That's because to many people have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the "right" is. The cable news and huffpo tells them that it's the crazies and the Limbaughs but when we say it we talk mean the CONSERVATIVES, those who want smaller, less intrusive government. That's the "right" we want it moved to, real opposition to big government spend spend spend liberals (and that goes for Bushy jr too). Thats where it needs to move. To be an actual conservative voice rather than a mix of far right nutjobs and the precious "moderates" you guys always talk about (we call them RINO's), and lets face it, the "moderates" the news talks about all the time just means they vote with democrats, thats considered "moderate". Which makes them useless as any sort of real opposition.
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GasBandit
Staff member
You're mixing up the various parties involved. Typically republican COMMENTATORS bemoan the moderate state of the party. The republican PARTY itself is still embracing moderation, or at least looking for outside reasons for their own failures. They ran the Moderate's Wet Dream in 08 and he got thumped. Republicans have been failing to live up to the conservative ideals that got them put in charge in the first place (remember the 94 republican revolution? Gingrich's Contract With America?). They were elected because the country wanted conservatism. They wanted personal responsibility, fiscal responsibility, economic liberty, low taxes, low spending, smaller government, all that good stuff that made the country what it is.DarkAudit said:
The republican party has not offered those things in over a decade. All they've offered is pseudoconservatism... pounding social issues like abortion and gay marriage while spending like crazy, bloating the government and restricting liberty. They are a party without a platform to stand upon, nor even a leg to stand upon it even if they did.
In other words, Republicans only got elected because they pretended to be libertarians. The mask slipped pretty fast.
The nation is not "moving to the left," you only perceive it to be because they are not being presented with any reasonable alternative to doing so. Reagan, for instance, was not a centrist by any measure but he still got many a democrat legislator to cross over and vote his way, out of sheer adherence to principal.
Right now the only thing republicans stand for is trying to get republicans elected. No principles, no platforms, nothing. It's imploding and still blaming everything but themselves.
That's a really hilariously biased article there. It says the evidence for AGW is all "questionable correlations" but that sunspot activity is "hard evidence". In case you are wondering, the only evidence we have for sunspot activity influencing global temperatures is also...correlation.GasBandit said:
Nonetheless, no one thinks that man has had any significant influence on global tempurature before the 20th century. It seems incredibly likely that solar activity did and does have an influence, however.
...What is it supposed to apply to? The Federal government, duh? Anyway, the Appeals Court's hands were tied here. There are multiple Supreme Court opinions that ruled that the 2nd amendment doesn't apply to states. Sure, all of these opinions were in the late 1800's, but they've never been overturned. And an Appeals Court can't overturn a Supreme Court ruling. Let's see what SCOTUS decides to do.
More like "amazing what you can do being a purveyor of inferior goods (in the economic sense) during a recession". McDonald's is doing far better than its competitors during this recession for the same reason.
Don't forget the Mensa material he had running with him. If folks really think THAT is the future of the GOP, the party will cease to exist well before the 2012 election. She doesn't have Daddy's money to fall back on when she fails, and barring disasters on a Biblical scale, she's going to fail spectacularly if she tries to make a run for the nomination on her own. she was nothing but red meat for the basest of the "base", and that is all she'll ever be.GasBandit said:
J
JCM
You must be new here or something, as me and Gas have had a 2-year-long truce, and anyway. :slywink:Mr_Chaz said:
Sadly, just like on the left, its the lunatics on the right who are the loudest, and get more attention, and like on the left, these loons suddenly become the stereotype of the side.Espy said:
M
Mr_Chaz
...That's a truce?JCM said:
aranoid: Hehe....That's a truce?Mr_Chaz said:
aranoid: Hehe.[/quote:17rfxl86]Imagine the dark days when there was no truce.
I
Iaculus
So, DA, how do the shouting be going?DarkAudit said:
I
Iaculus
A pity that most of the answers you do get using this method appear to be requests for you to resume your medication...DarkAudit said:
GasBandit
Staff member
I said you were being subjective, not insulting your subjectivity. I suppose you could stretch a bit and saying I was insulting your objectivity. But what I was saying is that a set of [DarkAudit] does not a representative sample make.DarkAudit said:
Gonna be scarce today, and maybe tomorrow. Pregnant Traffic Director Lady is now sick, so I'm covering again. Ugh. But the good news is we have arranged for a temporary replacement when she finally downloads the baby, so at least you all won't be subjected to another 6+ week shortage of Gas Banditry.
-- Mon Jun 08, 2009 12:57 pm --
Link Time!
This should be a great way to start off your week. Just listen to this Obama-fawning editor of Newsweek proclaiming that "" Evan Thomas, in this same interview, said that "Reagan was about America," and "we're above that now."
How Barack Obama's grand stimulus plan has failed.
Apparently Sotomayor failed to disclose to the Senate Judiciary Committee a controversial document arguing that the death penalty is "racist."
Is Obama snubbing European allies? That is what the European press is reporting.
As America elects the most liberal president to the White House, Europe actually becomes more ... conservative? What do they know that Americans don't?
Hurricane Katrina victims who were told to vacate their temporary trailers by the end of May will instead be allowed to buy them for $5 or less.
You mean big government spending isn't solving all of our problems?
Mark Steyn on "The Muslim World." My favorite sentence: It’s interesting how easily the words “the Muslim world” roll off the tongues of liberal secular progressives who’d choke on any equivalent reference to “the Christian world.”
Not only is the global warming scheme "worse than fiction," it is a flat out lie.
Barney Frank has self-appointed himself the car czar .. at least of Massachusetts.
We are considering putting North Korea back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, according to Hillary Clinton.
You ARE statistically more likely to be sentenced to death if your not white, but your also more likely to commit crimes in the first place. I personally don't think it's about racism, but I can see why she'd think so.GasBandit said:
France hasn't been an ally for at least 7-8 years and they haven't been acting like one ever since pretending to be a member of/related to a member of the French Resistance became popular. Guess what France? We ain't buying it. We lost more Americans to Frenchmen on D-Day than we did to Nazis and it's time you start acknowledging that 90% of your country rolled over and didn't do shit. You do that and maybe we'll start coming over to celebrate D-Day with you.GasBandit said:
It's been said the only thing France couldn't forgive is being saved by England and America, but it's time to fucking let it go.
They had around a 35% voter turnout, so it's not surprising only the vocal minority (who would actually be driven to vote all the time, because they actually WANT to change things) actually went out and voted. Voter apathy is closely tied to just how well the voters think things are going: If things are as they want them, they don't see a need to vote because they want things to stay the same. This is, of course, utterly stupid because not expressing your satisfaction via your vote simply allows a change you don't want to happen.GasBandit said:
tl;dr - Europe isn't leaning more towards the right, Voter Apathy simply allowed the Right Wing to get a foothold because people don't vote when things are going well.
Hope you enjoy your toxic lean-twos! Next time a hurricane hits and destroys your trailer, don't expect as much sympathy from us.GasBandit said:
Considering they are actively taunting us at this point with their shitty, shitty missiles, I say go for it.GasBandit said:
Oh Gas. You can't simultaneously say "the stimulus money has been spent" (which you've said numerous times) AND "it's already failed". About the article itself - I love how Dick Morris says that the entire increase in the deficit is because of Obama's stimulus. Has this man never heard of TARP or the fact that tax revenues fall during recessions?GasBandit said:
Actually, no, she didn't say that. She said, in 1981, that "Capital punishment is associated with evident racism in our society. The number of minorities and the poor executed or awaiting execution is out of proportion to their numbers in the population." This is a true statement now, and the numbers were even worse in 1981.
Yes, Obama has only been to Germany and France three times in the past year. Wow, why is he snubbing them so badly? :eyeroll: Silly European press.
You know, people who oppose Obama just LOVE to throw around the "most liberal president" line around, and I wonder....do you know anything about history? Have you heard of the New Deal, or the Great Society? Call me when Obama achieves something a TENTH as liberal as one of those programs.
Which leads me into my next point. In Europe, Obama almost certainly would BE center right. It's a whole different ballgame over there. I mean, let's see, wants unverisal (but reformed) health care system, wants to enact legislation to combat global warming, is in favor of troop increases to Afghanistan....is this David Cameron or Obama? Wait, it's both!
Blah blah blah, AP article that misrepresents facts, what a shocker. Here's a link to a chart of bond yeilds. Oh my God, the sky is falling! It's 1983 all over again! :eyeroll:
Oh Mark Steyn. He's always good for a laugh. Here's another quote from the article:
""Fundamentally, Obama's goal was to tell the Muslim world, ‘We respect and value you, your religion and your civilization, and only ask that you don’t hate us and murder us in return.’” But those terms are too narrow. You don’t have to murder a guy if he preemptively surrenders."
Preemptively srrenders, hah! Tell me, how was the speech by Obama, or ANYTHING else he has done for that matter, preemptively surrendering to Islam? What the fuck does that even MEAN? You can't just toss around terms like that and be taken seriously. Oh wait, this is Mark Steyn we're talking about! My bad, my bad. Here's a much longer quote:
Well first of all, the US has a right to tell Isreal to stop expanding it's settlements in the West Bank because all of those settlements are 1) against the law (specifically, the Geneva Conventions) and 2) Isreal has signed multiple treaties banning the expansion those settlements. I mean, this isn't some legal grey area here. Settlements in occupied territory are wrong. I wonder what this man would say if an Islamic country invaded a Christian country, occupied part of it, and then started moving it's people in. He'd spew so much venom it'd drown the eastern seaboard.
Oh, and in case you're really worried about natural growth being about stopping Jewish families in the settlements from having kids: dont' be. Obviously no international agreement can prevent people from having children, for God's sake. No natrual growth means no more new buildings being built or new families moving into the settlements. Now, if there was a housing shortage in the settlements, maybe no new buildings would mean for every baby born someone would have to move out. But in reality, 30% of domicilies in the settlements are currently unoccupied. Plenty of room for babies to be born without throwing out Grandma.
Of course, stopping the growth of settlements is not just the law, but it's also a good idea. Good for American, good for Isreal, good for everyone. The only realistic solution to peace in the West Bank is a two state solution. Here are the other choices, in case you're wondering: 1) Genocide of the Palestenians 2) Genocide of the Jews 3) Apartheid 4) Isreal becomming a Muslim majority state. Those are the only choices. Why? In lands occupied by Isreal, there will soon be more Muslims than Jews. Simple demographics. So, do you let the West Bank become a part of Isreal, therefore destorying the idea of a Jewish state? Do you let the West Bank in, but don't allow Muslims the vote or political power, thus becomming an apartheid state? Or do you let one group destroy the other? There are no other choices without a two state solution. And these settlements are destroying any chance of a two state solution. It's really pretty damn simple.
Did you not bother to read the article again? Actually, the authors of that piece are writing in opposition to a single study of the negative effects of global warming. They do not address AGW itself.
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Mr_Chaz
Well, kind of. Voter apathy led to the extremists gaining a foothold, but the rest of the shift not so much. I think it's partly a blame thing: Europe has been generally broadly left leaning for the past decade or so. Now that the economy has gone down the pan (due to the left not being left-enough and the banks acting like children) people want someone to blame, so they vote the other way. And to some extent the same is happening in the US: right is in power, things are starting to fall apart so shift to the left.AshburnerX said:
Sure that's a gross simplification, but it's probably more important to the general success of the moderate right that voter apathy.
In the UK we've also got the problem that a) The current Labour Party isn't actually very left wing at all, b) We've got a major scandal going on over MPs expenses just as the European Election came round, who do you blame? The current government (even though the expenses system was set up by the Conservatives? Hmmm), and c) No one likes Gordon Brown, he's boring and Scottish. It never helps.
K
Kitty Sinatra
Indeed. When you've only got so many choices and the people want a change in leadership, they're bound to switch from left to right or right to left regularly.
Also: Here in my home province of Ontario there's another common dynamic that decides who we vote for. When the Conservatives are in power federally, we tend to vote Liberal in the provincial elections. Vice versa in every combination. We're just not that keen on having the same ideology in power at both levels. It's a tendency here and it may be a tendency o'er there, too, just at the National:International level rather than at the Provincial:National level.
Also: Here in my home province of Ontario there's another common dynamic that decides who we vote for. When the Conservatives are in power federally, we tend to vote Liberal in the provincial elections. Vice versa in every combination. We're just not that keen on having the same ideology in power at both levels. It's a tendency here and it may be a tendency o'er there, too, just at the National:International level rather than at the Provincial:National level.
Yeah, uhh, as much as I despise the way Sarkozy's prick face has treated his "allies" as of late I almost equally dislike the conception of France's rolling over at the start of World War 2. They were crushed, literally and utterly. 300,000 casualties in 6 weeks of fighting due to outdated strategy and shakey leadership does not equate to the rolling over. Their armed forces and weaponry were completely exhausted by the time the germans took Paris.AshburnerX said:
Now, other than that, yes, Sarkozy is a cunt.
K
Kitty Sinatra
Is this the day I learn something new?
Is this true? The only mention of the French during the Normandy invasion that I can find is that we - the Allies - killed 15,000 - 20,000 French civilians during bombing.AshburnerX said:
K
Kitty Sinatra
Yeah, I figure I'll believe the wild claim is possible. So I'm asking.
But I'm reminded of the Quebecois I've met who think that we're funneling their tax money directly to the Queen of England. They believe it because it makes them angry.
But I'm reminded of the Quebecois I've met who think that we're funneling their tax money directly to the Queen of England. They believe it because it makes them angry.
Let me see if I can find the article... It was about Frenchmen being conscripted to fight the Allies during WWII. I'm beginning to wonder if it was just an anti-french propaganda piece and I just didn't notice the subtext at the time.
EDIT: Alright, I can't find the article so I have actually no idea how I got the thought into my head. However, there were units of Frenchmen, like the 33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Charlemagne (1st French) and theMilice, fighting against the Allies during WW2. They simply weren't forced to fight on the Western Front so they wouldn't have to fight fellow Frenchmen. However, many of the members of these units were executed for Treason after the war or allowed to redeem themselves through service in the Foreign Legion.
So yeah, I was wrong about them killing Americans and Englishmen on D-Day... they were killing Soviets on the Eastern Front instead. They were in the minority however.
*sigh* I sometimes wonder how badly my Right Wing family fucked me up.
EDIT: Alright, I can't find the article so I have actually no idea how I got the thought into my head. However, there were units of Frenchmen, like the 33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Charlemagne (1st French) and theMilice, fighting against the Allies during WW2. They simply weren't forced to fight on the Western Front so they wouldn't have to fight fellow Frenchmen. However, many of the members of these units were executed for Treason after the war or allowed to redeem themselves through service in the Foreign Legion.
So yeah, I was wrong about them killing Americans and Englishmen on D-Day... they were killing Soviets on the Eastern Front instead. They were in the minority however.
*sigh* I sometimes wonder how badly my Right Wing family fucked me up.
Being conscripted as a Frenchmen or Belgian (or any other occupied country) by the Germans is something a lot of families still have problems with - trying to hide their shame, so to speak.
However, it really isn't that surprising, and frankly, I find it sickening to see how many people like those were killed for treason, shunned by their relatives,...
Look at it from the side of the people at the time: your family is starving, there's massive amounts of propaganda being thrown at you, the Nazis weren't exactly screaming "We're Evil! We like gassing Jews and opponents! We suck!"; joining the French or Belgian units of the German Army wasn't quite the same as joining the German forces per sé, with many of the units actually being made of classmates, friends, etc, AND, they all went pretty much exclusively to the Eastern Front - not to protect Nazism, but to Fight Against Communism - which was, of course, seen as a much bigger threat.
Mind you, 3 of my 4 grandparents were in one way or another involved with the Resistance, so I'm not exactly defending my own relatives, but still...It could just as easily have been.
However, it really isn't that surprising, and frankly, I find it sickening to see how many people like those were killed for treason, shunned by their relatives,...
Look at it from the side of the people at the time: your family is starving, there's massive amounts of propaganda being thrown at you, the Nazis weren't exactly screaming "We're Evil! We like gassing Jews and opponents! We suck!"; joining the French or Belgian units of the German Army wasn't quite the same as joining the German forces per sé, with many of the units actually being made of classmates, friends, etc, AND, they all went pretty much exclusively to the Eastern Front - not to protect Nazism, but to Fight Against Communism - which was, of course, seen as a much bigger threat.
Mind you, 3 of my 4 grandparents were in one way or another involved with the Resistance, so I'm not exactly defending my own relatives, but still...It could just as easily have been.
GasBandit
Staff member
Dragged this one up specially for Dieb - Oliver North says he's been waterboarded, and has waterboarded others, and he does not consider it torture.
Democrats and Unions are at each others throats in California.
What happens when you deal with government workers. Don't believe me? Go down to the post office. "Neither rain nor sleet nor black of night" has had "will get me off my ass" appended to the end.
Now for your conspiracy theory of the day ... global warming brought down Air France flight 447. No .. not kidding.
What a Canadian doctor has to say about the Canadian healthcare system.
The Department of Energy failed its own energy audit.
Obama has a line he's using to great effectiveness. "Saved or created." The phrase refers to jobs. It's a fraud.
Could California become the first state in the union to eliminate welfare programs?
In New Haven, CT government officials thought it would be a good idea to issue ID cards to everyone, including illegal immigrants. Two days after the law goes into place, federal agents conduct a raid and catch four illegal immigrants. Now the court says that the constitutional rights of these illegal immigrants have been violated.
Getting rid of your SUV because it is the "green" thing to do? Not so fast ....
Yesterday Obama urged congress to reinstitute PayGo. It sounds good, but unfortunately PayGo is just a meaningless gimmick.
The Congressional Black Caucus has decided to make healthcare reform an issue of race.
Obama tells American businesses to drop dead.
A Senate committee on Tuesday approved opening the eastern Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling.
Another war funding bill, another ton of pork.
Here's a good analysis of how Congress is meddling in the auto industry, even though Obama claims that the government doesn't want to run these companies.
Democrats and Unions are at each others throats in California.
What happens when you deal with government workers. Don't believe me? Go down to the post office. "Neither rain nor sleet nor black of night" has had "will get me off my ass" appended to the end.
Now for your conspiracy theory of the day ... global warming brought down Air France flight 447. No .. not kidding.
What a Canadian doctor has to say about the Canadian healthcare system.
The Department of Energy failed its own energy audit.
Obama has a line he's using to great effectiveness. "Saved or created." The phrase refers to jobs. It's a fraud.
Could California become the first state in the union to eliminate welfare programs?
In New Haven, CT government officials thought it would be a good idea to issue ID cards to everyone, including illegal immigrants. Two days after the law goes into place, federal agents conduct a raid and catch four illegal immigrants. Now the court says that the constitutional rights of these illegal immigrants have been violated.
Getting rid of your SUV because it is the "green" thing to do? Not so fast ....
Yesterday Obama urged congress to reinstitute PayGo. It sounds good, but unfortunately PayGo is just a meaningless gimmick.
The Congressional Black Caucus has decided to make healthcare reform an issue of race.
Obama tells American businesses to drop dead.
A Senate committee on Tuesday approved opening the eastern Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling.
Another war funding bill, another ton of pork.
Here's a good analysis of how Congress is meddling in the auto industry, even though Obama claims that the government doesn't want to run these companies.
M
Mr_Chaz
Does government condoning torture desensitise people?
I
Iaculus
Looks like someone's been watching a little too much Ashes to Ashes..Mr_Chaz said:
Even I had to raise my eyebrows at that one and I believe in weirder shit than that.GasBandit said:
I'm expecting riots. Should be fun to watchGasBandit said:
I was about to rush in here and say "Deport them, they are here illegally" but it does raise an interesting point. If we can't prove they are from Mexico legally, how exactly are we supposed to deport them? We can't make them tell us where they are from, the 5th amendment is a right that is almost universally granted in the US (the only exceptions I can think of would be Terrorist suspects that the US tortured, but we clearly didn't give a fuck about the Constitution in those cases anyway). Mexico won't take them unless we can prove they are Mexicans.GasBandit said:
They actually brought up a legal point that gave me pause. Well done.
GasBandit said:
But seriously... could you get an article that actually has some meat to it? The one you linked doesn't say a whole lot.
If they are threatening to move their companies out of the US unless they get a better tax rate, they can go ahead. American companies should be employing American workers in order to make quality American products, and right now Software is one of the few products Americans can make really well outside of the entertainment industry. Yes, the current tax code helps with foreign market share, but Microsoft basically holds a monopoly on the operating systems of the entire world. They do not get to complain about losing market share when they don't have any competition.GasBandit said:
Well, not that our system is perfect, but this guy is over-exaggerating by a huge degree. I've had two surgeries done on me in my lifetime, one to repair a knee injury (which I received playing high school football) and one to remove bone splinters out of my foot. Both times I had virtually zero wait between being told I'd need surgery and getting surgery. It is not as bad as they make out to be.GasBandit said:
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