"You MIGHT be a Democrat if:

[mietla]

 

Originally posted by Karnak:
Giving $45,000 in taxes back to a guy who makes $250,000 isn't class warfare,

this is his money in a first place, isn't it?

but giving a dollar raise over two years to people who make $5.15 is?
[/b]

Are they 20% more productive now?

[mietla]

 

Originally posted by Hangtime:
Flat tax.. everybody pays the same rate. I'm payin 30%; those fat assed rich SOB's can afford 30% too..

30% is not a flat tax. The flat tax would be if everybody (regardles of the age) paid $8,000.

sure won't pork their lifestyles; like it does mine.. Bastids. Most of 'em don't even pay 2%.
[/b]

This is simply not true. 50% of all tax revenue comes from the top 5% of earners.

[Karnak]

mietla,
Are the CEOs 530% more productive?

Sisu
-Karnak

[mietla]

Of course. My company grew from nothing in 1993 to $40 bilion today. Of course the CEO deserves 530% raise and then some. This is a private enterprise and the shareholders can do whatever they want with their money. It's their money. The company produced it.

It's only the government which never produces anything. Every dollar given away, has to be stolen from someone else first.

[Karnak]

mietla,
Your response clearly indicates how out of touch with reality you are.

A discussion with you can have no further purpose.

I hope you wake up someday.

Sisu
-Karnak

[mietla]

Out of touch??? You are living in the US are you? That is how it works here.

For every dollar I have earned, I have produced more than $3 for my employer (it cost them $3 to employ me at $1). And this is the way it works, you get paid a fraction of what your produce.

It's not that I'm dying to talk to you, but you're presenting a typical liberal position.

State your view as an undisputable dogma, and refuse to use logical arguments in a discussion. Use a personal attack instead. At least you did not try to insult me.

You guys are output only.

BTW, isn't this a definition of propaganda ("keep talking but never listen")?.

Cya

mietla



[This message has been edited by mietla (edited 09-15-2000).]

[Jigster]

 

Originally posted by Karnak:
Mt. St. Helens prouduced more air pollution in that eruption then the entire human race has produced pretty much since the use of internal combustion engines began. And volcanic activity is not near what it use to be in the world.

Not true.

The "evidence" of global warming is based on what is equivlant of a, well there is no equivlant, it doesn't hardly register on the geological clock.

Not true.

We've been coming out of an small ice age for the last 600 years.

Not true.

The Ozone hole was a big scare right? Then our friends the scientists figured out after some recalculations that the whole in the Ozone layer expands and contracts over time. Whoops.

Not true.

I cannot stand it when people try to stand behind junk science.

Neither can I, please stop.

Al Gore - I went to Nam. Smoked a joint or two. Wrote about it. Woohoo.

Funny how much this mattered to Republicans 4 and 8 years ago.  Gore was a combat reporter.  That means he was in the field.  No evidence that he "smoked a joint or two" as you so nicely insinuated.

GW Bush - My dad was in the Navy. He pulled some questionable strings to get me above a 100,000 man waiting list to get into the AFR. Can he help it he has connections? I mean, I DID keep the Cong outta Texas!

And smoked, drank and took who knows what illegal substances, but hey, since I'm a Republican they were just youthful indiscretions.  Now if a Democrat had done it, well, that'd be different.

Funny how the Republicans also cared about these issues so much more 4 and 8 years ago.

Go Al!!!    

Sisu
-Karnak

[This message has been edited by Karnak (edited 09-14-2000).]

I love all the "not true"'s  

Now can you provide evidence that shows any of that is false?  

Al Gore even stated thats what he did   and that he rarely got close to any fighting (he was stationed on base as a reporter, not a combat writer. His dad pulled strings just like Bush's did, it was meant to be equally insulting on both Gore's and Bush's part)
Not to mention Bush has stated he "expiremented" with controled substances as well. Not much point in holding either accountable for things that happned 30 years ago.

As for the other stuff, when the geologist finally got off their arses and started doing analysis of the millions of tons of ash thrown up by Mt. St. Helens (man my yard got coated back when that happened even here in Houston, Texas) they concluded that major eruptions like that release about what we humans prouduce (at current world-wide emissions) every 100 years. The geologic pollution is even worse because of the lack of plant-life absorbstion and disperstion in the upper atomosphere because of the rapidness of the event.

Some of the scientists that orginally proposed the theory of global warming were approached by geologists will which they confirmed that by geological analysis that there was what was dubbed a "mini ice-age" between the last major one. Between the period of the general warming of the Earth's surface temperature between the last major ice age, a period between 800 A.C. and about 1400 A.C. a period of surface temperature decline occured, and the earth has been reaching towards the temperature before the mini ice age occured, which is about where we are now. They expect it to climb higher as well, because the earth's surface temperature never reached it's maximum before the mini ice age. What caused it is said to most likely have to do with the earth's orbit and how it apprently "wobbles" to and from the sun during orbit which is said to be the blame for such drastic weather changes. But, to humans it seems rather gradual because this is on geological terms  

Since the report of the intial locating of the hole in the Ozone layer, observation has shown that since then, the hole gets larger, and smaller over time.

And last of all the time sequence that the entire concept of global warming is based on is a period of less then 50 years. On the earth's time line of geological events, that is not evan an instant...it is nothing. How is it not true? they haven't had the equipment to measure such things before the last fifty years...and that's what millions and millions of dollars are being spent on to find a solution to something that may not be worth it. I'm sure it would suck if we humans reduced our emissions to natural levels and global warming increased  

But blah. I voted for McCain. An honest man is hard to find in politics. I admire him for presuing the campagin against soft money.

Burp

- Jig

[Toad]

Sheesh!

OK, no more jokes....some of you guys have NO sense of humor!

Excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse ME!

 

[StSanta]

Thanks StSanta

Coming from a European, I'll take your post as a compliment
 

I don't believe when they wrote the constitution they had any idea of the welfare program we now have in the states.

Don't think they envisioned nukes either. Do know they had lofty goals about equality, opportunity and freedom.

What's wrong with working for a living? Too many people here laying around looking for the government to give them everything. The democrats only have to provide the illusion that the republicans are going to take away their free ride and whoa, they jump up and vote against it. Keeping the slick willie's in office.

Hm, must me fewer than here, with our extensive welfare system. And, oddly enough, the majority of voters here are middle class people, not welfare ones. All is good if ya can support yerself, ain't much dignity in being a burden to others. Ain't much future in it either.

Just for the record, I've been married since I was 19 (to the same wonderful woman)(1979). I've been a father since
I was 19 (two fantastic sons).

Well, congrats  . I'm single, and staying so hating the compromises that comes with relationships. Kids? My brother has some, so some of our shared dna has already been passed, no need for me to hurry  .

Hey guess what, I've been working full time since I was 19. I was raising a family on $3.10 an hour when I was 19 when minimum wage was $2.25. Working 55 to 70 hrs a week to provide for the family.

I was fortunate to be in a line of work that provided massive amounts of overtime. No hand outs. No government assistance. I'm now a computer programmer for a large multimedia firm (about to become even larger . So if I can do it, I wonder why most of the others can't. One word - LAZY. The government has made it too darn easy. Almost a drug for some. And when the republicans try to get these people to work, we're mean spirited.

Well, you might have been fortunate as you put it yourself. You might also have more stamina and dedication and belief in yourself than others do. We're all different, and I do not expect normal people to perform like me, for better or worse. However, I do believe that saying the reason they're on the bum side of life is because they're lazy is overly simplistic - there ae tons of factors involved and a good number of thesis's done on it from social science people.

For instance, income inequality is closely linked to crime rate, which of course is directly linked to your personal safety and that of your loved ones.  

The democrats are good in the way they provide a balance to the other extreme. I just can't see how any hard working, God fearing US citizen can buy into their agenda though.

Well, I can see how one can be a republican, and I can see why one can be a democrat. Don't know about god fearing though, as this concept has always amused me a bit, til things turn bad and people start offing each other over it.

As for the Boy Scouts, it's an organization with rules. Follow them or don't join. It's not like they've changed them or
anything, pretty black and white.

Aye, but it's just that these dudes are role model for yer kids, and what they're teaching is exclusion and intolerance in a certain way. "We want you if you're straight and Christian" can sound awfully a lot like "we want you if you're pure blooded white and believes in Chtuhlu" or some other rather abritrary form discriminating.

I say let them have their rules, but good role models, they ain't, and good for teaching kids tolerance, they ain't either.

As for homosexuals, nothing against them in their own place. Don't believe they should be leaders in the Boy Scouts just like I don't think heterosexual men should be leaders in the Girl Scouts. I have had many gay friends and associates. I'm fine with it as long as they don't flaunt it or try to pass it off as an alternative lifestyle to our youth.

Ah, you fear some kind of sexual abuse? That would be a valid concern, but pedophiles and sex criminals aren't really in the same category as homosexuals I think.

Personally, I mind as much of them flaunting their sexual preference as I mind heterosexuals doing it - i.e nothing. I don't think of it as an alternative lifestyle - they seem to have little choice. And life as a homosexual sure seems a lot harder with all the prejudices around. Somehow I doubt that homosexuality is a conscious choice, just as I doubt I consciously have chosen to be straight. Am damned happy I am, as all men are ugly, and some women ain't  . Homosexuality can be found in other animal species as well, and is nothing really unusual.

And who cares who the hell you sleep with and how? That's how I see it. I'm more tired of hearing the stories my hetereo friends (girls and boys) tell me than I am of hearing about the love lives of one of my gay friends.

So, I don't advocate gay rights, as they should just be the same as everyone else's. I don't advocate an alternative life style, as it ain't. It's just sexual preference. What I do advocate is tolerance towards it; or rather, not making a big fuzz about such a minor thing. Same thing about cults or religions (same thing to me  ). Build a church, build a mosque, bow to whatever deity  you wish as long as you don't force it down my throat or try to make it into law.

Oh, and those %&/%/¤&#% church bells early Sunday mornings are T&/%¤&¤& irritating - there you are, a nice hangover, tired and weary, and what happens? DING DING DING.

Somehow, methinks the Christians do it just to haunt me  .

StSanta,thanks again for your reponse and please don't take this personal as I do enjoy the deliberation.

Ah, I won't, as long as you don't either. I like conversations too  .

Toad, see what ya started

He knoweth, and smileth  



------------------
StSanta
JG54 "Grünherz"
"If you died a stones throw from your wingie; you did no wrong". - Hangtime

[Udie]

 

Originally posted by Karnak:

Al Gore - I went to Nam. Smoked a joint or two. Wrote about it. Woohoo.

Funny how much this mattered to Republicans 4 and 8 years ago.  Gore was a combat reporter.  That means he was in the field.  No evidence that he "smoked a joint or two" as you so nicely insinuated.

GW Bush - My dad was in the Navy. He pulled some questionable strings to get me above a 100,000 man waiting list to get into the AFR. Can he help it he has connections? I mean, I DID keep the Cong outta Texas!

And smoked, drank and took who knows what illegal substances, but hey, since I'm a Republican they were just youthful indiscretions.  Now if a Democrat had done it, well, that'd be different.

Funny how the Republicans also cared about these issues so much more 4 and 8 years ago.

Go Al!!!    (Image removed from quote.)

Sisu
-Karnak  [/B]

 Yup Gore Jr. went to Vietnam. As far as I know/have heard though he never saw any action, and he had a body guard assigned to him by his father. Hehe body guard, press never tells you about that though. And he did  smoke those couple of joints, at least he said he did.

 Did GW have some strings pulled? I dunno, I don't realy care. All I know is that he SERVED in the Texas Air National Guard and he flew f105's. So in my book he risked his bellybutton flying the "thud" and served his country here at home.  He didn't have a body guard, and he didn't go to Moscow to protest the war.   He  WAS a pilot  

 As for his partying, he says he did it he says he stopped when he turned 40. Heck I love to party, can't wait for the con    I don't care that he partied, I care on wether or not he admits to it.  He did admit to it, just not any specifics.

 8 years ago comrad Klinton LIED about it and said he didn;t inhale! LOL!  Just like he LIES about everything else that he talks about. The man is a liar, and Gore has supported him blindly for 8 long years. Which makes him a liar too,  even if you don't count his own lies over the past 8 years.
 
 "No controling legal authority"  Is this what you want to hear from your national leaders?  Not me...  I wonder, has Gore ever had a REAL job?  Oh wait that's right he ran the family tobacco farm back home. Where he "worked the tobacco with his bare hands" hehe I better stop now, I'm getting all worked up and I need to be working  

BTW Karnak, are you going to the con?  If so,  please let's not talk polotics there.   For that weekend I'm "non-political" and I let my hair down.  I hope you do come so you can see how horible things like the atmosphere are here in Tx.  

Udie

[mietla]

 

Originally posted by mietla:
It's not that I'm dying to talk to you...

Karnak,

I'm still not "dying", but I'm still curious. Why don't you engage my arguments?

I have always tought that the reasonable folks can always engage in a fierce debate and still try to present their line of thinking.

It's not that you owe me, you owe the Forum, buddy.
 

[Voss]

 

Originally posted by Karnak:
The reason such luminaries as Abraham Lincoln (our greatest President),... -Karnak

This is the ONLY thing you have said that I agree with completely!

Voss

[F4UDOA]

Karnak,

I'm sorry I tuned into this thread so late.
Rush Limburger(<=Spelling Whatever??) humor generally makes me nausious. But I just wanted to say. You Da Man!!
From another card carring liberal.

Funny I'm Pro-death penalty and I don't like abortion but I won't tell someone else how to live their life. But I'm still a liberal because republicans just make you take sides.

The other funny thing is how all of Republicans seem to be from lightly populated areas and the Democrats seem to live in population centers. I guess real republicans can't even stand to be around each other huh??

Later
F4UDOA

[Toad]

 

Originally posted by F4UDOA:
The other funny thing is how all of Republicans seem to be from lightly populated areas and the Democrats seem to live in population centers. I guess real republicans can't even stand to be around each other huh??

Later
F4UDOA

Funny you should bring that up. I've been thinking about that lately. It all started with the "HO's are bad" thread.

At first I thought I detected a "Europe vs US" split, with the Euros wanting everyone to "conform to the rules" and the Yanks saying "do your own thing...it's a free game."

That wasn't it tho...because there was a significant number of North Americans wanting "conformity" too...and most of those seemed to be posting from densely populated areas.

Now I am wondering if population density has that effect.

You cram a bunch of people into a small area and they react by creating "standardized rules of conduct" and all must conform for it to work smoothly. So, they give up individual freedom/preference for bland standardization and a perception of "safety".

As you spread people out, they are (and have to be) less dependent on society in general. When you live 15 miles from the nearest gas station, and 50 from a hospital you have to be more self-reliant and careful about what you do. At the same time, I think it's pretty natural that you feel independent and unbound by what your distant neighbor considers "proper".

I'm still mulling this all over in my mind. I'm sure I've stepped on some toes here.

I do think that packing people into a city has an effect on the way they think and act. It really doesn't suprise me that the city-dwellers are willing to give up liberty for perceived safety. I think they lose their self-reliance.

The rural folks, otoh, have never lost their self-reliance...they can't or they wouldn't make it. Thus, they feel no urge to give up any freedom.

Have a nice day!

[F4UDOA]

Mietla,

Dude, have I got a wake up for you.

The only reason anybody, I mean anybody in this country has a leg to stand on other than ultra rich is because of

1. Immigrant labor from the late 19th century and early 20th century to include the Chinese, Italian, Irish and Jewish. They where brought here by republicans as skilled but almost slave labor by the Carnagie's and Rockafeller's(SP)and Duponts to replace slavery. They built the cities and railroads and fought the wars that made this country what it is today.

2. Organized labor. Those same groups fought for workers right when there were none. They were murdered and beated by the likes of Gen.Douglas Mcarther himself. They fought the hard fight so you and children wouldn't have to. They helped pull this country out of the great depression created by Republicans and their wisdom of greed, as well as seperated a small percentage of the wealth for the working people in this country.

This is why everytime I hear some Republican idiot spouting off about the
"Real Americans" I want to throwup on the TV set.  

So when workers who don't have the ability to get training for themselves want an extra dollar an hour from the likes of the mega corperations in this country I say give it up. It will cost you allot less than supporting those same people if and when this country falls into a recession again, like the last time there was a Republican president. And please don't tell me that it will kill small business. The Walmarts and  K-Marts are doing a far greater job of that.

BTW, I don't where you got the number that the top 1% of the weathly pay 50% of the taxes. It must have been from some Republican propaganda. Just think about that statement for a minute? If they were constantly paying 50% wouldn't they evenually go under?? When was the last time you heard of a multi-millionare going under?
In the end I doubt that anyone that rich pays over 5% taxes. Just look at your buddy George W. or Dick Cheney. Millionares at birth. And they have been in office  collecting a goverment check ever since. I don't think they pay very much at all.
Here is a stat I do believe though.
The top 1% of wealthy people in this country control 90% of the wealth. And have since before you and I, and everyone you know were born. And you don't know their names for the most part.

Later
F4UDOA