatever. Point being, our Supreme Court has failed the people, the country, and the Constitution itself. As far as specific rulings, I'll get to that later, need to find reliable information and don't care to do that right now. However, to be frank it's not entirely about rulings, it's about the lack of oversight of Congress and the President. Bills, laws, and executive decisions, entirely unchecked by the SC when in reality they should have been completely shot down. For instance, providing fuel for your Bush hatred (though look to Congress for even agreeing, nothing in the world of the Federal government rests on the shoulders of one individual, the President is often a puppet for blame while the rest of the government gets off free, and then re-elected for additional terms! fucking apathetic voters), the USA PATRIOT Act. Some good things came of it, but not enough to outweigh the injustice of completely tearing up numerous freedoms provided by the Constitution and the following Bill of Rights. And yet, where was the SC? Oh wait, they backed it up? Wow, awesome.
As for right-wing radio? :laugh: Please. I cannot listen to any particular sided media, I laugh and move on. I'm simply someone who is coming into his own mind and reviewing the history of our government. It might be "new", but it's a long time coming. In fact, I actually follow more closely to my great great (x many) Uncle (see sig) and his numerous beliefs (minus the turkey) than modern thought. Libertarianism is really just a new name for what was mostly Statism back in the days of the Founding Fathers, with a little more support for the Federal government, but not too much.
But the unity of the democrats is a bad thing. Unity of any party is terrible. While they may work to reverse some things (hopefully let parts of the USA PATRIOT Act sunset when the time comes), they're trying to pass things that should never see the light of days.
Originally posted by: CitizenKain
Originally posted by: mooseracing
Originally posted by: destrekor
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Umm... it's called how life works. When things start failing, we pick up the pieces and move on. Not tender our wounds, be stubborn and do everything possible to preserve everything the way it already was. Does no one understand, that whatever helped push us toward failure, is still here thanks to our government doing everything it can to ensure that is the case?
But the voting majority wants to be cradled.....the lazy ass pansies need to either get off their ass and quit asking for handouts and kill themselves and quit bringing the rest of the country down.
Sooner or later the goc isn't going to be able to step in, either their will be a revolt or it will be too big of a collapse. I'm hoping for the first, since I already feel betrayed by alot of "Americans".
Originally posted by: Craig234
If you think Gore or Kerry were terrible compared to Bush, IMO you are misguded and a menace as a new voter. Hopefully you will read some more diverse things.
.
And I would say you are misguided, I'm not going to go for what if's, but those to pussy asses were never put in the situations Bush was in (ie never elected to pres), you have no clue what they would or wouldn't have done, so you can't make blanket statements comparing them to our old Monkey in chief.
I feel betrayed knowing there are cowards like yourself in this country. "Oh no, the country isn't just how I like it, I hope there is a revolt!"
He has a strong point though. Our fellow Americans are the ones to blame, for sitting idle and watching our Federal government commit the terrible.
Originally posted by: shadow9d9
"Christian? Conservative? lol Stop making an ass of yourself with completely off-bass assumptions. I'm an atheist, and I am basically libertarian, otherwise moderate in the left-right spectrum."
I never claimed you were christian.
I claimed that all of the above groups claim to be an oppressed minority when they aren't. I guess you can include the nonexisting "libertarians" as a part of that.
Well the only way libertarians are "oppressed" is due to the fact that they in fact are "nonexistent". It's a shame we've been so damn stubborn and keep a two-party system when all it does it keep the human side of politics in the spotlight instead of the political side of politics. Two-party system favors the "for us or against us" nature of humanity, everything has to be in a group, and well, the best way to do that is keep things in two groups - us, or them. That nature of humanity is at play in everything from international issues to the playground cliques. As long as we continue to favor a two-party system, American voters will be terribly represented in government. We need a third party, and that starts with Americans by actually taking notice to other parties and providing donations for campaigns. They cannot get themselves into government without effective campaigns, with require funding from the wealthier of voters. And sadly, libertarians don't quite make the wealthy gleeful, at least, not the older Americans. Hopefully the new age voters, I've met many college kids who have taken up the libertarian label (whether that means anything, we'll see), so maybe that day will come eventually.
Originally posted by: Craig234
Originally posted by: mooseracing
Originally posted by: Craig234
If you think Gore or Kerry were terrible compared to Bush, IMO you are misguded and a menace as a new voter. Hopefully you will read some more diverse things.
.
And I would say you are misguided, I'm not going to go for what if's, but those to pussy asses were never put in the situations Bush was in (ie never elected to pres), you have no clue what they would or wouldn't have done, so you can't make blanket statements comparing them to our old Monkey in chief.
Trying to make a case that good politicians with long records might have found some way to turn into monsters worse than Bush who we know was a disaster is like trying to argue that a good person you have known for years can't be said to be a better person to set a woman up with than OJ Simpson, because MAYBE they'll go nuts and behave even worse.
I actually have a very good idea what they'd both have done and not done, compared to Bush. Their political views are pretty well established.
Sorry, cut with the 20/20 hindsight. We can always debate prior elections and say everyone who voted for that individual is an idiot because the other candidates would have been SOOO much better. It's bullshit, because no matter what you believe, how much you idolize other prior candidates, the fact remains that we have no clue how they would have performed in the office. Politicians are like that. One can view any particular politician as always having voted a certain way during his terms, and witness a great change once they reach President. It's impossible to effectively predict how any politician will perform as POTUS. So stop making Bush look like the worst thing that ever happened and glorifying Gore or Kerry as if they could have been the saviors of mankind. We don't know. And nobody knew how Bush would be while in office.
What we do know, is that Bush was handed a terrible situation before he ever stepped foot into office. Clinton dabbled into the economy and banking sector in such a way that basically guaranteed problems were going to pop up soon, and they did. Bush enacted some terrible things while in office, but most of them were readily supported by a democrat-led Congress, and others decisions were bound to be negative no matter which side of the coin Bush chose, due to the situation that had been on the boiler for over a decade, or decades with some legislation from the 80s providing a starting jump for what has blew up in our faces recently.