Bush opens up a can of whoop a$$

[Snowbird]

The state should make the decision as to who is economically valuable enough to spend money on to save them.

Sure what a great concept, give up what you earn from working so the government can make the big decisions for you.

Example: My husband is 77 and just had triple by-pass surgery. Since he is retired and the prognosis doesn’t guarantee a long productive number of years should the state waste money on his surgery?

A pre-mature baby will most likely have serious defects and therefore require support from the state for it’s whole life should we let the state decide if it is worth the investment?

Yeah! our system isn’t perfect but it beats punishing people for being successful and creating profitable job opportunities.

We had a system not too long ago where those making a lot of money had to pay 90% of that income in taxes. Gee! keeping 10% certainly is a good motivation to create a business boom isn’t it?

Where is the authority for this government to be in the business of re-allocating money? Where is it beneficial to discourage people from making enough money to be able to afford to care for themselves? How do you implement the great “American” dream that our children should have it better than we did if we pay all the money to the state?

The Marxist who philosophized these ideas have been proved wrong. Remember Marx said “to each what he needs”. Well by gum! no one wanted to work they all wanted to collect. Didn’t work at all.

Personal responsibility and individuality are what has been proved to work. So they modified a smidge, and we have socialism the step to the right. Your can’t have it both ways, either the government is stupid and corrupt or they are intelligent and caring and you want to have a caretaker.

If the government and the politicians are so pathetically egocentric why would you trust them with your life and your children? What assurance do you have they wouldn’t just do what has happened in other countries and all the tax money will wind up in secret swiss bank accounts saved for a rainy day for the guys who collect the money?

I wonder if you asked those friends of yours collecting entitlements for child care if they would rather have kept control of their own money and decided if they even wanted child care what they would say?

[N_B_T]

I’d say the barrage of flames is going in both directions…and quite frankly, IMO, it was coming almost unilaterally FROM one direction (NOT one person, one direction) until quite recently.

People here disagree…fine, that is as is SHOULD be. But if they continue to respond to ANY disagreement with their own opinions in an insulting, offensive, patronizing, personal, and petty manner, eventually other people lose their tempers as well. That is unfortunate, because they start doing what they dislike so much in others.

The everyone-is-against-me-and-other-good-right-thinking-people-but-I’ll-stand-up-to-them-because-I’m-brave-and-stalwart attitude is wearing very thin, because it is contrived, totally unnecessary, inaccurate, and FALSE. Rather, it is simply attempting to make a virtue out of being closed-minded and rude. Perhaps that is not INTENDED (I hope so), but it is what is being communicated.

As others have pointed out, there is IN REALITY quite a lot of agreement here, although you have wade through an enormous amount of whatever to find it.

People who wish their own opinions to be given careful consideration should extend that courtesy to others. People who treasure their own core beliefs should recognize, while they are spraying inflammatory rhetoric, that they may be insulting the core beliefs of others.

People may hold very similar values, but express them through very different specifics and avenues. A path that works for one person may not work for another–that is no reason to denigrate the path or the reasons for it.

Lots more but I’ll spare you! Unless you’d like me to pull out the parts of Ted Nugent’s speech that indicate he is not particularly interested in anyone’s right to free expression but his own.

[Magnolia]

Natty Dread-
Is that stuff true? The article about the ganja brownies is pretty nutty!

The witchy witch witch of south central NC.

[Kellybird]

*I think in the past few pages people have said more about me than ever on this BB *

Allow me some time to use the adult side of my brain for a while and drag the topic, yet again, away from Afghanistan…

Snowbird, some of those things you said about Native Americans honestly should have been kept to yourself. The other contradictions you provide confuse me to no end. You bemoan ‘A’ shows and their stranglehold on the pocketstrings of equestrian society, then you whine about not being able to show off your wealth from fear of being robbed of your fur and pearls?

I also don’t think you quite understood my comment on the lack of excitement over intelligence in America–I didn’t say anything about Ritalin, I said nothing of ‘slow’ groups–and HOW DARE you say something like this: “Another concept I really liked was those who were in the top 10% were assigned a personal dummie to tutor.” A “personal dummie”?? Why don’t you say moron, retard…any other insulting name? If you are really all for equal rights, you would NOT say something like that. Slower, less mentally gifted than thou, whatever. Not dummy. “We didn’t have dunce caps or make anyone feel stupid.” I find that hard to believe.

What I meant was why do we protect Dubya so vehemtly, as if his “'inferior” intellect–I don’t really know if it is, but people have accepted that it is and grabbed hold of this as some sort of grounding device to make the president more human–and criticize Clinton, a Brilliant man, whether or not you agree with him politically. Not that Bush is any less of a person, but why is he made into more because he’s a ‘nice guy?’ For goodness sakes, you didn’t elect him for his compassion and puppy-dog eyes, you elected him because you believed that he would perform well in national emergencies and under great stress. Charisma, personality, down-to-earth-ness, people skills…they are nice, but a bonus, not the real requirements for the job.

I hope you were kidding about the milk and potatoes thing, too. Fancy taste buds?? Some people don’t have the farmland we do so they don’t grow wheat and potatoes, or drink milk–I don’t get the backbone of humanity thing; explain that, please. I think heidi said it better, though…is the rest of the world wrong for eating brown rice, whale blubber, octopus sashimi, termites, rose petals, or baclava? Taste buds often have nothing to do with it. It’s differing geography and culture. How many Moraccans or Eqyptians eat potatoes and consider it the ‘backbone’ of their lives…not too many. I don’t see their cultures’ demise in the eyes of a potato–oooooooh bad pun Anyway, what I mean is that you can’t just say something you believe and apply it to all of humanity. Not all of humanity even knows what milk is and I don’t know that all of humanity would appreciate you putting a tuber above Allah in the totem pole of life. Sometimes you have to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes and smell the paella burning in his or her oven to understand where someone is coming from and to apply that knowledge. Generalizations about other cultures are just as common as stereotypes about people in our own culture, and must be avoided just as strongly.

Lord that was long. Sorry if I’ve stepped on toes, but that’s how I feel. And yes those are my opinions, and I do in fact disagree with my parents on (some) things…

I’ll stop my pint-sized left-wing speech here

~KBird

[M_O_Connor]

<<M. O’Connor, may I respectfully disagree with your diagnosis of TFS [topic fatigue syndrome)? I think that Inverness is rather suffering from PTPS [post traumatic post syndrome), an entirely different condition. >>

Oh lordy, not that! Could be serious…shame on me for missing all the warning signs…

Erin, the horse part is that we are all horse people, using the other half of our brains–which a large percentage of the non horse crowd in our lives had considered to be long dead…We have shocked them by becomming immersed in deep thinking and expression of likewise worthy thoughts…this is an equestrian resurection of sorts, proving beyond all doubt that those who muck daily toil not in ignorance, but yay we see the light over yonder manure pile…we do not toss hay flakes carelessly, but seek wisdom by tuning our radios to NPR in the waning hours of twilight, Considering All Things, great and small…hey, is anyone here? HELLO??? Ahoy!!

(((ECHO OF SILENCE IN THE EMPTY THREAD)))) gee, guess I’ll mosey on over to see where the rest of the off-topic has gone…

But first, Erin, isn’t this a record beating thread? Is it in the guinness book of COTH threads? Or did some fluff topic last longer?

[M_O_Connor]

<<"The Koran forbids the killing of females, children, elders and cattle,??? [emphasis added] he said. “That is war. That is not holy war.” Sons of Islam must answer that tyranny with holy war, he said.>>

You have to wonder at a people that consigns females (half it’s population), children (future of the human race), elders (source of wisdom) to the same heap as cattle…either cattle are really important in this view, or…??

[SLW]

Canter- I had not noticed that Canada was “left out” until I read your post. It has to have been an oversight, geesh, on the day of the attack Canada was instrumental in helping us get planes out of American air space.

I bet GWB is just jealous because you all have the fabulous mounted troopers up there!

In conclusion, I second Lousie’s sentiments!

SLW

[baymare]

I never knew he had a thing for girls with cigars.

All the same, I miss him. If we are lucky, as long as Dubya’s speechwriters keep the sentences short and words down to two or fewer syllables, he will maintain enough plausibilty to get us through this. And if any of you are so naive that you don’t believe that most of what is visible to us poor old taxpayers is pure politics, then I am truly amazed. Democrat, Republican, Independent, whatever: It’s ALL politics, all the time.

[Magnolia]

I read in the paper that in exchange for Bin Laden, Afghanistan wants troops out of the Middle East, and for us to stop giving Isreal $ to persecute Palestinians. Until we do this, terror will continue.
Why do we support Isreal and give them 3 billion dollars a year? Why do we have troops in the Middle East anyhow? It is a volatile region, made even more so by our presence.
I move we get our man, stop sending tax $$$ to Isreal, bring our troops home, and vote against them with our pocketbooks. Heck, I’d be willing to drill the ANWR if it meant none of our men and women had to die.
And, to the person that suggested us pacifists go over with a bag of groceries, well, I’d be first in line to go if I was given a few billion dollars worth of groceries, medicine, and technology to help improve these people’s lives.

Ride it Like You Stole It…

[Flash44]

www.uglypeople.com

F44 - Once a nerd, always a nerd.

[Magnolia]

I think our problem in this country is that we are reactionary. We don’t plan and never seem to think ahead a few years down the road. I see it in everything from how we design our cars, foreign policy, enviro issues, and even health care.
I don’t know if it is because we are so busy putting out fires that we just don’t have time to plan or what…

Ride it Like You Stole It…

[elizabeth]

Ohnowwhat is likely right. Heidi is not one to walk away.

And let me take this opportunity to say that whether somebody is rude or condescending is often in the eye of the beholder. Particularly in a situation like this, where we are communicating via written word. We do not have the luxury of seeing body language or hearing inflections that might take some of the “sting” out of the written word.

Twenty bucks says there is a contingent that thinks that those opposing Ilonae were as rude as Ilonae is said to have been. My honest view is that those who are alleged to have driven heidi off the board are people who have gotten more than their share of “slamming.” It is just the nature of this sort of board.

Exhibit A: Jumphigh83 (whom I love like a mother/sister). She does not hesistate to share her controversial views, and she sometimes errs on the side of . . . more directness rather than less. In return, she periodically gets HAMMERED. So be it. That does not stop her from articulating her views. Which, in my view, is as it should be. (Good for you, jumphigh83!!)

I suspect heidi gets that, and, for that reason, I suspect she will either come back or lurk diligently.

[SoEasy]

posting as me, not MODERATOR persona …

do you really believe that long list of previous Presidents who had mistresses, some plural, never ever had sex in the White House/Oval Office/wherever with them???

how incredible

[Snowbird]

It does appear that we can’t even agree on humor, I have no doubt we would disagree on music, I am sure we disagree on the basic relationships of everything in the world.

Again it is really from where and how you perceive things isn’t it. Talk about jumping to conclusions and generalizing WOW!

<BLOCKQUOTE class=“ip-ubbcode-quote”><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>[B]Snowbird, some of those things you said about Native Americans honestly should have been kept to yourself. The other contradictions you provide confuse me to no end.

You bemoan ‘A’ shows and their stranglehold on the pocketstrings of equestrian society, then you whine about not being able to show off your wealth from fear of being robbed of your fur and pearls?[/B]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I’m so sorry, I did not know that you were the standard for proper attitudes, isn’t it weird I thought that it was possible to express personal opinions from a personal perspective without having my knuckles cracked by the teacher. I do apologize for my lack understanding.

I guess it is true that if you wish to be treated with kindness you need to agree with all the proposed positions. It’s really strange you know, because I thought that freedom meant the right to have any opinion or choices not just the party line. But, I guess to you freedom is simply the right to agree with you.

I just think if I post enough and try to explain enough perhaps even you will be able some day to understand my euphonisms and attitudes.

As to the AA Shows well, I do think it should be possible to make evaluations predicated on an over-all welfare without being accused of prejudice. Your words are “a stranglehold on pocketbooks”; mine are a monopoly because 10 rings is really 3 shows in one. In another day anyone who ran more than four rings would have been considered pretty tacky.

I do admit that I dearly, loved the 3 ring shows where we all sat around and were friends and had glorious tailgate parties. Since most people still in this sport were raised there, I would hope that the new generation could enjoy the same experiences. Just my opinion of course and I didn’t realize that idea was a taboo. That is why I choose my route through this world.

As to whining, I never said I had either a fancy car or furs and jewelry. Your conclusion is based on the fact that you don’t know me at all. In reality I have never felt any need to accumulate the trimmings of apparel or toys. And, never been impressed by them.

My generation is the one who tried to save women from stiletto heels, waist cinchers, girdles, wonder bars (trust me they’re not new) and stereo types where women were required to have cleavage.

We were the generation that put you all into blue jeans so that there was no difference between the rich and the poor by appearance at least. With that philosophy I find no need for furs and jewelry myself but I can sympathize with those to whom it is important are afraid to show them.

<BLOCKQUOTE class=“ip-ubbcode-quote”><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> Not that Bush is any less of a person, but why is he made into more because he’s a ‘nice guy?’ For goodness sakes, you didn’t elect him for his compassion and puppy-dog eyes, you elected him because you believed that he would perform well in national emergencies and under great stress. Charisma, personality, down-to-earth-ness, people skills…they are nice, but a bonus, not the real requirements for the job.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Now this concept I really don’t understand! I really always thought that good character, (nice guy), compassion (nice guy) were requirements for someone that we all could trust and depend on. On what basis do we judge intelligence, is it purely on IQ scores and SAT scores or what college someone attended. I’d be really curious to know what exactly was Bill Clinton’s IQ and what is George Bush’s IQ. It’s funny I’ve never heard that mentioned anywhere.

So are you saying we need to judge someone based on what criteria? And what is the basis for your conclusion that Bill Clinton is brilliant?

Lighten up Kellybird it’s a long perilous life we all live and so far we are entitled to make our judgments for the quality of that life. As to the use of the word “dummie”, it was a exageration of a concept which obviously you didn’t understand, at least not in that context.

It was an effort to describe the fact that we are not all created equal (in a light hearted way), and there are other ways to make those with more, feel responsible for those with less, on a individual level. And, if it is done on that individual level there is no reason for Big Brother to sponsor special programs.

These students each had a private tutor at no cost to anyone and with the benefit that the tutor learns to be a responsible member of a community and has all the pleasure and gratification of feeling that they accomplished something really worthwhile when the student they tutored got better grades. They had the opportunity to get to know someone who they otherwise might have overlooked if they were isolated in their own room away from the mainstream.

[This message was edited by Snowbird on Oct. 06, 2001 at 01:47 PM.]

[Louise]

Maybe they should dust off the “How we did the Berlin Airlift” books. If we could feed a whole city back then, surely we can get lots more food into this area today.

[Magnolia]

<BLOCKQUOTE class=“ip-ubbcode-quote”><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> The “Twinkie defense” was first used - successfully - in the 80’s. When Dan White, a San Francisco supervisor, shot Harvey Milk, the (openly gay) Mayor of SF to death, when it came to trial he claimed that the twinkies he had been eating affected him. He was acquitted of murder, convicted of manslaughter. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I thought Snowbird was joking about twinkies. That is just nuts. I like twinkies, what, pray tell did the twinkies do to effect this man? was it some kind of sugar OD or something?

The witchy witch witch of south central NC.

[baymare]

It’s about POLITICS! It’s just like what happens to politicians, and it’s why we were never allowed to talk about it at the dinner table!

[Heidi]

SLW, I am certain that Baymare did not intend her observations to be interpreted as support for the Talibans and the murder of 6,000 innocent Americans.

If I may be explicit on her behalf, no one is denying that the murderous terrorist attack on Americans is anything but horrific and worthy of some sort of retaliatory response. There hasn’t been a singular post on this thread which advocates otherwise.

[hobson]

<BLOCKQUOTE class=“ip-ubbcode-quote”><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Snowbird:
Hindsight is always 20/20.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Apparently not in this case. Somebody ought to give hindsight some glasses and whisper the names “Hussein”, “Pinochet” and “Taleban” to it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50017-2001Sep30.html

Here’s a snippet from the Post article, reporting on the visit that 10 Congresspeople paid on the former Afghan king and Northern Alliance representatives:

---

The congressmen offered reconstruction money for Afghanistan in return for help from Afghans who oppose the Taliban. California Republican Dana Rohrabacher told gathered Afghan representatives: “If you help us to overthrow this Taliban tyranny and bring justice to bin Laden, we will do justice by you. Congress will help you rebuild your society.”

Is anyone home here? It seems that some people in high places have very short memories, and revert right back to working with thugs to get the job done. I don’t know if my fellow BBers remember reading the news about Afghanistan in the early and mid 90s, but you might recall that when the Northern Alliance had control of Kabul, the utter chaos that prevailed created the opportunity for the Taleban to step in and impose some social order. The only thing the Northern Alliance has in their favor is that they oppose the Taleban. Let’s not mistake them for a force for all that is good and democratic. Granted, you can’t get any worse than the Taleban, but Atilla the Hun looks like a cuddly teddy bear compared to Mullah Omar and his fellow monsters.

Being Not-the-Taleban does not mean a regime is civilized. In my own personal, humble opinion, what Afghanistan really needs is a long-term U.N. occupation, but the other Islam states would not really tolerate that.

Fortunately, Bush and his gang seem to be making a little sense on this count:

The Bush administration, however, has been cautious. Last week, President Bush told reporters that while he welcomes “cooperation of the citizens in Afghanistan who may be tired of having the Taliban in place . . . we’re not into nation-building.” A U.S. Embassy official visited Zahir Shah last week, but the content of his exchange with the monarch has been kept secret.

It’s not the ringing condemnation one would really like to hear against doing business with warlords, criminals and terrorists, but it’s at least some indication that they’re paying attention.

[Beans]

You read about it - we live it. My husband has been the President of a World Trade Finance company and involved in Counter Trade (world barter) for well over 20 years. When some of you were reading Mother Jones - we knew up close and personal about people behind the Iron Curtain and in the Stans and places in China that hadn’t seen people with blue eyes before my husband came into town.

How women and children were treated and were living was something we certainly knew about. So sit back and slow down and stop making such horrible statements about the beliefs, readings, education or moral ethics of people on this board.

You want the government to be your big provider - I DON’T. And if you believe people in Germany live so much better - why is the Deutchmark 1/2 the value of the dollar??? Come on - if you want to debate the concept of economics and market strength and which corporations are buying out which corporations and why - fine - let’s get at it. But let’s stick to factual information when it comes to finance and economics - sorry my B’School training doesn’t allow debate without factual substance.