why do people want to be liberals?

[lazs2]

anax..  Republicans are walking, dragging one leg, toward socialism while liberal democrats (there are no other kind at the top) are running toward it.

Be as angry as you want toward republicans for not cutting down the size of government but.. to vote for osamabinbiden.. that is like cutting off your nose cause you think it doesn't make you look handsome enough.

As for the jesus thing.. that is your hangup.. you are blowing it out of proportion for some reason of your own that I can't hazard to guess... it is really no big deal..  I am not christian and would fight them gaining control of my life but I see no real threat there.

lazs

[Sixpence]

to vote for osamabinbiden.. that is like cutting off your nose cause you think it doesn't make you look handsome enough.

No no no, bad analogy, it's more like cutting your dick off because it doesn't work anymore

[Ripsnort]

know you're a liberal if.....

You think that consenting adults can engage freely in every activity except capitalism.

If you think Sean Hannnity and Ann Coulter are mean spirited racists and promote hate crimes, but Maxine Waters, John Conyers and Louis Farakahn aren't and don't.

If you think that the only acceptable hate crime is Christian bashing.

You think we never gave peace a chance.

Sean Penn makes sense to you. Awec Bawdwin makes even more sense.

You want to outlaw cigarettes and legalize marijuana.

If you use the words "xtians", neo-con's" or "wing-nuts" at least four times in any given day.

You say Have a Great Winter Solstice, Happy Kwankza, Merry Ramadan and think saying Merry Christmas is just wrong.

You think that the words “to promote the general welfare” in the Constitution mean to promote welfare generally.

You believe that even though the top 20 percent of taxpayers pay 80 percent of income taxes, that the rich are not paying their “fair share.”

You think that Rush Limbaugh’s listeners are mindless “dittoheads,” but you have never doubted anything that you heard from Michael Moore.

You believe that rich people should not be allowed to contribute so much money to candidates for office (except for George Soros).

You have no problem with Hollywood movie starts flying around in private jets to give speeches on the evils of SUVs.

[Niceguy]

sources?

Here's a quick one on the story.
http://www.news-leader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080927/BLOGS09/80927018

[Trell]

Don’t know if I consider myself a liberal.  I know I didn’t 10 years back.

I am just disgusted with the republican party.
In the last 8 years I have seen my health care cost go up my a factor of 10.  There is no reason something should go up over 10X in that kind of time.
I have seen us go to war that I believe is unjust.  Spending money I don’t believe this country has across the world.
We have been spending money on everything,  rather than cutting spending.
We now condone torture, something I was always taught that we are better then.

We have started spying on our own citizens without warrants which I believe will be a gateway into doing everything from more street cameras to  random searches of houses.

We started locking up people without trials and holding them for years before releasing them.

We have started grabbing people that are flying through our country and shipping them off to other countries to be tortured.

I have seen more of what I believe is socializing  losses of big companies in the form of  court reform limiting judgments against companies doing wrong.

Seeing collage go up 10% or more a year in a county where it is getting to become impossible to work with out going.

I don’t Really believe Obama will be much different,  the damage is already done.  But I don’t feel rewarding the same team again.  I do have a small hope that something’s may change.

Just as a note, 
I believe in guns for all
Voting for anyone felons or not. As long as you are a us citizen
marriage of anyone man or woman, 
I believe in a women’s choice, 
I believe we should kick all illegal’s out of this country. And to send employers to jail for hiring them.
I am for Charter schools.
I am against seat belt laws
 Dislike Epa regulation of cars.
I disagree with our country giving money as aid year after year to other countries,  Charity should be made by people not governments.
I belive states should have more power then the federal goverment in most things.







I

[Ripsnort]

Don’t know if I consider myself a liberal.  I know I didn’t 10 years back.

I am just disgusted with the republican party.
In the last 8 years I have seen my health care cost go up my a factor of 10.  There is no reason something should go up over 10X in that kind of time.

So, how do  you draw a line between health care cost and the repubs? The countervailing forces for health cost increases include the continued hospital capital projects (both replacing aging equipment and buildings as well as the medical arms race), and cost-shifting from government payers and the uninsured to private payers. It's estimated that 1 in 4 private payer dollars goes to this category. This is primarily done by hospitals who are shifting the costs of under-compensated and uncompensated care to the commercial side of the revenue ledger. (See link

I have seen us go to war that I believe is unjust.  Spending money I don’t believe this country has across the world.

A 80% majority in Congress and Senate thought it was a just war, based on the information we had. Of course, we could have just let Saddam rape and torture and kill his own people (Hell, his sons had it good, why should we interfere?) and flip his finger at the world.  Disagreeing with a war doesn't make you a liberal. On the flip side, what if Saddam had gone unchecked? Where would be today with him? Scarier option to think IMO.

We have been spending money on everything,  rather than cutting spending.

Governments tend to do that when your country is attacked. (Ref 9/11)
For the record, I lean slightly right of center, more of a conservative and I think our government is out of control in their spending but that doesn't mean I'm desperate to vote for a liberal democrat like Obamamessiah and TAX myself to death either.

We now condone torture, something I was always taught that we are better then.

We've been over this before. Soldiers make mistakes in the field. Waterboarding torture? That depends on your point of view and opinion.

We have started spying on our own citizens without warrants which I believe will be a gateway into doing everything from more street cameras to  random searches of houses.

I got news for ya, the FBI has had a file on over 20% of the American public since the 1940's.  I believe the so-called "illegal" wiretaps were found not illegal and are on incoming calls from overseas, which I don't disagree with if it is at the cost of preventing another 9/11.

We started locking up people without trials and holding them for years before releasing them.

And those that we did release, were later captured or killed fighting US Soldiers overseas....yeah, I've always been a proponent of letting folks like yourself house these guys and see how long you last....

We have started grabbing people that are flying through our country and shipping them off to other countries to be tortured.

I think there was one incident in 8 years?

I have seen more of what I believe is socializing  losses of big companies in the form of  court reform limiting judgments against companies doing wrong.

I'm all for Tort Reform, but that's not going to happen on either side of the political fence regardless whos in office.

Seeing collage go up 10% or more a year in a county where it is getting to become impossible to work with out going.

I've seen spelling drop in schools too. (College)  80% of colleges are private institutions. Yeah, Bush's Fault! 

I don’t Really believe Obama will be much different,  the damage is already done.  But I don’t feel rewarding the same team again.  I do have a small hope that something’s may change.

Your hope that something may change....hmmm, does 2006 House and Senate Democrat Majority ring a bell? Lowest approval ratings EVAR!

And on a final note, Obama is not going to change anything except your hard earned money from your pocket to the Governments pocket.

And for Crissake, McCain is  a democrat in Republican Clothing, just look at his voting record dating back to the 1980's.

[crockett]

please if there any liberals on this forum tell me why you are a liberal

i don't understand the concept and just want to get your point of view

a liberal the way i see it, wants to make government more powerful and wants a socialist democracy.

is this true, why have some of you chosen the path of a liberal for the USA?

I'm just curious i want your point of views!

You are listening to too many O Club right wingers.. If that's what you think a liberal is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism

One could ask your self why you would vote for the Republicans if that is your reason for not liking Democrats. After all the current Republican party is a mix of Neo-Cons and Religious Conservatives. They have long ago lost their roots of being Fiscal conservatives whom believed in smaller govt and less spending. Now days the Republican party spends more than the Democrats and they add more govt as well.

After 9/11 what was the first thing Bush did? He added more govt with Homeland security. Soon as all the bail out talk started happening and the issues with Freddie and Fannie what was Mccain's first words? He wanted to add more govt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism


The current Republican Party is made up of so many Religious Conservatives it is actually all for taking away your rights. They want to force the govt to teach Religious beliefs in schools. They want to tell you what they think is appropriate to watch on TV or on the internet. In fact they are the biggest threat to freedom in this country at the moment and Sara Palin is one of them.

I'm sorry but the belief of smaller govt and less taxes is only a pipe dream the current crop of Republicans like to talk about.. The closest thing the Republican party has to the old style conservatism ways is the Libertarian Party guys like Ron Paul.. (however guys like him tend to be wayy off in right field)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_conservatism

This is the current Republican Party..

Religious conservatives seek to preserve the teachings of particular ideologies, sometimes by proclaiming the value of those teachings, at other times seeking to have those teachings given the force of law. Religious conservatism may support, or be supported by, secular customs. In other places or at other times, religious conservatism may find itself at odds with the culture in which the believers reside. In some cultures, there is conflict between two or more different groups of religious conservatives, each strongly asserting both that their view is correct, and that opposing views are wrong.


Neoconservatism is a right-wing political philosophy that emerged in the United States from the rejection of the social liberalism, moral relativism, and New Left counterculture of the 1960s. In United States, they align themselves with most conservative values, such free market, limited welfare, and traditional cultural values. Their key distinction is on international affairs; they prefer a proactive approach internationally that would protect the national interests.

Bush was led into the Iraq war by the Neo Cons. Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Dick Cheney & John Bolton are all classic case Neo Cons whom pushed us into this war. Bush is the only one in the group who really "wasn't" a Neocon if you remember during his campaign he preached aginst nation building. However he willingly allowed himself to be drug along by the Neocons ideology.

[Jackal1]

know you're a liberal if.....

You think that consenting adults can engage freely in every activity except capitalism.

If you think Sean Hannnity and Ann Coulter are mean spirited racists and promote hate crimes, but Maxine Waters, John Conyers and Louis Farakahn aren't and don't.

If you think that the only acceptable hate crime is Christian bashing.

You think we never gave peace a chance.

Sean Penn makes sense to you. Awec Bawdwin makes even more sense.

You want to outlaw cigarettes and legalize marijuana.

If you use the words "xtians", neo-con's" or "wing-nuts" at least four times in any given day.

You say Have a Great Winter Solstice, Happy Kwankza, Merry Ramadan and think saying Merry Christmas is just wrong.

You think that the words “to promote the general welfare” in the Constitution mean to promote welfare generally.

You believe that even though the top 20 percent of taxpayers pay 80 percent of income taxes, that the rich are not paying their “fair share.”

You think that Rush Limbaugh’s listeners are mindless “dittoheads,” but you have never doubted anything that you heard from Michael Moore.

You believe that rich people should not be allowed to contribute so much money to candidates for office (except for George Soros).

You have no problem with Hollywood movie starts flying around in private jets to give speeches on the evils of SUVs.

Give that man a ceeeegar.

[Hornet33]

Hate to make a correction Crocket, but Homeland Security did not add to the government. Homeland Security only consolidated 22 agencies under one roof and made it a cabinet level office. The reason for this was to streamline and make the passing of critical information more efficient between those agencies because in the past that had not been the case. Homeland Security was also added to the National Inteligence register so that information recieved by the dept could more easily be passed from the dept to other inteligence agencies such as the FBI, CIA, and NSA, as well as the respective military inteligence deptartments.

So adding the Dept of Homeland Security did not add to the size of the government it mearly streamlined and reorganized a bunch of agencieas already there, to function on a more tight knit basis, and having served on active duty in the Coast Guard before, during, and after the reorganization I can tell you that it worked better than we thought it would.

Here are the agencies that were reorganized into the dept.
U.S. Customs Service ( Treasury)
U.S. Coast Guard (Transportation)
U.S. Secret Service (Treasury)
Immigration and Naturalization Service (Justice)
United States Federal Protective Service (ICE)
Transportation Security Administration (Transportation)
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (Treasury)
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (Agriculture)
Office for Domestic Preparedness (Justice)
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
Strategic National Stockpile and the National Disaster Medical System (HHS)
Nuclear Incident Response Team (Energy)
Domestic Emergency Support Teams (Justice)
National Domestic Preparedness Office (FBI)
CBRN Countermeasures Programs (Energy)
Environmental Measurements Laboratory (Energy)
National BW Defense Analysis Center (Defense)
Plum Island Animal Disease Center (Agriculture)
Federal Computer Incident Response Center (GSA)
National Communications System (Defense)
National Infrastructure Protection Center (FBI)
Energy Security and Assurance Program (Energy)

[Nwbie]

http://www.blogthings.com/howrepublicanareyouquiz/


http://www.blogthings.com/howdemocratareyouquiz/

[crockett]

Hate to make a correction Crocket, but Homeland Security did not add to the government. Homeland Security only consolidated 22 agencies under one roof and made it a cabinet level office. The reason for this was to streamline and make the passing of critical information more efficient between those agencies because in the past that had not been the case. Homeland Security was also added to the National Inteligence register so that information recieved by the dept could more easily be passed from the dept to other inteligence agencies such as the FBI, CIA, and NSA, as well as the respective military inteligence deptartments.

So adding the Dept of Homeland Security did not add to the size of the government it mearly streamlined and reorganized a bunch of agencieas already there, to function on a more tight knit basis, and having served on active duty in the Coast Guard before, during, and after the reorganization I can tell you that it worked better than we thought it would.

Here are the agencies that were reorganized into the dept.
U.S. Customs Service ( Treasury)
U.S. Coast Guard (Transportation)
U.S. Secret Service (Treasury)
Immigration and Naturalization Service (Justice)
United States Federal Protective Service (ICE)
Transportation Security Administration (Transportation)
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (Treasury)
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (Agriculture)
Office for Domestic Preparedness (Justice)
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
Strategic National Stockpile and the National Disaster Medical System (HHS)
Nuclear Incident Response Team (Energy)
Domestic Emergency Support Teams (Justice)
National Domestic Preparedness Office (FBI)
CBRN Countermeasures Programs (Energy)
Environmental Measurements Laboratory (Energy)
National BW Defense Analysis Center (Defense)
Plum Island Animal Disease Center (Agriculture)
Federal Computer Incident Response Center (GSA)
National Communications System (Defense)
National Infrastructure Protection Center (FBI)
Energy Security and Assurance Program (Energy)

Yes but it is bigger as in one govt entity has more control and power than any other single one had. This is the same thing McCain wants with the current economic situation. He wants one govt entity to be in charge of it all once again giving that one govt office much more power and control than any single one of the others ever had. That means bigger govt in the power and control sense.

While it does sound good as in eliminating red tape or making things work better. Sometimes it's a good thing to have the power broken up and spread apart across several govt agencies. As they say power corrupts so why give one group so much control?

Think of it like this.. The one man in control of Homeland security is the most powerful person in this country and he's not elected by the people.

[BigPlay]

please if there any liberals on this forum tell me why you are a liberal

i don't understand the concept and just want to get your point of view

a liberal the way i see it, wants to make government more powerful and wants a socialist democracy.

is this true, why have some of you chosen the path of a liberal for the USA?

I'm just curious i want your point of views!

If anyone answers that Jimmy Carters the reason I'm loading my gun. He makes GW look good.

[AKIron]

No one "wants" to be a liberal, they're born that way.  Just like the gays that wouldn't "choose" to be gay but are born that way.  Why would one "choose" or "want" to be liberal?  That's just dumb.


How's that?

Beat me to it. 

[Hornet33]

Yes but it is bigger as in one govt entity has more control and power than any other single one had. This is the same thing McCain wants with the current economic situation. He wants one govt entity to be in charge of it all once again giving that one govt office much more power and control than any single one of the others ever had. That means bigger govt in the power and control sense.

While it does sound good as in eliminating red tape or making things work better. Sometimes it's a good thing to have the power broken up and spread apart across several govt agencies. As they say power corrupts so why give one group so much control?

Think of it like this.. The one man in control of Homeland security is the most powerful person in this country and he's not elected by the people.

Because in an emergancy would you rather have 1 person calling the shots, or 22 organization heads, plus the 11 dept heads they worked for all trying to have a meeting to figure out who is going to be in charge, trying to figure out who has jurisdiction over what, and who's going to be responsible for everything after the fact? Then once they have their meeting have to go through channels to get the information to the President, because he had to be briefed by the 11 dept heads seperately for their own actions,/responses. Now the President goes to one person and asks, "What is going on?" and that person has been briefed by his people who all work for him.

Like I told you, I was there in the middle of it when this all went down, and I can say with 100% certainty from the operational level, it was the SMART thing to do. I could care less about the political side of it, but where the rubber meets the road it was the right thing to do.

Also as far as the dept head being the most powerfull person in the country and he's not elected, not quite accurate on that either. That person has to be appointed and APPROVED by Congress, and can be FIRED anytime the President wants to for any reason.  Not so powerfull after all is it?

[Anaxogoras]

As for the jesus thing.. that is your hangup.. you are blowing it out of proportion for some reason of your own that I can't hazard to guess... it is really no big deal..  I am not christian and would fight them gaining control of my life but I see no real threat there.

Maybe it was being instructed not to use the word "evolution" when I was supposed to teach the concept of "adaptation" to 6th graders.