To those who voted.

[dBe]

It is interesting how I have gone from a card carrying member of the SDS in the 60's to a full blown conservative in my old age. Churchill was right (and correct, too).

About the hate Bush comment: I can honestly say that I have never heard any of my conservative friends say that they hate Obama. They say that they don't trust him, don't believe him, think he is naiive, etc, but not hate him. I have not heard them mention race as a consideration, either. I cannot count the number of times that I have heard liberal friends, acquaintances and absolute strangers rant about how they hate Bush. Think about the comments of him being a Nazi that came from Congressmen.

As a conservative, I have learned the following-

A liberal cannot answer a yes or no question with a yes or no.

To never argue with a liberal because logic, facts and hard data hold no sway against a heartfelt frame of mind.

That, I'm afraid, there will never be a meeting of minds in a society built on the premise of "it's all about me".

As a result, I go out of my way to avoid mindless confrontation from either side and do my level best to arbitrate my way through life. This does not mean giving up my principles or being a doormat to political correctness run amuck. My wife says that I am "PC incompatible."

The next 2 years will be very interesting. As an American, I support the office of the Presidency. I also believe in and hold very dear the Constitution. Was Jefferson right or wrong when he stated: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants." I saw a person say on TV last night that they felt that we have been drawn together and depolarized by Obama's election. Did they notice that 56,819,794 people were not "united" by the election?

I ponder the state we are in and hope and pray for the best of our country to rise to this occasion.

Dave

[Deric]

..I have learned the following-

A liberal cannot answer a yes or no question with a yes or no.

To never argue with a liberal because logic, facts and hard data hold no sway against a heartfelt frame of mind.

As a person, I have learned the following-

A politician cannot answer a yes or no question with a yes or no.

To never argue with a politician because logic, facts and hard data hold no sway against a politician's frame of mind.

[dBe]

Point well taken. That is why I shun politicians and talk to real people. I abhor plastic things.

I used to be cynical. Now I'm really, REALLY cynical.

Dave

[roadkingbluzs]

[quote="dBe"]Point well taken. That is why I shun politicians and talk to real people. I abhor plastic things. Hey! Lets talk to Joe the plumber!

[tomrasdf]

"I ponder the state we are in and hope and pray for the best of our country to rise to this occasion."

Tolkien wrote this in 1966 shortly before his death:
"Chesterton once said that it is our duty to keep the Flag of This World
flying: but it takes now a sturdier and more sublime patriotism than it
did then. It is not for us to choose the times into
which we are born, but to do what we could to repair them."

Any real change that's going to take place in this world isn't going to come from a world leader riding in out of nowhere on a white horse (my eschatology may be a little rusty, but isn't that supposed to be the anti-christ?).

Tolkien (also quite cynical late in life) finished the above quote as follows:
"but the spirit of wickedness in high places is now so powerful and so manyheaded in its incarnations that there seems nothing more to do than
personally to refuse to worship any of the hydra’s heads."

My challenge is going to be to do the best I can within my sphere of influence. Obama can sign Kyoto, nationalize my 401k, take away my guns and put judges on the court who will guarentee that my daughter will always have access to gov't funded abortions, but if at the end of it all I can still say 'as for me and my house, we serve the Lord', it's a good day. The leaders have no authority that was not given from above and they will one day have to give an account for how they used it. I'm going to work so that when I'm called to account for that which I have been called to have authority over, I won't be found neglegent because I was caught up in the audacity of hope or anger over the outcome of events in which I could play no part.

Alright, rant over. No more posting on forums after 14 hour work days...

[Abstract]

Our nation would do well to remove ALL "lifer" politicians and start over clean. Politicians should not be paid...they are civil servants. ALL income should be published in depth according to GAAP.

We need debate time for the top 5 candidates not the top 2 (forget the 15% rule).

All politicians need 2 year terms.

TOTAL BAN on television ads for politicians...they can advertise in the newspaper/online. If you wanna know what they have to say, you can read it.

Poll quizes about the candidate stances (nothing else)....if you don't know the various stances of all the people running....you can't vote.

Presidents need line item veto (give 'em enough rope to hang themselves quickly)

Repeal federal income tax and replace with a flat state sales tax...the states fund the federal govt thru a system of pay for performance

Legalize drugs...all of 'em. Tax the hell out of 'em.

[dBe]

"but if at the end of it all I can still say 'as for me and my house, we serve the Lord', it's a good day"

*****

Well said, Brother.

Oh, yes. Your escatology (or eschatology - either spelling is correct) is just fine... if O survives a head wound... you could be on to something.

<><

Dave

[delux1959]

I think we also need to take Canada's example and limit campaigning. I am so tired of campaign ads.

[CaseyJones]

I just banished myself from another forum because freedom of speech is always acknowledged for the left, seldom if ever for the right. More's the pity.

When the camera panned the audience durning Pres. Elect Obama's speech last night I was reminded somehow of those old black and white films of the Hitler Youth enjoying Der Furr's enlightenment.

Or you could look at Kennedy's or Martin Luther King's speeches.

One proposal that has already been floated on the floor of the House is the Nationalization of 401 retirement plans. Won't go anywhere but scary never the less. America works best with divided government.

I just re-emerged into the daylight so I missed most of this.

Yeah, right. The Bank Bailout should forever put paid to any notion of those crooks managing out collective retirements.

Dan, Dan, Dan. What are we going to do with you? A right wing Union member? Well, I'm the other way around, I'm a gun totin' Liberal. See, it's all circular. Go far enough Left and you meet the extreme Right. We can share a six pack and talk about guns.

The country's only hope is that he goes ahead with plans to tax us out of the recession we're in. The last guy to try that was Herbert Hoover. That tactic will cost him both houses of congress come 2010. Then back to divided government. Hurrah!

Anything beats the last eight years. It's not quite an ostritch impersonation, an ostritch doesn't shove its head up its ass and pretend the world goes away. What we've had is eight years of the worst stewardship ever. Spend billions in Iraq to blow up roads and bridges while roads and bridges crumble here for free. Then spend billions more on no bid contracts to rebuild roads and bridges in Iraq while their oil revenues come rollin' in. That's The Weapon of Mass Distraction. Distract the public with foreign policy issues while our own country is in a shambles. Then we have the bank bailout which makes the price tag of the war look like a rummage sale. The timing of which makes my conspiracy theory gears kick into overdrive...

Obama bin Biden can't do much worse.

Oh, and for those of you who hope he will bring manufacturing back to America here's some news. The only way he can accomplish that is to nationalize the means of production. That won't go anywhere either. Oh what to do, what to do.

C'mon, Dan... WE f'ked that one up. "Look for... the Union label... when you're buyin' a joint, lid or pound!" or sumthin' like that. It used to be that consumers really did look for the little American flag and which Local made the product.

I have a mid-'65 issue of "Life" magazine that has a True Value Hardware ad in it. That's noteworthy because they had a Hoover vacuum cleaner and a Waring blender on sale that month. The Waring was made in Massachusetts right up the road from Winsted, Connecticut. I forget the town, it's one of those tiny rural burgs on the edge of The Berkshires. Anyway... the 1965 sale price on the blender was $59.99... in 1965 dollars! I expect I can hike over to Mall-Wart and buy an (imported from guess where?!) Waring for $19.99 in 2008 inflata-bucks.

Here's the thing, though. That 1965 Waring is probably still in Granny's cupboard and it probably still works. Grandpa probably got some the night he brought that blender home, something like that or a KitchenAid mixer were and are the good stuff. It's like a '65 Strat. I can remember back in the '80s when We Buy Guitars had a whole window full of '60s re-fins for little more than a new one cost at the time. The original '65 Strat is of course the good stuff while an import will get beat up, hacked up and maybe thrown away.

Nationalize industry? You mean like Hitler did with the Volkswagen? If Obama buyin' GM buys us a New Age People's Car then I'm all for it. Any of the American automakers are capable of bringing us a simple, practical and durable automobile that gets 40 m.p.g. all day and all night with 50 m.p.g. or 55 m.p.g. a genuine possibility. But they won't. Now that gas has come off the high of over $4.00 per gallon economical automobiles will quickly be forgotten. That's why I'm all for dictatorship, the public's attention span is incredibly short, even shorter than the attenuated attention span of Your Humble Narrator. They're not very smart, either, and worse... they don't value intelligence or good decision making skills. Some dee-dee-dee is gonna call me on that one and ask for a reference. Just believe it, man, it's true.

[CaseyJones]

Our nation would do well to remove ALL "lifer" politicians and start over clean. Politicians should not be paid...they are civil servants. ALL income should be published in depth according to GAAP.

We need debate time for the top 5 candidates not the top 2 (forget the 15% rule).

All politicians need 2 year terms.

See, here's the thing... two years to unravel problems that took eight years or more to create?

One could say that FDR was the most effective president of the last 100 years or so. He was in office for nearly sixteen years if memory serves.

What would be more effective is the Parliamentary concept of a Vote of No Confidence. The bum has a 17% approval rating? Ride him out to Silver Spring on a rail! I mean it! Identify and remove incompetence without delay!

The closest thing that we have is an impeachment procedure and it's rarely used.

Diddle Monica... be subjected to a Vote of No Confidence.

Lie to the public on a grand scale... be subjected to a Vote of No Confidence.

If you're voted out you're outta here! You and all yer cronies., lackies, yes-men and even yes-women! Although I'd keep Condoleezza around fer eye candy. As long as she wears those boots.

TOTAL BAN on television ads for politicians...they can advertise in the newspaper/online. If you wanna know what they have to say, you can read it.

Unfortunately the public rely on television to choose politicians just like they rely on the television to choose soap and mouthwash for instance. Of course when it comes to truth in advertising there ain't no such thing. Not in mouthwash, not in politicians. That mouthwash probably ain't gonna get you laid and that politician probably ain't gonna solve yer problems.

It comes down to a popularity contest with poorly informed judges.

[bnwitt]

… never argue with a liberal because logic, facts and hard data hold no sway against a heartfelt frame of mind.

You hit the nail on the head. I realized this watching Bill O’Reilly interview Whoopi Goldberg. When he tried to explain the illogical nature of one of her positions, she said to him that (and I'm paraphrasing) "..you think that with your head, but what I believe I feel in here (pointing to her heart)..." It became clear to me that this whole division is based on the left brain, right brain scenario. Left leaning folks interpret things on a more emotional level while right leaning folks seem to analyze more than feel. The left is by nature more emotional and hence the more intense emotional reactions to issues. Bombing the pentagon is not something an analytical thinker would do as he/she would get to the part of the analysis where he/she would be caught or killed and rule it out as a plausible course of action. During that analysis, the emotional thinker would have already set the charge.
I do believe, however, that we need both types in this society. Without the emotional thinkers we’d still be under British rule. America’s best course of action comes when left brains and right brains work together with mutual respect. Unfortunately, we haven’t done that for quite some time so each side is missing the valid “wheaty” content of the other’s arguments due to focusing on the outing of the chaff.

It’s no mystery to me why more women and young people voted for Obama than McCain as his appeal was on an emotional level rather than an analytical one. When he spoke, analytical thinkers were saying, "What did he just say?" but emotional thinkers were jumping up and down and cheering. A higher percentage of women and the young are emotional thinkers. We all know that when we are young, we are definitely more emotional than we are when we get older. Like the old story of the old bull and young bull talking. Young bull says, “Let’s run down the hill and do one of those cows.” Old bull says, “Let’s walk down and do them all.”

We can blame our presence in Iraq on a period of intense emotion where both sides failed to analyze properly. Yes, even analytical thinkers can be overcome by emotion. Hindsight is always twenty-twenty but prior to the invasion there were voices in both camps saying let’s roll. This was due to the fact that faulty intelligence said Saddam had WMD’s he could give to the terrorists to use against us. That scared the shit out of the emotional side and planted resolve on the analytical side. In that post 911 America we were all in sync pounding on Dr. Frankestein's door with our pitchforks. It’s a shame we came together for such a non-rewarding effort for America. The unintended positive result was we got rid of a devil and his boys who were busy torturing and persecuting those in their country of the opposite sect. The unfortunate truth today is that country may fall right back into a second verse, same as the first scenario as it has done for centuries just like others in that region. The bottom line is it will probably be a waste of blood and treasure in the end.

From my perspective, you can’t trust any politician who has been in office for any length of time. Democrat, republican or independent, they are all subject to John Adam’s “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” mantra. We send Mr. Smith to Washington and in a short time he becomes Mr. Money grubbin' Hyde. When a human being sees an unattended pot of money in the trillions, greed is a powerful demon. If we all did the right thing together, we’d vote out every incumbent at every election cycle so they couldn’t get any footing.
The underlying problem with our country is that we are all to busy with our own lives to sit down and analyze what is being done in Washington on a daily basis so we cast our votes once in a blue moon and count on the surrogates to take care of us. The causative element in this situation is the huge federal government. Our founders intended the federal government to be a small entity with a very short list of powers. This kept most government at a local level where we as local citizens could keep and eye on it and participate in the decision making process on a smaller more intimate scale. Over the years, citizens have abdicated local government participation and responsibility, and opted for more and more to be decided by the Feds so we don’t have to invest our time in the process. We have substituted television, entertainment and other diversions in its place. As a result, we are now working 50 hours or more a week trying to support this inefficient behemoth of a government while it eats us out of house and home and steals us blind. Man, we don't even identify our local representitives for congress. In the early days folks would get together and say, "Hey Benjamin, you are an honest guy why don't you run for congress as our rep." Now we just sit at home and wait for the machine to put some names up to vote on.

We may now be headed for socialism. If so, this will be the final slippery slope that puts the end to this 232 year old “of, by and for the people” experiment. If the people can’t be bothered with the burden of self rule, then America will be no more. Some blame the republicans’ saber rattling and war mongering for our loss of status in the world, others blame the Democrats for their weak response to exterior threats. The truth be told, it is the people abdicating responsibility for our country’s direction to surrogate rule by a central federal government that is to blame. There is a reason constitutional scholars warn against empowering the Federal government. We need to shrink it, bring the power back to state and local government and get involved. I don’t see that happening though.

[Abstract]

I like the no confidence thing. Imagine if GW was in power for another 8!!! OMG


The "No TV ads" and "poll quizzes" are better together. See where I'm going with this? We shouldn't let stupid people vote. BOTH sides have knuckle-dragging mouth breathers that have no business choosing OUR president.

Our nation would do well to remove ALL "lifer" politicians and start over clean. Politicians should not be paid...they are civil servants. ALL income should be published in depth according to GAAP.

We need debate time for the top 5 candidates not the top 2 (forget the 15% rule).

All politicians need 2 year terms.

See, here's the thing... two years to unravel problems that took eight years or more to create?

One could say that FDR was the most effective president of the last 100 years or so. He was in office for nearly sixteen years if memory serves.

What would be more effective is the Parliamentary concept of a Vote of No Confidence. The bum has a 17% approval rating? Ride him out to Silver Spring on a rail! I mean it! Identify and remove incompetence without delay!

The closest thing that we have is an impeachment procedure and it's rarely used.

Diddle Monica... be subjected to a Vote of No Confidence.

Lie to the public on a grand scale... be subjected to a Vote of No Confidence.

If you're voted out you're outta here! You and all yer cronies., lackies, yes-men and even yes-women! Although I'd keep Condoleezza around fer eye candy. As long as she wears those boots.

TOTAL BAN on television ads for politicians...they can advertise in the newspaper/online. If you wanna know what they have to say, you can read it.

Unfortunately the public rely on television to choose politicians just like they rely on the television to choose soap and mouthwash for instance. Of course when it comes to truth in advertising there ain't no such thing. Not in mouthwash, not in politicians. That mouthwash probably ain't gonna get you laid and that politician probably ain't gonna solve yer problems.

It comes down to a popularity contest with poorly informed judges.

[Structo]

You are bang on.

Liberals think with their emotions.

Conservatives make decisions based on beliefs and facts.


It's interesting to listen to talk shows when a Lib calls in and the host, be it O'Riley or another, asks them why they like Obama.

I have never heard one give a subjective answer.

They end up by getting angry and just say they like him.

Now they make a big deal about electing the first "black man".

Technically, he is only a small percentage black and mostly Arab.
His election was more of a statement against Bush and the GOP than a choice for his policies.

Then there is the question of his birth that to my knowledge has not been addressed yet.

When I watched his acceptance speech and the camera panned the audience, I was reminded of the starry eyed crowds that were hypnotized by Hitler.

Nobody can deny that the next four years will be interesting to say the least.

And if BO gets shot in the head.................

Now with a Democratic president, House and Senate, they will get their way including, redistribution of wealth, gun bans and the Fairness Doctrine that only seems fair for the libs.

I heard that the Russians are going to install missiles near Poland so the first test of BO seems to be coming into play.

BO's people ran a brilliant campaign largely funded by George Soros.
He was the perfect candidate.
But, I notice like, at his press conference yesterday, that he doesn't speak so well without a teleprompter. Full of uh's and errs.

I'm not so sure that McCain was not the fall guy and knew from the start that he would not be chosen. He made every mistake in the book and was nailed for it along with Palin. They are still talking about and slamming Palin for different things she did and said.
Why? Because they view her as a threat for 2012.
The election is over, let her go home and do her job as governor of Alaska.

[bnwitt]

So are you left brain or right brain?

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/ ... 61,00.html

Here is a little site which briefly explains the experiments that identified the left right functions:

http://www.viewzone.com/bicam.html

If we can understand how we think differently, we can better communicate with each other. BO has learned enough about how we hear things and think to get 52% of the vote. Everyone should practice using the non-dominant side of their brain in order to make better decisions. If you're a feeler, you should practice logic, if you're an analytical thinker you should take up art or music. Lots of folks in here may be running down the middle (techical and musical) like me so don't discount the level at which this can be a controlling factor in others.

[tomrasdf]

Well, you can talk about term limits and advertizing all you want. Where we find ourselves now as a nation is the result of a long, two century slide away from our countries intended shape/form/function.

We are asking out leaders for change they haven't been empowered to empart. The power that they have to affect the lives of americans, as well as the power that we have to put them in office, was never part of the original intent of the founders.

The idea of America as a constitutional republic, the original framework in which the nation was to exist, has long ago faded away and been replaced with a ficlke democracy, one that is bought and sold with charisma, guilt, attractive running mates, hope, a sence of 'historicness', and a promise of change which, more times than not, involves financial incentives (and I see this on both he right and the left in many cases. Not all, but most).

Franlkin was right when he said: “When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”

The leaders have wised up to this and have done their best to empower the people to have that kind of power. And they have faithfuly fulfilled their side of the deal, removing the burden/duty of charity and goodwill once reserved for the church and the individual, and gladly placed the mantel on the popular government. The reason victimology is so rampant is because it's a billion dollar industry in our nation. Just ask the folks at Rainbow Push. We have outsourced the execution of moral/social justice to a powerful central government.

Take a read of part of Washington's farewell address (three paragraphs starting with 27):
<http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Washingto ... Address#27>

We have removed the burden of virtue from ourselves and outsourced it to the feds to be executed through a non-elected bureaucracy. That's why I say change isn't going to come from the gov't. It's got to come from a virtuous generation that is not only willing, but zealously passionate about taking personal responsibility for the area's in which they exist, not via the long arm of the government, or by paying $.25 cents a day to a distant charity, but by the daily giving on one's self in pursuit of the Good. Not pursuit of good sex, or good money, or a good wave-runner, or good self-esteem.

I've been reading the notes in the TW forum about Ken's personality. I didn't know him or his personal convictions, but he seemed like a man who did just that: lived a life of service giving himself and his talents to all he came into contact with. If we were a nation of people like that today, I don't think we'd need to be worried about political advertizing or FEMA or bailout packages. Change starts with the convictions of the individual, not legislation.