Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jun 9, 2008 19:59:38 GMT -4
You can't count on Ann Coulter saying something stupid: You can't count on Ann Coulter saying something stupid? I think you mis-spoke. Personally I view Ann Coulter as consistently over-the-top and recommend that she only ever be read for amusement value, not serious discussion.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jun 9, 2008 20:06:27 GMT -4
Why in the world would Obama be running for president if he didn't love his country? It's not that I don't think he wants the best for the country - the criticism is more that he has an unrealistically bleak view of it. Someone with an inaccurate view of reality is not someone I want to try to fix things. He may rip out the good along with the bad just for the sake of change. I doubt that this opinion is one that only existed through the last 8 years. Michelle said she hadn't been proud of the country in her entire adult life. I'll agree that Washington is in a sorry state of affairs, but I view that as primarily the fault of Congress, not the President (though he has some share in it - he kept his veto pen in the drawer far too long). Congress' approval rating is about half what the President's is, by the way. That assumes that all that is at stake is our national pride.
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Post by wdmundt on Jun 9, 2008 20:27:30 GMT -4
I did misspeak about Ann Coulter. Hmmm. Maybe I secretly like her. Nahhh.
Jason, you sound more and more like an echo chamber for crazy right wing opinions. You need to get out more. Meet some Democrats. I can't believe you honestly don't have any friends who are Democrats. Do you know any Democrats? Some of my best friends are Republicans and we have great arguments. It's healthy.
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Post by Ginnie on Jun 9, 2008 20:43:15 GMT -4
I did misspeak about Ann Coulter. Hmmm. Maybe I secretly like her. Nahhh. Jason, you sound more and more like an echo chamber for crazy right wing opinions. You need to get out more. Meet some Democrats. I can't believe you honestly don't have any friends who are Democrats. Do you know any Democrats? Some of my best friends are Republicans and we have great arguments. It's healthy. Of course he has friends that are Democrats. Didn't he say that he uses these debates to give him practice when arguing with them? ...hmmm...or is it you that does that with your conservative friends...
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Post by wdmundt on Jun 9, 2008 20:44:12 GMT -4
Yeah, that was me.
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Post by Retrograde on Jun 9, 2008 20:44:56 GMT -4
I did misspeak about Ann Coulter. Hmmm. Maybe I secretly like her. I've suspected this for a while.
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Post by wdmundt on Jun 9, 2008 20:47:02 GMT -4
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Post by wdmundt on Jun 9, 2008 20:53:22 GMT -4
First Lady Laura Bush "suggested that Obama's wife, Michelle, probably did not intend to say, as she did in February, that she was proud of America for "the first time" because of her husband's candidacy. "I think she probably meant I'm more proud, you know, is what she really meant," Bush said. "You have to be really careful in what you say, because everything you say is looked at and, in many cases, misconstrued." Michelle Obama later clarified the remark, saying she was always proud of America. blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/06/09/laura_bush_defends_and_praises.htmlMaybe Laura is sick of The Right, too.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jun 9, 2008 21:54:27 GMT -4
I did misspeak about Ann Coulter. Hmmm. Maybe I secretly like her. Nahhh. She's not bad looking. I do have some friends who are Democrats, but I tend to avoid talking politics with them. The friends I talk politics with are Conservatives. Hey, I live in Utah after all - the reddist of the red states. There's a lot more conservatives around than liberals.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jun 9, 2008 21:55:47 GMT -4
Maybe Laura is sick of The Right, too. It just shows what a classy lady Laura Bush really is.
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reynoldbot
Jupiter
A paper-white mask of evil.
Posts: 790
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Post by reynoldbot on Jun 10, 2008 0:32:41 GMT -4
On the contrary, I think his views may be a bit optimistic. Government on both sides has become so corrupt it can barely function, and it seems the only major foreign policy decisions we can make concern declaring war on other countries (or at least making threats). What do we really have to be proud of? Our economy has gone to hell, our freedoms have been bartered away, our education system is broken, our health care is miserable, and the rest of the world hates us. Now that's bleak.
I'm a lot younger than you but even I know not to take quotes taken out of context during a campaign season very seriously.
I'm not a huge fan of congress either, but to their credit, the main reason their approval rating is so low is that they aren't getting anything done, and the main reason they aren't getting anything done is because Bush vetoes everything they bring up. Slick strategy, if you ask me.
So what else is at stake?
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Post by PhantomWolf on Jun 10, 2008 3:14:20 GMT -4
What's more important - the lives and wellbeing of thousands of U.S. soldiers or our national pride? Which is more important - the lives and wellbeing of thousands of U.S. soldiers or your nation? I ask this because of prescedent. In 1990 the Soviet Union pulled out of Afghanistan after losing billions of dollars in equipment and up to 28,000 lives. They believed that exiting Afghanistan would end their struggle with milita Islam. Since 1994 they have lost another possible 40,000 troops to Islamic extremists inside what was up till then their own country. Can the US afford to have something similar occur to it?
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
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Post by Al Johnston on Jun 10, 2008 6:00:34 GMT -4
The situation is not directly analagous: Republics of the former Soviet Union border directly on Afghanistan, and the chain of causality was nowhere near that simple...
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Post by PhantomWolf on Jun 10, 2008 7:13:06 GMT -4
Well I never said the exact same thing, I said similar. I think that there are few few people on this board that wouldn't accept that the US has already been hit once on US soil with a result of 3,000 dead. Do you really want to see what the same group can do with the resources of Iraq behind them?
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jun 10, 2008 11:31:12 GMT -4
On the contrary, I think his views may be a bit optimistic. Government on both sides has become so corrupt it can barely function, and it seems the only major foreign policy decisions we can make concern declaring war on other countries (or at least making threats). What do we really have to be proud of? Our economy has gone to hell, our freedoms have been bartered away, our education system is broken, our health care is miserable, and the rest of the world hates us. Now that's bleak. See - you have the same problem. Have you ever actually lived long term in another country, and seen what life is really like there? Our economy is the strongest in the world, even when it's weaker than we would like. We have many more freedoms than even many European nations. In particular we have greater freedom of expression here than anywhere else. We are better educated than billions of people in the rest of the world, our health care system is better than any other (though expensive - you get what you pay for), and much of the rest of the world is either indifferent or generally likes us - we just happen to have a minority of very vocal critics. We have more economic opportunity here than in any other nation - that's why so many people come here to live and make a new life. We give more freely than any other nation to those in need. And finally, we have done more to lift up other nations and protect them without real recompense than any other nation in the history of the world. The United States is a great nation. Just because we can see that we could be better doesn't mean we shouldn't be grateful and attempt to preserve what we already have. Care to make a list of what Bush has vetoed? I think you'll find its shorter than you thought. The fate of millions of Iraqis, for one. Phantom Wolf already pointed out that a victory in Iraq will provide a tremendous boost to Al Qaeda. Not only Al Qaeda but every other terrorist group in the world would take heart at such a defeat. Terrorism world over would become more acceptable, since it will have been proven to work even against the world's only superpower. Nations that view the U.S. as an obstacle to their oppressive regimes will also become more confident and more willing to pursue their own agendas. A loss in Iraq can eventually lead to human rights disasters the world over. After the loss in Vietnam, the entire region destabilized. Millions of people were killed. The U.S. went into a slump of depression that it didn't recover from until the '80s. National pride is important.
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