tjamz;244288 wrote:
Congrats, my household income has nearly quadrupled since then as well....now lets ask the rest of the country how they feel. ND has been the exception to the rule when it comes to economic prosperity. I have friends, living in Tampa, FL whose neighbors built a $375,000 house 7 years ago. The guy lost his job (went overseas) and now the bank has the house on the market at $83,000.

My sisters uncles brothers dad living on Venus had his job get sent over to Uranus and he lost his $287 bazillion dollar house. Thats gotta be GWB's fault too I'm sure.

Instead of writing stuff about something you heard about some freinds neighbor somewhere, lets just talk about the people we know. Why is ND the exception? Because we were lucky? Because we didn't do stupid things? Is ND actually the exception?

Here's a little reality: for the first 6 years of GWB's term there was economic prosperity everywhere. The economy was very good, especially coming off of the 911 calamity. Was it the best economy ever? No... But it was very good. So when people say things like "the bad economy of the last 8 years" they are full of shit. The mortgage/lending screwup that has messed up the economy was partly Bush's fault, and partly the Dem's fault. How much blame you put toward each can be debated.

thrash;244257 wrote:
Can we stop blaming all the worlds evils on GWB? My life has kicked ass since he took office. I'm on my 3rd house, I make almost twice what I made in 2000, I have more cars and they're nicer, etc etc etc.

Congrats, my household income has nearly quadrupled since then as well....now lets ask the rest of the country how they feel. ND has been the exception to the rule when it comes to economic prosperity. I have friends, living in Tampa, FL whose neighbors built a $375,000 house 7 years ago. The guy lost his job (went overseas) and now the bank has the house on the market at $83,000.

It's ridiculous to be upset that GWB "added buerocracy" to government and then imagine that somehow Obama is going to be better about that? What do you think runs all of the new programs he wants? Unicorn Giggles?

What part of neither candidate is perfect didn't you read?

The economic "crisis", such as it is, can be in no way whatsoever be laid at the feet of GWB.. not when continually did he try and push congress to reform it and they balked. Not when congress has an even lower approval rating than the president. Mind you, a congress that is completely democratic. A congress that has continually approved every war and war funding bill.

I've addressed this already. He had the house & senate for six years. He was ineffective in his efforts to reform. You are right, congress as a whole DOES have a lower rating, but when it is broken down to party (which you insinuated) you will see that while people dislike the system as a whole, the democrats have a more favorable rating than their republican counterparts.

Finally, the point about our "standing" with the rest of the world. It is absolute bullshit that the rest of the world is "pissed off" or whatever regarding our behvior. There are some countries that have done a bunch of bellyaching -- France, Germany, etc. Those countries also had lucrative (and ILLEGAL) business dealings with the Saddam Hussein Iraqi government. Big surprise -- they're pissed off.

True, some of them did. Not arguing that.

But what you never hear about is what former soviet bloc countries have to say about what we're doing. Poland? Loves us. Czechoslovakia? Loves us. What do you suppose Georgia thinks of us? The countries that only just recently escaped 50+ years of BRUTAL soviet occupation because of our instrumental role in ruining russias shit are thrilled that the US is willing to stand up to people anywhere in the world for any reason. Do you know why Georgia is dying to get into NATO? It's not because they hate the USA's military adventurism. Did you know that two different cities in Poland have or are planning Reagan statues in their town squares?

Really? They love us? Well, they might, but even they are desiring an Obama win http://www.rd.com/your-america-inspiring-people-and-stories/global-poll-how-the-world-sees-the-2008-election/article102257.html

(BTW, I am a Reagan fan as well)

I am neutral to negative on the Iraq war. But painting it as a world-wide disaster is shortsighted. You're buying the line that someone wants you to beleive, but it is by no means all there is to the story. The countries that are openly antagonistic towards the USA are of course critical of anything we do. But that doesn't mean that there aren't other places that LOVE what we're doing.

Only a disaster because there is no end game, there is no way to kill all the terrorists or change their opinions through aggressive attacks. For that reason, the war will never end because there is no "Check-mate"

Personally, I'm more interested in justice than popularity. I firmly beleive that economic freedom and individual liberties are objectively superior to every other way of life, to every other form of government. If there's going to be a socio-political clash between us and say Iran -- Iran can get the glass-bowl treatment for all I care. The US isn't the country that kills women for having committed the "crime" of letting themselves get raped.

I agree with every word in the above statement.

The left is so loony-anti-war that they're put in the ridiculous position of supporting regimes that would eaglerly murder them in the street if they lived there. Try being a gay-rights-activist that burns an effigy of the Iranian president during a gay-rights parade held IN IRAN and see how that turns out.

The right is so looney that it thinks that violence will eventually lead to peace. At that point we are no better than they are. Having said that...if we go to war again, I hope we go to win. If you are going to engage in military combat, the first and primary objective must be to win at all costs....this includes civilian casualty.

I am inclined to agree that there's a lot of stuff in the US that needs changing. Just not the direction Obama wants to go with it.

But McCains idea of taxing health insurance payouts is a good thing? Seriously? I mean, if I get cancer or some other horribly expensive disease, and my insurance pays out $1,000,000 towards my medical expenses, he feels I should pay income tax on that $1,000,000? That's what he is proposing.

Yes, I know you are a Ron Paul fan...threw the above out for the McCain followers

thrash;244257 wrote:
Can we stop blaming all the worlds evils on GWB? My life has kicked ass since he took office. I'm on my 3rd house, I make almost twice what I made in 2000, I have more cars and they're nicer, etc etc etc.

Fucking AMEN. I have zero college degree (oh wait, everyone is supposed to go), I'm a Sr. Network Engineer working with some of the largest clients in this region, make more now than I ever have, own a home, new pickup, have investments, savings, and overall a fantastic way of life. If this country is falling apart I can't wait to see what it's like when things are supposedly good.

i won't get into the "find a link that shows i'm right" game with you. The fucking info-box on the pollingreport.com site's main page shows that bush has a higher approval number than congress currently. (and that they're tied for "disapprove").

Does anything in your post address anything i said regarding the idiocy of laying the blame on GWB?

thrash;244257 wrote:
The economic "crisis", such as it is, can be in no way whatsoever be laid at the feet of GWB.. not when continually did he try and push congress to reform it and they balked. Not when congress has an even lower approval rating than the president. Mind you, a congress that is completely democratic. A congress that has continually approved every war and war funding bill.

During the 1st 6 years Bush had the Whitehouse, house and senate.....so I guess I shouldn't JUST blame Bush (hell, I blame the dems too) but his party as well. Seems like if you vote against a funding bill, you are labeled as un-American by this administration (John Kerry anyone?) and that you don't support the troops.

Job approval ratings:

http://www.pollingreport.com/cong_dem.htm 34% approval for democrats

http://www.pollingreport.com/cong_rep.htm 27% approval for republicans

http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob1.htm 22% for president bush

perhaps you should research this a little more before you start throwing around untrue statements?

GarageAlchemist;244258 wrote:
And to thrash, who do you think sold Sadaam all his sweet weapons?

A variety of people, including the United States. We used him to our advantage earlier on and sold him some chemical stuff which he then used on his own people and then we had the gall to call him on it. Oops.

On the other hand, when we went to fight him in Gulf War 1 is was all Soviet licensed stuff he was using. MiG arcraft, T-series soviet tanks, SCUD missles, etc. It's not like we were shooting down F-15s over there.

I don't mean to say that the US is blameless -- there is certainly blowback to our worldwide adventurism. But there's also upside and people who refuse to see that due to political blindsidedness are foolish.

I don't like Bush and he's not who i voted for in 2004. But he's also not the demon a lot of idiots make him out to be. History willl remember Bush primarily as the guy that presided over 9/11 and prevented subsequent terror attacks on US soil.

tjamz;244250 wrote:
He contributed by increasing the size of gov't and creating more bureaucracies within it thereby wasting more tax dollars. He has been consistent on borrowing money to fund the war in Iraq, thereby devaluing our dollar on the world scale. He has successfully alienated many of our typical allies and weakened the world view of the United States as a whole due to his horse shit (and I'm sorry if I offended any pieces of horse crap out there with that comment) foreign policy. Add to that the incredibly low interest rates to banks that essentially allowed them to take more risks than normal (yes...I know, there were other factors too...there always is) and forced inflation at a rate that was unsustainable. All of this happened when he was in power.

All of those things have negative affects on the economy.

So break out who had more control doing the above things:

Senate
House
GW

Trust me...bush doesnt make the interest rate.

GarageAlchemist;244258 wrote:
bank problem stemmed from Clinton's deregulation in the late 90's. And wait a second? did you agree with me on a few things Chuck?

And to thrash, who do you think sold Sadaam all his sweet weapons?

Clintons deregulation was pushed through by the republican party in the house & senate overwhelmingly...in fact it was veto proof.

The war in Iraq ends when the people can protect themselves. The Iraqi citizens aren't the ones running at our troops with bombs strapped to their chests, its a small minority of Sadaam loyalists. Once they are gone, the war is over i say. In relative terms. Say every white supremacist strapped on bombs and ran at black people. Its only a small minority, and its not all the citizens, but it causes problems.

But on Russia, im not sure stockpiling weapons is exactly counted as working towards peace.

And to thrash, who do you think sold Sadaam all his sweet weapons?

It's ridiculous to be upset that GWB "added buerocracy" to government and then imagine that somehow Obama is going to be better about that? What do you think runs all of the new programs he wants? Unicorn Giggles?

The economic "crisis", such as it is, can be in no way whatsoever be laid at the feet of GWB.. not when continually did he try and push congress to reform it and they balked. Not when congress has an even lower approval rating than the president. Mind you, a congress that is completely democratic. A congress that has continually approved every war and war funding bill.

Finally, the point about our "standing" with the rest of the world. It is absolute bullshit that the rest of the world is "pissed off" or whatever regarding our behvior. There are some countries that have done a bunch of bellyaching -- France, Germany, etc. Those countries also had lucrative (and ILLEGAL) business dealings with the Saddam Hussein Iraqi government. Big surprise -- they're pissed off.

But what you never hear about is what former soviet bloc countries have to say about what we're doing. Poland? Loves us. Czechoslovakia? Loves us. What do you suppose Georgia thinks of us? The countries that only just recently escaped 50+ years of BRUTAL soviet occupation because of our instrumental role in ruining russias shit are thrilled that the US is willing to stand up to people anywhere in the world for any reason. Do you know why Georgia is dying to get into NATO? It's not because they hate the USA's military adventurism. Did you know that two different cities in Poland have or are planning Reagan statues in their town squares?

I am neutral to negative on the Iraq war. But painting it as a world-wide disaster is shortsighted. You're buying the line that someone wants you to beleive, but it is by no means all there is to the story. The countries that are openly antagonistic towards the USA are of course critical of anything we do. But that doesn't mean that there aren't other places that LOVE what we're doing.

Personally, I'm more interested in justice than popularity. I firmly beleive that economic freedom and individual liberties are objectively superior to every other way of life, to every other form of government. If there's going to be a socio-political clash between us and say Iran -- Iran can get the glass-bowl treatment for all I care. The US isn't the country that kills women for having committed the "crime" of letting themselves get raped.

The left is so loony-anti-war that they're put in the ridiculous position of supporting regimes that would eaglerly murder them in the street if they lived there. Try being a gay-rights-activist that burns an effigy of the Iranian president during a gay-rights parade held IN IRAN and see how that turns out..

I am inclined to agree that there's a lot of stuff in the US that needs changing. Just not the direction Obama wants to go with it.

All of those things have negative affects on the economy.

tjamz;244220 wrote:
Not the sole reason, but a contributing factor.

Explain how...

greenspan...housing bubble, inflation, wall street, monetary policy, bond scams, stock market overvalued. How much of that does bush contribute to? How? Please cite sources also...

tjamz;244204 wrote:
You could easily say that the right to keep and bear arms is only applicable to the "well regulated Militia" which has gone on to basically become the National Guard. Or you could say that everyone is able to own any weapon the feel necessary for their own protection in the event of a necessity to form a militia. OR you could say that the words "Well Regulated Militia" mean that the government should be able to regulate the weaponry that the militia and its people are allowed to have.

I believe that the Supreme Court has ruled that it is not applicable to a "well regulated Militia"

SmitEvo;244213 wrote:
Bush is not the reason the economy is down...if you think that, please get educated.

Not the sole reason, but a contributing factor.

GarageAlchemist;244206 wrote:
Goddammmit chuck i know you are smarther than this.

End to the war in Iraq, yea, lets just leave. Great idea. Recently i got to sit down and talk to a guy who works for the state department in Iraq, helping them get their infrastructure set up. He told me that we need to think about it like this. We sit in our homes, and we have police and the military to protect us if anything should happen. Our shit gets jacked, broken into or murdered, we call a phone number and BAM! tons of people show up. They don't have that yet! They do not have the police or military backing to protect a very very new goverment, so it would be a completely stupid and asshole move to just up and leave now. The military personnel on the ground say its not time to leave, who am i to tell them how to do their job.

No child left behind is a goddamn joke. Because of this great idea, we told thousands of teachers who had been teaching for decades that their education was no longer good enough, teachers that had a ton of classroom experience are now retired, and not even well. We told teachers they had to do more work, and get better results with less pay. I'm sure you'd be real pumped if i came to your job and told you that you had to do more work, get better results, and i was going to cut your pay.

Tax and spend, as long as you are taxing the right people here.

Worked with Russia!? Are ya serious? The Soviet union didn't work out because of very basic infrastructure problems, and the fact that the entire government was corrupt. They were going down whether we were in
"peace talks" with them or not. So don't give us too much credit here.

So...when does the war in Iraq end? Under what circumstances? We've toppled the gov't, installed a new democratic government and trained their military....what else is left? There will always be terror and with our forces occupying the heart of their land is viewed by them as an act of terror on a level as great or greater than the acts of terror that they have done to us. You can't fight terror with terror, as it only breeds more terror or hatred.

I actually agree with you on no child left behind, but if we are going to be forced to follow its guidelines, we need to have a way to fund it properly. Right now it is an unfunded mandate.

I'd prefer don't tax, don't spend....but that isn't going to EVER happen.

The point is that we never fired a shot in Russia....the greatest threat to our democracy/safety was defeated without a single shot fired. Iraq/Iran/Etc... all have corrupt, unstable governments that are nowhere near as organized as what Russia had....if it worked to wait them out, why won't it work to wait out the newest threats and work towards peace? If you work towards war, the result is always the same: You get war. If you work towards peace, the result might still be war, but you might also get peace.

tjamz;244134 wrote:
Just saw this thread...but what I want to see....

an end to the war in Iraq. You can't defeat an idea....Hitler tried that with poor success w/ his genocide attempt on the Jews

funding for no child left behind...seriously, we are going to cut funding for schools that aren't up to par...how is that going to help?

An end to the borrow and spend tactics of the current administration. I'd rather see tax and spend than borrow and spend.

Someone with the balls to sit down with the leaders of countries we don't agree with politically, rather than just overthrow them. It worked with Russia who was a greater threat than any of these little piss-ant middle eastern countries...I don't see why Reagan was able to do it, but somehow we think that the next (or current) president won't be able to.

Goddammmit chuck i know you are smarther than this.

End to the war in Iraq, yea, lets just leave. Great idea. Recently i got to sit down and talk to a guy who works for the state department in Iraq, helping them get their infrastructure set up. He told me that we need to think about it like this. We sit in our homes, and we have police and the military to protect us if anything should happen. Our shit gets jacked, broken into or murdered, we call a phone number and BAM! tons of people show up. They don't have that yet! They do not have the police or military backing to protect a very very new goverment, so it would be a completely stupid and asshole move to just up and leave now. The military personnel on the ground say its not time to leave, who am i to tell them how to do their job.

No child left behind is a goddamn joke. Because of this great idea, we told thousands of teachers who had been teaching for decades that their education was no longer good enough, teachers that had a ton of classroom experience are now retired, and not even well. We told teachers they had to do more work, and get better results with less pay. I'm sure you'd be real pumped if i came to your job and told you that you had to do more work, get better results, and i was going to cut your pay.

Tax and spend, as long as you are taxing the right people here.

Worked with Russia!? Are ya serious? The Soviet union didn't work out because of very basic infrastructure problems, and the fact that the entire government was corrupt. They were going down whether we were in
"peace talks" with them or not. So don't give us too much credit here.

Even if the AWB goes through (which I'm not necessarily a fan of) I don't see that as stopping me from purchasing pretty much any gun I want. During the last weapons ban, I was able to purchase 2 SKS and AK-47 "assault rifles" and their ammunition. My father purchased his AR-15 during that time as well.

Now, I wasn't able to buy any RPG's, Apache Attack helicoptors or M1A1 tanks...and, though I haven't tried under Bush, I'm pretty sure I still can't....even though they are "arms" and should not be infringed according to the exact text of the 2nd amendment.

Can we agree that there should be some common sense in the interpretation of that amendment? > US Constitution wrote:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. "

You could easily say that the right to keep and bear arms is only applicable to the "well regulated Militia" which has gone on to basically become the National Guard. Or you could say that everyone is able to own any weapon the feel necessary for their own protection in the event of a necessity to form a militia. OR you could say that the words "Well Regulated Militia" mean that the government should be able to regulate the weaponry that the militia and its people are allowed to have.

Not all of the above can be true at the same time and therefore it is logical to think that some form of common sense interpretation, although different than what the framers of the constitution originally intended, needs to be applied.

No matter what the interpretation, someone will claim it is slaughtering the constitution.

tjamz;244151 wrote:
Nope. Following the constitution doesn't infringe on rights.

Slaughtering the Constitution like you are proposing is a little different than following it

Parker;244167 wrote:
i have read that before... i get readers digest... lol... if corps want to go overseas.... you just cant stop them...

But you can offer them incentives to stay. You won't stop them all, but you can make it more appealing to not do it.

Parker;244167 wrote:
i have read that before... i get readers digest... lol... if corps want to go overseas.... you just cant stop them...

Very true.. Incentives or no incentives, what's going to stop them? We still are a huge exporter of goods regardless.. But remember how many times you get something and read that it was made in China, look at their economy now.. A complete economic BOOM! Basically they are / were such a boomer they were a very big reason (along with other 3rd worlds coming to a booming economy) for the rise in gas prices.

tjamz;244160 wrote:
actually, that is only part of the issue parker...cheap labor has always existed overseas and always will. Perhaps it was our willingness by the current administration to do business with a communist state such as China that opened the doors to even more sweat shops, shoddy items, etc..

read this article (I read the article in last month's readers digest...I'm just posting a link because I think it is a good read) and tell me there isn't more we could do to ensure that corporations set up here rather than abroad.

http://www.rd.com/content/printContent.do?contentId=101737&KeepThis=true&TB_iframe=true&height=500&width=790&modal=true
i have read that before... i get readers digest... lol... if corps want to go overseas.... you just cant stop them...

uman44;244159 wrote:
One part of the original post that hasn't been touched... The Media's effect on public opinion. I watch the news and can almost smell the bias.

When I do watch the news, i always feel that there is a right leaning bias in many cases...not CNN or ABC, but I never watch them.

read this article (I read the article in last month's readers digest...I'm just posting a link because I think it is a good read) and tell me there isn't more we could do to ensure that corporations set up here rather than abroad.

http://www.rd.com/content/printContent.do?contentId=101737&KeepThis=true&TB_iframe=true&height=500&width=790&modal=true