George Will had a column last week that provided some interesting historical context to the upcoming presidential race. He notes that 2008 will be the first election in 56 years that there won’t be an incumbent president or vice president seeking the nomination. And he included this quote from the book “The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008”:
“When the current President Bush completes his full second term, it will be the first time since James Madison and James Monroe almost two hundred years ago that back-to-back presidents both served all eight years of two elected terms. Put another way, two of the most divisive figures in this country’s history will have commanded the White House for sixteen consecutive years.”
As a result, the race ought to be wide open and attract a lot of candidates. But as Will notes, that doesn’t appear to be the case yet with the GOP.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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38 Comments
After the disasterous George Bush, anyone will seem like a breath of fresh air. Countin’ the days! How many more, Tracy?
So far not many of the lilkely GOP candidates have begun strong campaigning for 2008, but there is a long list of those that have expressed interest in running. We will see very soon just how many of them will throw their hats in the ring.
Personally, I’m really hoping that Senator Chuck Hagel runs.
Got a prediction for ya.
Shortly after this mid-term election, and well before 08, Dick Cheney will resign…..for some reason or other. His replacement? I don’t know. But this is the person who will be groomed to be their candidate in 08.
The dems? Again, I don’t know. The BEST man for the job is Al Gore. But he is likely TOO good for the office given the sorry state of this country.
Remember this about Bill Frist:
The Bad DoctorBill Frist’s long record of corporate vicesBy Doug IrelandThursday, January 9, 2003 – 12:00 amWhile TV gushed last week over the Republicans’ new Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, intervening in a traffic accident, portraying the former heart surgeon as a “Good Samaritan,” in truth the GOP has simply replaced a racist with a corporate crook.Frist was born rich, and got richer — thanks to massive criminal fraud by the family business. The basis of the Frist family fortune is HCA Inc. (Hospital Corporation of America), the largest for-profit hospital chain in the country, which was founded by Frist’s father and brother. And, just as Karl Rove was engineering the scuttling of Trent Lott and the elevation of Frist, the Bush Justice Department suddenly ended a near-decadelong federal investigation into how HCA for years had defrauded Medicaid, Medicare and Tricare (the federal program that covers the military and their families), giving the greedy health-care behemoth’s executives a sweetheart settlement that kept them out of the can.
The government’s case was that HCA kept two sets of books and fraudulently overbilled the government. The deal meant that HCA agreed to pay the government $631 million for its lucrative scams — which, on top of previous fines, brought the total government penalties against the health-care conglomerate to a whopping $1.7 billion, the largest fraud settlement in history, breaking the old record set by Drexel Burnham.
The deal also meant that HCA can continue to participate in Medicare. And, as part of the Bushies’ deal shutting down what Deputy Assistant FBI Director Thomas Kubic called “one of the FBI’s highest-priority white-collar crime investigations,” no criminal charges were brought against the top HCA execs who presided over the illegal bilking of federal programs designed to aid the poor — and that includes Senator Frist’s brother, Thomas, HCA’s former CEO (and current director), who’s been described by Forbes magazine as “one of the richest men in America,” with a personal fortune estimated at close to $2 billion.
What did HCA do? It inflated its expenses and billed the government for the overrun; it billed the government for services ineligible for reimbursement (like advertising and marketing costs). HCA violated both law and medical ethics when, as Forbes put it, “the company increased Medicare billings by exaggerating the seriousness of the illnesses they were treating. It also granted doctors partnerships in company hospitals as a kickback for the doctors’ referring patients to HCA. In addition, it gave doctors ‘loans’ that were never expected to be paid back, free rent, free office furniture — and free drugs from hospital pharmacies.”
This is the ethical climate that reigned in the Frist family’s money machine. In an unguarded moment, Senator Frist told the Boston Globe that conversations with his doctor father about the family calling were like “benign versions of the Godfather and Michael Corleone.” Apparently the senator considers defrauding the government “benign.” So too does the Bush White House, which dictated the Justice Department deal with HCA that let the crooks escape jail just as Frist was being anointed the Senate’s majority leader. A pure coincidence in timing, of course.
The senator has always claimed no current connection to HCA because the $26 million he and his wife hold in the company’s stock is in a so-called “blind trust.” But it was the family’s dirty money that bought Frist a place in the Senate. In 1994, Frist — who’d never bothered to vote before first running for the Senate that year — spent some $3.4 million of his personal fortune to buy the seat from Tennessee (HCA’s headquarters) that he now occupies. Moreover, “In the Senate, Frist has used his influence to further HCA’s cause by stopping a strong patients’ bill of rights, gridlocking a mandatory Medicare prescription-drug benefit, and promoting caps on damages for victims who sue negligent hospitals like HCA’s,” points out Jamie Court, executive director of the Santa Monica–based Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, who adds, “The Senate should not replace a racist with a principal backer of one of the largest corporate swindles ever perpetrated against the American public. If Frist was a patriot first, he would have sold his HCA stock long ago.”
But Frist’s pandering to the lobbyists of the voracious health-care industry knows no bounds. “Frist isn’t the senator from Tennessee — he’s the senator from the state of Health Care Industry Influence — he’s gotten more than $2 million from the health-care sector, giving him the dubious distinction of raising more cash from health-care interests than 98 percent of his colleagues,” says Nick Nyhart, executive director of Public Campaign.
Consider the special servicing he gave to pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly. In another example of his “patriotism,” Frist engineered the insertion into the Homeland Security bill of a provision that would protect Eli Lilly from lawsuits over Thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative used in its vaccines. Thousands of lawsuits have been filed against Lilly by parents who believe Thimerosal caused autism and other neurological maladies in their kids. The Frist-authored rider shields Lilly by forcing those lawsuits into a special “vaccine court,” where they can be easily scuttled, potentially saving Lilly hundreds of millions. The pharmaceutical industry was the largest single contributor to the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee that Frist chaired, ladling out some $4 million — and Lilly was the single biggest contributor to the GOP from that industry, having given $1.6 million in the last election cycle, 79 percent of it to Republicans.
The good Dr. Frist voted against patients’ rights to sue their HMOs for failure to provide adequate treatment, and voted to give tax subsidies to HMOs and insurance companies to offer prescription drugs to seniors, rather than providing them through Medicare. Frist has, of course, personally raked it in from the interested industries, gobbling up $123,750 in campaign cash from the HMOs and $265,023 from the pharmaceutical industry. Frist also took $130,204 from the food-processing industry — and then helped kill a bill putting teeth into the USDA’s authority to crack down on processing plants that violate federal standards for bacterial and viral infection of meat and poultry.
There’s a lot more, like this — so much that it leads to an inescapable conclusion: In the Senate, “Good Samaritan” Frist has almost daily violated the injunction of the physicians’ Hippocratic oath: “First, do no harm.”
Frist is only one of many reasons why I won’t go to HCA Wesley unless I don’t have a choice.
BC/BS and other insurance companies do not give that option in this city.
JR,
I read the same regarding Cheney a few weeks ago, although I can’t remember where. It’s fine with me. The sooner Dick is out of office, the sooner he can be investigated.
The Clinton presidency was not really divisive. Its political landmarks, NAFTA, welfare reform, and balancing the federal budget, reflected moderate and classic conservative values. Bill Clinton loved, and still loves, to meet with people whose visions and values were different from his, so that he can learn, and work out tenable compromises.
WE Bloggers need to read John Dean’s book, “Conservatives Without Conscience”, which brings to a public light longstanding academic research on a phenomenon called the authoritarian personality, which involves deep-seated emotional characteristics, and a symbiosis between Machiavellian, power-lust-driven, amoral “social dominators” and self-righteous “authoritarian followers”, who are discomfitted by change that they do not understand, who can be mobilized by fear-mongering tactics to become aggressive and attack others who are different from them (e.g. gays, minorities, “liberals”, Muslims, et al.), who prefer order and “security” over freedom, who want to believe it is possible return to what they envision in their minds’ rear-view mirrors to be a better time, e.g. the 1950’s.
The Clintons’ list of faux pas is undeniable, from Travelgate to Hillarycare. But, absent the sordid ultra-right-wing social dominators’ campaign to make a mountain out of a molehill– Bill’s pecadillo with Monica Lewinsky–and the result would have been a landslide win for Gore. Let’s not forget he won the national popular vote, and probably would have won Florida by a small majority, absent the “butterfly ballot” irregularity, and had Gore demanded a full, not partial recount of Florida votes, or had the US Supreme Court let the Florida Supreme Court exercise the state court’s constitutional prerogative governing state election procedures. Gore won the votes of MOST Americans, even being hamstrung by the bitter aftertaste of the Lewinsky affair.
It was said in Dean’s book, that had the qualification to vote on Clinton’s impeachment been limited to representatives who had never indulged in sex outside their marriages, the Congress wouldn’t have been able to mount a quorum. Men who aquire power tend to have strong libidos. After the Civil War, when Repubublicans controlled Congress, Massachusetts Avenue, right off Capitol Hill was a row of whorehouses. That blatant reality has been replaced by more-discreet call girl operations, and sexual liaisons between politicians/high-level bureaucrats and their subordinates (most often heterosexual in nature). Members of both parties do this.
The Bush/Cheney presidency, by any reckoning, has been extremely divisive, not in small the matter of sex, but in big matters, such as:
Enormously expanding federal expenditures funded by debt that will either cripple the next generation that has to pay for it, or else by selling American assets to foreigners who aren’t going to hold their Treasury Bonds forever, but will demand conversion to either cash or property.
An illegal war in Iraq that has cost more than a half-trillion dollars–illegal because it was concocted on fabricated evidence and propaganda, and involved an invasion of a country that posed no threat to the American people.
A war that has not stabilized the Middle East, a region upon which our fossil-fuel-reliant economy depends, but has destabilized it.
A “War on Terror” that has increased the risks of Islamic jihadic terrorism, something that was actually small at the outset. We haven’t seen an act of terrorism since 2001. But before this event occurred on Bush’s watch, we hadn’t seen one since the 1993 failed bombing of the World Trade Center under Clinton’s watch. Nationally, no American wants foreigners to attack us. But in real terms, the Jihadists were a marginal group (funded by oil revenues, of note), who could never destroy our nation. They were never going to mount an attack against Wichita or Omaha, or any other part of the Heartland. They were satisfied with symbolic targets.
The use of torture and cruelty, something that America and her allies punished Germany and Japan for, and strongly condemned the Soviet Union and North Vietnam for. How can one say, “We’re going to be modern democracy to the Middle East,” when the methods used are most reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition? Like the Spanish Inquisition, most of the tortured have been innocent people. A minority have been guilty, but one of the purposes of torture is to separate the two groups by terrorizing everybody who’s brought in for interrogation.
The invasion of our private (we thought) communications. The vast majority of liberals agree with Bush/Cheney’s authoritarian followers who say they have nothing to hide their communications vis-a-vis revelations of ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES. The difference is, there are a lot of communications that involve strategic business plans, that liberal and smart conservative businessmen don’t want stolen, as well as things like valid criticisms of government, and crucially-important whistle-blowing communications that keep our republican democracy from regressing into medieval dictatorship.
A complete turning upside down of the Constitutional relationship between the citizens and our government. Our Constitution requires a full annual accounting of expenditures. The post-Watergate Privacy Act, and Freedom of Information Act represented efforts to protect individual citizens’ privacy from government officials’ snooping, while at the same time increasing government actions’ disclosure to the public. The Bush/Cheney administration has mounted a concerted effort to increase government snooping into private citizens’ affairs, while hiding as much as they can get away with, government doings. Bush/Cheney have violated federal law by sealing past administrations’ records that are required to be open to public inspection.
An attempted, and significantly successful, erosion of “checks and balances” between the three branches of federal government. The Machievellian strategists and tacticians realized that Congress could be rendered into toadyship, using A) mega-campaign expenditures to put into office obsequeous “representatives”, and B) false and defaming campaign stratagems. ( C) possibly blackmailing those elected to keep them in “discipline” has not been disproven.)
The pillorying of former soldiers, who put heroically themselves in harm’s way, such as John McCain, John Murtha, John Kerry, and Max Cleland, by “The Yellow[spined] Rose of Texas,” and his fellow battlefield-service-evading Chicken Hawks, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfield, Paul Wolfowitz, et al? People who think WAR IS GREAT, as long as we and our children don’t have to risk our own, or our own children’s lives?
Conservative evangelical “little people”, i.e. authoritarian followers, have been manipulated and exploited by amoral self-power-seeking leaders and this administration to advance utterly un-Christian objectives.
The architects of the current government are happy to import Third World laborers, to invest in Chinese industrial development to enrich themselves, and when the little authoritarian-follower Americans who were bamboozled to support this, wake up, too bad for them.
Seems a lot of things are lost on the good people of Kansas — particularly in the SE corner … in todays paper the Beagle in essence said that voter turnout in Sedgwick county will be smaller than in Johnson County because they are mostly white collar (smarter?) and here in Sedgwick county are blue collar (not so smart?).. I believe the political parties don’t want an educated / informed electorate that will vote — it’s why public education and oversight in Kansas is underfunded — they really don’t want you to see the corruption / irregularities in our government — ignorance is bliss at work???? More importantly they want higher education to only be affordable by the well heeled and wealthy —
100% agreement, heartlander. I do agree that while Wichita was never seriously considered as a target by terrorists pre-9/11, the odds have very likely increased since.
Authoritarian followers, that’s a very interesting term. It certainly fits the empirical observation that a very great many of Bush’s supporters are authoritarian yet insist on keeping Bush’s butt covered in lily water despite his record of gross indifference in the face of staggering incompetence.
There’s an old model purporting to explain differences between conservatives v. liberals, a 2-space graph with (0,0) representing total freedom and (1,1) representing a total lack of freedom. One dimension is represented by “human equality,” and followers who would find their preferences approaching the (0,1) spot would sacrifice all freedom to achieve human equality. The other dimension represents “order and security,” and followers approaching (1,0) would sacrifice all freedom to achieve order and security. In this very simple model, we’d find:
Libertarians: (0,0)Liberals: (0,1)Populists: (1,1)Conservatives: (1,0)
Authoritarian followers would be at (1,0). This certainly fits the observation that a very high percentage of Bush’s followers are completely untroubled by the Patriot Act, domestic spying, torture, the whole gamut of Bush warfare tactics. Fear drives them to completely discount freedom, and the administration’s communications with them insist on utter and complete loyalty to Bush as a necessary condition of responsible citizenship. Fiscal order means nothing, so fiscal conservatism means nothing. Shazzam, a new authoritarian follower is born.
Dean’s book shows a 2-D graphic “Freedom / Equality on the Y axis, and “Freedom/Order” on the x-axis, and showing where Conservatives, Libertarians, Communitarians and Liberals (p. 37) fit. It’s an interesting graph, which is why I really recommend that people read this book. It doesn’t fit everything I have experienced. But it’s revelatory, to people who have open minds. John Dean went to the White House as a conservative under Nixon. He broke ranks with an anti-democratic authoritarian “our way or the highway” mindset.
That’s the graph. Thanks, I’m going to check out this book.
People who have read enough of my posts perceive me to be a “liberal”. But America was founded by liberals. The conservative approach would have been to fight George III and British Parliament, but to have negotiated full British-citizen and lord’s rights, and then said, we want to remain under the British Crown. Instead, our Founding Fathers created a different, independent Republic. The President would be elected, not inheritant. The greatest power would reside in popularly elected representatives of a house, and popularly-elected state house named federal senators. We would adopt the English common-law court model.
The system was “flawed” because the founders decided to give 3/5 votes to slave numbers, i.e. not to human slaves, but to their owners. This was based on a pre-enlightenment feudal “property” construct.
In Ohio and Missouri, blacks were subjected to extraordinary multi-hour “waiting lines” to vote and poll closures before people got to vote. In pro-Republican Kansas, and in a pro-Republican district, I got in and out in 30 minutes.
Pseudo-”conservatives” can cheat, but eventually, as a small minority, you will lose. You will isolate yourselves from the majority of Americans, and from the rest of the world. The little-people authoritarian followers will pay the price, most of them being consigned to living in their parents’ homes, because they can’t afford to live independently. In your vision, you will recreate a medieval model, of a small minority of very rich, and a large majority of serfs.
Modern liberalisim is the antithesis of classical liberalism. Liberalism of our forefathers was actually meant to liberate and be free from to choose their own both with minimal government. It was entirely an intellectual and spiritual exercise.
Modern Liberalism as practiced today is neither intellectual nor is it spiritual. Liberals will often opt for a larger government that will take property away from the individual to support their socialistic ambitions.
Modern liberalists often fill their statements with false premise and slippery slopes (All conservatives are religious fanatics, therefore our government will fail.)
Of course, if they have conservatives in their own party, they will be curiously overlooked so their premise will fit their skewed logic.
And, yada yada yada, ad infinitum…
Bill Clinton’s presidency was divisive only because of the likes of Rush Limbaugh and his legions of so-called Christian Conservatives looking for any scent of a scandal. Rush was on a daily basis making up his usual non-facts and the rabid Christians were wanting blood at any cost.
What would our country be now if the so-called Christians actually had worked together with Bill Clinton on the common issues both Democrats and Republicans care about?
Alot of damage has been done by the Christian Right wackos and the Repubs that force-fed them everything that they ranted and raved about for 8 years.
To this date, these same Religious nutjobs go rabid just at the mention of Bill Clinton’s name. Not very Christian in my book.
JM – if your party allowed the Christian Social Conservatives to take over, then it is your party’s fault for not containing them. Don’t blame liberalism for that and don’t try to rewrite what liberalism means.
After all, George W. Bush had many of the Christian Social Conservatives on a weekly conference call – so at least Bush must see them as important advisers.
We don’t need anyone telling us how to be liberal. Ain’t interested in your opinion, JM. We can do fine on our own.
JM accuses liberals of chanting slippery slopes, yet his entire post is exactly that.
Real cute, JM.
It’s more like the Neoconservative Party which has taken over the republican party are afraid of educated voters because they ask too many questions. Let’s get back on the education band wagon and start challenging our elected reps and not worship them like rock stars.
Endorsements
Kansas Families United for Public Education is pleased to endorse thefollowing supporters of public education. Send this list to a friend
* Qualified endorsement, candidate supports teaching of creationism or Intelligent Design in the Science Classroom
** Qualified endorsement, candidate does not fully endorse equal education rights for all Kansas children, regardless of immigration status.Federal Office:Nancy Boyda (D), U.S. Congress (District #2), http://www.nancyforcongress.com/index.phpDennis Moore (D), U.S. Congress (District #3), http://www.mooreforcongress.com
Kansas Board of Education:Janet Waugh (D), State Board of Education (District #1), http://www.janetwaugh.comDon Weiss (D), State Board of Education (District #3), http://www.donweiss.orgSally Cauble (R), State Board of Education (District #5), http://www.caubleforcommonsense.comJack Wempe (D), State Board of Education (District #7), http://jackwempeforstateboard.com/Jana Shaver (R), State Board of Education (District #9), http://www.janashaver.com
State House of Representatives:Julie Menghini (D), District #003, http://www.juliemenghini.com* Shirley Palmer (D), District #004Ginny Rigney (D), District #006Richard Proehl (R), District #007* Jerry Williams (D), District #008** Tom Holland (D), District #010, http://www.tomhollandforkansas.orgNO ENDORSEMENT, District #011Jeff King (R), District #012Aunesty Janssen (D), District #014, http://www.aunestyjanssen.comHeather Cessna (D), District #015, http://www.cessnaforkansas.blogspot.comGene Rardin (D), District #016Ed Coleman (D), District #017, http://www.colemanforkansas.comStephanie Sharp (R), District #017, http://www.stephaniesharp.comCindy Neighbor (D), District #018, http://www.cindyneighbor.orgTim Owens (R), District #019Alex Holsinger (D), District #020, http://www.kansansforalex.comKay Wolf (R), District #021, http://www.kansansforkay.comSue Storm (D), District #022** Milak Talia (D), District #023, http://www.milack.comEd O’Malley (R), District #024, http://www.edomalley.orgAndy Sandler (D), District #024, http://www.andyforkansas.org/Terrie Huntington (R), District #025, http://www.terriehuntington.comMissy Taylor (D), District #025, http://taylorforkansas.orgNO ENDORSEMENT, District #026NO ENDORSEMENT, District #027Pat Colloton (R), District #028, http://www.patcolloton.comAmber Bachelor (D), District #029, http://www.bachelorforhouse.comCheryl Spaulding (R), District #029Ron Worley (R), District #030Louis Ruiz (D), District #032Tom Burroughs (D), District #033* Valdenia Winn (D), District #034Broderick Henderson (D), District #035Margaret Long (D), District #036Michael Peterson (D), District #037Diane Bryant (D), District #038Corey Mohn, District #039, http://www.votemohn.comCary Mohn (D), District #039* Lee Urban (D), District #043Barbara Ballard (D), District #044Tom Sloan (R), District #045Paul Davis (D), District #046, http://www.davisforlawrence.orgJames Farris (D), District #047, http://www.farisforkansas.comPam Ippel (D), District #048Bond Faulwell (D), District #049, http://www.bondfaulwell.comPENDING ENDORSEMENT, District #050NO ENDORSEMENT, District #051Ann Mah (D), District #053, http://www.annmah.orgTanya Dorf (D), District #054Annie Kuether (D), District #055Annie Tietze (D), District #056, http://www.annietietze.usVaughn Flora (D), District #057Harold Lane (D), District #058PENDING ENDORSEMENT, District #059Sydney Carlin (D), District #066, http://www.sydneycarlin.comTom Hawk (D), District #067, http://www.tomhawk.com/Tom Thull (D), District #072, http://www.thullforkansas.orgSarah Johnston (D), District #075Debbie Logsdon (D), District #077, http://www.debbielogsdon.comEd Trimmer (D), District #078Vincent Wetta (D), District #080Judy Armstrong (D), District #081Jo Ann Pottorff (R), District #083Oletha-Faust Goude (D), District #084Guy McDonald (D), District #085Judith Loganbill (D), District #086Raj Goyle (D), District #087, http://www.rajforkansas.comJim Ward (D), District #088Melody McCray-Miller (D), District #089H.W. Collier (D), District #090** Walt Chappel (D), District #091, http://www.chappell4ksrep.comNile Dillmore (D), District #092Marcey Gregory (D), District #093, http://www.gregory4rep.comTom Sawyer (D), District #095Terry McLachlan (D), District #096, http://www.TerryMc96.comDale Swenson (R), District #097Geraldine Flaharty (D), District #098Charlie Mahoney, District #099, http://www.charliemahoney.comMark Treaster (D), District #101, http://marktreaster.orgJanice Pauls (D), District #102Delia Garcia (D), District #103, http://www.deliagarcia.com* ** Jane Byrnes, District #105Josh Svaty (D), District #108Dennis McKinney (D), District #116
Statewide Office:Paul Morrison (D), Attorney General, http://www.morrisonforag.comKathleen Sebelius/Mark Parkinson (D), Governor/Lt. Governor, http://www.ksgovernor.com
Cool, a menu of politicians. Too bad there are too many bones in it.
…or should I say skeletons.
Lucee
good post and spot on
Please before you vote, pay close attention to the judges on the ballots, and don’t vote for a judge if you don’t know what he’s done (or not done).
Hehe, good one, Susa. JM telling us what “liberalism” means.
Liberalism believes that we’re all in this together. Liberalism is pragmatic–it is not bound by ideology but searches to find the most expedient remedy for problems.
Some times that means big government as in the case of providing health care and fighting pollution. Some times that means small government as in the case of abortion rights, which government should just butt out of.
Liberalism looks at the real world and sees that if “unregulated gun ownership stops crime” as the right-wing claims then Baghdad should be the safest city on the planet (it’s the most dangerous) and Tokyo should be the most dangerous (it’s the safest).
Liberalism looks at the real world and sees that if helping fantastically rich people get even richer is good for the economy, then Haiti and Nicaragua should be the richest countries in the world (they’re among the poorest–however the rich are really, really rich).
Liberals are people who use facts to draw conclusions.
Conservatives are people who start with the conclusions (”guns are good!”) and then find the facts that support those fore-gone conclusions.
Leftists are assholes that state “the races are equal”! They then proceed to find facts to support that conclusion but can’t come up with any!
Viva La Revolucion Blanco!!!
OUCH Ian
“Leftists” are also folks who will defend the speech of even the most vitriolic of speakers, as I and other “leftists” have done for you sir.
JR,
Just like at canada and europe where insane leftist-socialists have drawn up and instituted the most vile and draconian hate-speech and hate crimes laws! “Leftism” is the mortal enemy of freedom and free speech.
Viva La Raza Blanco!!
Ian, what race are you exactly, I seen your web-page and you certainly aren’t white or straight, Rainbow Brite?
Dingus,
That shit-skinned coackroach in that myspace thing ain’t me! It was an attempt at slander by the poster known as morty the “k” and if you fell for it, then I have some oceanfront property in Idaho for ya!
Viva la Raza Blanco!!
Death to Democracy!Death to Diversity!Viva La Meurte!!Viva La Raza Blanco!!Viva La Revolucion Blanco!!!
The USA was, from day one, supposed to be a “Constitutional Republic” as opposed to a Democracy.
Read and Think:
How Long Do We Have?
About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:
“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.”
“The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence:
1. From bondage to spiritual faith;2. From spiritual faith to great courage;3. From courage to liberty;4. From liberty to abundance;5. From abundance to complacency;6.From complacency to apathy;7. From apathy to dependence;8. From dependence back into bondage”
Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 Presidential election:
Population of counties won by: Gore: 127 million; Bush: 143 million
Square miles of land won by: Gore: 580,000; Bush: 2,427,000
States won by: Gore: 19; Bush: 29
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Gore: 13.2; Bush: 2.1Professor Olson adds:
“In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great country. Gore’s territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare…”
Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the “complacency and apathy” phase of Professor Tyler’s definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation’s population already having reached the “governmental dependency” phase.
If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegals and they vote, then goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.
Forward this to others to help everyone realize just how much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom.
Congrats Ian?
I’ve defended you your posts here before. Other “leftists” have as well. I DON’T recall any conservatives rallying for your right to post you insanity.
I think that you will now be bilaterrally ignored and despised.
I guess it is too late for you to learn that you better love your “enemies” because you can’t trust your “friends”.
Goodbye Ian.
JR,
Nobody here has been more anti-war, anti-shrub and anit-necon than me. I just don’t see the “left” as being any great alternative, that’s all. In any event, AMF, dude. :)
V.L.R.B!!
The problem for you Ian as you continue your even lonelier quest is that you begin from hate.
I became a “leftist” because the country is going in a smaller and smaller circle to the right. If that course continues it will circle down to a very nasty little point.
Truth through example?
The alignment in my truck is bad. It pulls hard to the right. Eventally I will get it fixed. For now, I just pullthe steering wheel hard left.But my arguement is wasted on a hater like you.
If your bath is too hot you just add more hot water. If the sky is gray you add more black. If you can’t convince enough others that your hate and prejdice is just, why you just hate a little more. THAT’LL show ‘em!
I would say farewell. But you cannot do that.
Fare Ian.
ooh the big condescending speech. Right on cue.
“The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years.”
BAMMMMP . . .
Sorry, no, not even worthy of a consolation prize.
The Egyptian civilization, which was non-white btw, lasted for thousands of years.
Greeks, ditto.
The Chinese had a distinct civilization from at least the Shang dynasty 1700 BC to the early Ching 1800 AD. After the hegemony of the western powers, esp. British in 1840, China’s empire declined rapidly.
Rome lasted a thousand years to about 400 AD.
The British Empire only lasted about 200 years though. Maybe that’s what this Scotsman was predicting . . .
“In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great country. Gore’s territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare…”
BAMMMP! BAMMMP!
Sorry, you are disqualified for complete and utter stupidity.
The actual facts are these. The RED states that voted for Bush RECIEVE more money from the federal government than they pay in.
The BLUE states that voted for Gore PAY OUT more in taxes than they get back from the federal government.
It’s very simple really . . . it’s called farm subsidies, the biggest welfare con going.
Capn, ya gotta be kidding: “liberalism is pragmatic–it is not bound by ideology but searches to find the most expedient remedy for problems.” Let’s take busing to achieve racial integration as an example. It’s caused white flight to the suburbs, greatly reducing the urban tax base, and has done little to reduce racial tensions. But it remains a constant, all without critical analysis, largely because of a belief system. Practical? Hardly. People vote with their feet.
I have a hunch that our Union may break up. This is what happens when social entities reach a point of chronic, vitriolic rancor. It happens in families. In businesses. In empires. What’s wrong with a Red States’ Nation, and a Blue States Nation? Each nation can have its own values and missions. You don’t like abortion to be legal? Make it illegal in your own nation. Same for gay marriage. But it’s not your natural-rights prerogative to make these things illegal in places where most people accept them. If you are anti-gay but want a Vice President, acting President whose wife and daughter are lesbians, you can deal with your own cognitive dissonance, perhaps by enacting press restrictions that preclude this information from being disseminated, so that you don’t have to think about it. If a blue-states member, like New York, is attacked by terrorists, that’s their problem, not yours. If they want to invade the Middle East, your sons and daughters won’t be put in harm’s way. If they instead want to negotiate through diplomacy, that’s their choice. If the blue-state nation wants to develop closer ties to China, Mexico, Canada and Europe, and your red-state nation doesn’t because you really don’t like foreigners who are different from you, and you want to have a self-sufficient domestic economy, then everybody gets what they want, right?
“The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years.”
Capn – maybe the correct statement was that the average age of WHITE CHRISTIAN civilizations has been abuot 200 years.