Republican VP with strong ties to big oil

[numatu]

The specific issues are irrelevant. I was merely giving examples of people would call "basic constitutional rights."

I'm talking about the notion that if a right or right-to-something exists constitutionally, then you also have a right to have it federally subsidized. That's the point I had issue with.

It's entirely different to believe that the government should pay for something.

It's another thing to say that the government must pay because it is a guaranteed right. When I read your post, that's the impression I got.

[Arlos]

Ah, I understand the confusion. No, my objection was that if the government is going to subsidize health care (and it does), then it is stupid to exclude a procedure that is entirely legal and constitutionally protected from the list of acceptable procedures, regardless of whether doctors consider it medically or psychologically necessary or not, or with any other considerations.

By no means do I expect the government to buy me a gun, say, despite my right to own one. Big difference.

-Arlos

[ClakarEQ]

Thankfully in this country our liberty and freedoms to purchase goods and services are only curtailed by our own capacity to do so and the determination of the priority of needs and wants are left up to the individual and not society or government.

That is only true so long as society AND the government agrees with your capacity and with the goods and services you are attempting to procure.

The only 100 percent effective method of birth control or preventing STD's is abstinence. The same can not be said with any other method, so to promote abstinence as the best most effective method. While I have no issue with sexual education for children in school, I think abstinence should be promoted as part of the curriculum, and I don't believe that contraceptives should be passed out in schools.

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_sexEd2006.html
You write this as if it works, but it doesn't, this is akin the the war on drugs. In place of doing something different to "test the waters" to see if it works. Why would you keep investing into something that consistantly loses money? How far and for how long do you go before something different is tried?

Alaska is one of a minority of states that requires sex education in schools, so Palin's daughter was not taught abstinence only in school. It could just as easily been argued that sex education beyond abstinence was a contributing factor. In reality no one can really say except maybe Bristol Palin.

While the state may require it, the parent can choose to not allow their child to participate should it not agree with their religious or personal beliefs. Sex education has been proven to be the better of the two where abstinence has never been proven to work, again why invest?

Also, I realize you are just responding to points being made and this isn't an attack on you so please don't take it as such, you make (as you usually do) very good points but I felt a need to correct or at least question some.

[leah]

movies and kittens don't accidentally kill people

[Diekan]

movies and kittens don't accidentally kill people

That's true - accidents DO happen. More people die each year due to drunk driving accidents than from accidental gun shots. Should we start passing laws that only allow you to drink one per week?

[Lueyen]

Thankfully in this country our liberty and freedoms to purchase goods and services are only curtailed by our own capacity to do so and the determination of the priority of needs and wants are left up to the individual and not society or government.

That is only true so long as society AND the government agrees with your capacity and with the goods and services you are attempting to procure.

Yes the blanket statement is somewhat incorrect in a blanket application, but you will find relatively few products and services that are restricted based on need. And while it is true that these type of products are based on need, generally their quantities are not restricted based on proof of needed quantities, only proof of need by application, or perhaps the capacity to store them safely (toxic chemicals, explosives and the like). For controlled substances (drugs) the rationale is the danger to society (not that I necessarily agree). But in the end in the context of the statement, society and government are bound by the constitution, which specifically makes it a right, and therefore protected from the whim of societal or governmental restriction.

The only 100 percent effective method of birth control or preventing STD's is abstinence. The same can not be said with any other method, so to promote abstinence as the best most effective method. While I have no issue with sexual education for children in school, I think abstinence should be promoted as part of the curriculum, and I don't believe that contraceptives should be passed out in schools.

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_sexEd2006.html
You write this as if it works, but it doesn't, this is akin the the war on drugs. In place of doing something different to "test the waters" to see if it works. Why would you keep investing into something that consistently loses money? How far and for how long do you go before something different is tried?

Alaska is one of a minority of states that requires sex education in schools, so Palin's daughter was not taught abstinence only in school. It could just as easily been argued that sex education beyond abstinence was a contributing factor. In reality no one can really say except maybe Bristol Palin.

While the state may require it, the parent can choose to not allow their child to participate should it not agree with their religious or personal beliefs. Sex education has been proven to be the better of the two where abstinence has never been proven to work, again why invest?

Also, I realize you are just responding to points being made and this isn't an attack on you so please don't take it as such, you make (as you usually do) very good points but I felt a need to correct or at least question some.

It does not need to be either/or and it is not my intention to treat the issue as such. I believe both parts of the equation are important. To give you an idea of where I stand on the issue, a few years ago Oregon had a bill that went to a vote that would have in effect said that sex ed in Oregon schools needed to be geared toward promoting heterosexuality vs homosexuality. I voted against the bill, not because I saw it as a political issue of sexuality, but because I felt that schools should not be promoting any form of sexuality beyond abstinence. I do not support schools giving out birth control or contraception. I have no problem with schools telling kids how and where to obtain it, but being the source of it I think sends the wrong message. Most schools have drug education as well, and the message is generally pretty clear, don't use them. Yes some still do, yet people are not advocating passing out needles so kids have clean ones. Obviously there is the legal side to that comparison, but I would suspect that most parents wouldn't be non supportive of that simply because of legality, but because it doesn't make sense to tell students not to do something then give them the tools to do it.

In regards to Palin, like I said, not supporting a particular program that included (a subjective description) "sexually explicit material", and school clinics giving out contraceptives does not necessarily make her a proponent of abstinence only. Of course that assertion (which again may or may not be true, I don't think we have enough hard facts yet) is used as a spring board in the assumption that her daughter never attended any sex ed classes, and was never taught anything beyond abstinence. Of course this also ignores the situation with the father of the child, another unknown. Whatever he was taught at home or in school was also in this case ineffective. I would submit to you that no method will be ideal, there will be teen pregnancies, but we should strive to minimize them. Teaching both abstinence as the sure fire preferred method, in tandem with teaching about methods of protecting ones self from STD's or unwanted pregnancies give imho the best chance of curtailing teen STD spread and pregnancies.

In regards to parental right to stop their child from attending these classes, while I may believe the decision to do so in most cases is stupid, I still believe parents have the right to do so.

[brinstar]

That's true - accidents DO happen. More people die each year due to drunk driving accidents than from accidental gun shots. Should we start passing laws that only allow you to drink one per week?

how about laws that prohibit you from driving drunk

oh shi

actually i'd be in favor of doubling or tripling DWI penalties, and mandatory installation of interlock devices on all automobiles. or better yet, RIDE THE BUS YOU LUSH

[Arlos]

Honestly, teenagers have been exploring sex since we were lower primates. No amount of preaching abstinence is going to stop it from happening. Period. I have no problem with the school saying "You shouldn't do it until you're 18, but if you ARE going to, here's what you need to do to avoid getting pregnant, and avoid catching something" and then make at least condoms available at the nurse's office. The greater the availability and ease of obtaining, the greater the odds they WILL be used, which is all to the good.

The other problem with abstinence only education is that what happens when those kids hit 18, and STILL don't know WTF to do? There's not much better about an 18 year old getting pregnant than a 16 year old, honestly. It's still going to radically alter their plans for their life if they keep it, or results in one of those abortions you are trying to avoid.

No, just from an effectiveness standpoint, high schools NEED to make condoms available, and parents just need to deal with it. I know I would have no problem whatsoever with a high school a kid of mine attended giving them out.

Seriously, that whole Puritan streak that this country has had since its founding causes us more problems... I loved the definition I heard of puritanism: "The paranoid fear that someone, somewhere is having a good time." Oh so true...

-Arlos

[Diekan]

That's true - accidents DO happen. More people die each year due to drunk driving accidents than from accidental gun shots. Should we start passing laws that only allow you to drink one per week?

how about laws that prohibit you from driving drunk

oh shi

actually i'd be in favor of doubling or tripling DWI penalties, and mandatory installation of interlock devices on all automobiles. or better yet, RIDE THE BUS YOU LUSH

Therein lies the point. A law forbidding the act of driving while under the influence of alcohol is already in place. Yet, people still do it – hourly. We don’t need MORE laws telling us we can’t drink and drive – we need to increase the severity of the punishment you receive when you are caught.

The same is true for guns. We have enough laws now to deal with purchasing and carrying them. We don’t need more of the same. Rather we need to start dishing our more sever punishments to those who use guns in the commission of a crime.

Human beings respond to the severity of the punishment. It doesn’t take a rocket scientists to figure out why there is practically zero theft in the Middle East. You steal something in the US and you get the back of your hand slapped and pay a small fine. You steal something in Arabia and they cut your hand off, literally.

Stop passing more useless laws and start actually punishing people, harshly, if you want to curve gun related violence.

[ClakarEQ]

Human beings respond to the severity of the punishment. It doesn’t take a rocket scientists to figure out why there is practically zero theft in the Middle East. You steal something in the US and you get the back of your hand slapped and pay a small fine. You steal something in Arabia and they cut your hand off, literally.

Stop passing more useless laws and start actually punishing people, harshly, if you want to curve gun related violence.

Actually I don't know that this is correct. The death penalty did not curve violent crime, in many cases the criminal has a "better life" in jail. Jails are overflowing to such extremes already, putting more in jail will not stop anything.

While you reference Arabia and the extremes they use, that would never be possible in this county, EVER so you can get that thought out of your head. It is one thing to make jail, smoke free, education free, fun free, etc (by free I mean you can't have it), feed them bread and water or just enough for a 2000 calorie diet, etc. IF this were done MAYBE you could use jail as a deterrent but today, it is a laugh. Are you saying you should lose your constitutional and human rights the moment you commit a crime? It sounds as if you're in favor of turning folks into handicappers.

There are folks I've known in my past that would intentionally commit crimes, like B&E, just to get a good roof over their head during the winter months. They know they'd only get 6 months in jail and at that end up serving 4. There is no "real" 3 strikes for anything, you maybe that lucky criminal that gets an asshole judge where they actually apply it but this is a rare spawn IMO.

I think you should watch a few "Jail Nation" series on HBO, because the rate our prisons and jails are filling up is crazy, we're talking 200-400% beyond capacity and we have more folks in jail than any other nation. This isn't a forecast, this is now, the projections are completely mind boggling.

I don't believe more laws will fix this, that is why I'm more in favor of a ban, again a ban being something "new", something we've not tried. All the other shit we've tried and it has failed. I also know a ban will not be possible and as such, my option will never be allowed, thus resulting in new laws. As time progresses the new laws will get more and more difficult and costly and I predict they will not change a thing.

So tell me how putting folks in jail is going to work?

[Diekan]

Human beings respond to the severity of the punishment. It doesn’t take a rocket scientists to figure out why there is practically zero theft in the Middle East. You steal something in the US and you get the back of your hand slapped and pay a small fine. You steal something in Arabia and they cut your hand off, literally.

Stop passing more useless laws and start actually punishing people, harshly, if you want to curve gun related violence.

Actually I don't know that this is correct. The death penalty did not curve violent crime, in many cases the criminal has a "better life" in jail. Jails are overflowing to such extremes already, putting more in jail will not stop anything.

While you reference Arabia and the extremes they use, that would never be possible in this county, EVER so you can get that thought out of your head. It is one thing to make jail, smoke free, education free, fun free, etc (by free I mean you can't have it), feed them bread and water or just enough for a 2000 calorie diet, etc. IF this were done MAYBE you could use jail as a deterrent but today, it is a laugh. Are you saying you should lose your constitutional and human rights the moment you commit a crime? It sounds as if you're in favor of turning folks into handicappers.

There are folks I've known in my past that would intentionally commit crimes, like B&E, just to get a good roof over their head during the winter months. They know they'd only get 6 months in jail and at that end up serving 4. There is no "real" 3 strikes for anything, you maybe that lucky criminal that gets an asshole judge where they actually apply it but this is a rare spawn IMO.

I think you should watch a few "Jail Nation" series on HBO, because the rate our prisons and jails are filling up is crazy, we're talking 200-400% beyond capacity and we have more folks in jail than any other nation. This isn't a forecast, this is now, the projections are completely mind boggling.

I don't believe more laws will fix this, that is why I'm more in favor of a ban, again a ban being something "new", something we've not tried. All the other shit we've tried and it has failed. I also know a ban will not be possible and as such, my option will never be allowed, thus resulting in new laws. As time progresses the new laws will get more and more difficult and costly and I predict they will not change a thing.

So tell me how putting folks in jail is going to work?

You honestly think a BAN is going to keep guns out of the hands of criminals? ROLF… I got a beach front property in Arizona… you interested? Sorry dude I couldn't resist. But, yeah, bans work so well. I mean look at how hard it is to find meth, crack, heroine, weed, and everything else that’s been “banned” by law. I’m sure R Kelly has a hell of a time finding all that “banned” kiddy porn too.

You ban guns and the only people who are going to turn them in are the people who are already obeying the law the begin with. The same people who fill out the paper work, who wait for the background check to be completed before they LEGALLY buy their weapon. Are really that naïve to think that MS13 members, pimps, hoods, and other criminals are going line up at the door of their local precinct to turn their illegally obtained guns in when the government bans them?

I can hear it now… “Yo dog I’z gots to turn in my gat… Obama passed a law say’in we can’t have em no more.”

We can’t stop the influx of illegal firearms now – from China, Russia and every where else. You think that’s all suddenly going to stop when we ban guns ownership in this country?

People who buy their guns legally are not the ones out there committing crime. People who are buying illegally imported guns off the street ARE.

As for punishment you pretty much made my point for me.

It is one thing to make jail, smoke free, education free, fun free, etc (by free I mean you can't have it), feed them bread and water or just enough for a 2000 calorie diet, etc. IF this were done MAYBE you could use jail as a deterrent but today

That’s exactly the point. Liberalism is the reason the criminal justice system is a laughing stock. Liberals are the reason that criminals can run rampant doing what they want because they know if they are caught they in for "hard times" with cable TV, free college degrees, basketball courts, three square meals a day (that are actually BETTER than what the military gets). The criminal justice system has been destroyed by replacing true PUNISHMENT with the limp wristed, bleeding heart, lollypops and hugs “rehabilitation” bullshit that does NOT work.

You’re right – our prisons are overcrowded – because rather than legalizing weed we stuff our jail cells full of people who happened to get caught with a dime bag. Or, other frivolous crimes that do not warrant incarceration.

I also feel that the punishment should fit the crime. I’m not interested in locking some 16 year old up for 10 years because he swiped 50 Cent’s new CD from Best Buy.

And, yes I AM saying that once you commit a crime you SHOULD lose some of your constitutional rights. You should have the right to due process and not to be tortured – but other than that – if you don’t want to spend the rest of your life in prison breaking big rocks into little rocks (literally) – here’s an idea… don’t do the crime.

By the way I am not attacking you personally. You’re entitled to your opinions even though I disagree. This subject is one of my trigger points – as someone who’s sick of more useless laws and tired of crime.

[ClakarEQ]

I know a ban is not some sort of magic bullet (hehe) my point was to try something new. My "ban" option is not realistic but it is still something we've not tried. I also know that criminals will still get guns even if we do ban it. But I can tell you first hand that getting weed for example is not without risk and if it were to be legal, it would be risk free. You assume that making something illegal somehow makes it easier to obtain, and that is false. You make something illegal and it WILL be (not maybe, but WILL be) more difficult to obtain and over time, IMO there could be positive results.

I also don't agree with the obsession you seem to have over liberals being the cause of all things wrong in our GOV. I think if you looked into it, the law is the problem not the liberals and it isn't like liberals make all the laws. I'm rather liberal, as are many friends I hang with and not one agrees with the benefits "law" seems to provide criminals while in jail.

It isn't the liberals putting pot smokers in jail, it's conservatives, I mean you know who is behind the war on drugs, same goes for putting the 16 year old in jail, that isn't the liberals. Conservatives IMO attempt to find all sorts of ways to put folks in jail while liberals attempt to maintain a criminals rights while going through the system. IMO it is 50/50.

As for the chain gang and busting rocks, I, as everyone I know is 100% on board with that. IMO criminals should be the folks doing the "chores" of our GOV, cutting the grass, washing the windows, all those little things, and the kicker, they do it for FREE .

Also, I don't take it as an attack, I enjoy these discussions

[Trielelvan]

You make something illegal and it WILL be (not maybe, but WILL be) more difficult to obtain and over time, IMO there could be positive results.

Except that contraband weapons are already illegal, and to obtain one still really isn't that hard if you really want one.
You make it sound as if weed is at all hard to obtain. I mean, you can't exactly go down to your local grocery store and go pick up an 1/8th on a whim, but it's not like it's really all that difficult. The risk is minimal.
I have to agree with Diekan here - by banning, well... anything really... you are only really helping criminals in the long run.

Taking away the ability to purchase things legally doesn't deter the bad guys.
Letting the bad guys know if they get caught they'll be strung up by their balls upside down by razorwire in a public dunking tank... now that's a deterrent.

[Haylo]

Truthfully the gun issue is probably one of the hardest things to handle fairly imo. I don't think that banning them is the answer but I also don't like the fact that they are so easily accessible. There has to be some way for your average law-abiding citizen to have access without making them so damn easy for thugs to obtain. I'm tired of having to open the paper and read about babies being shot in the head because they got caught in cross-fire.

I don't believe in the death penalty because I feel as if it's the easy way out and because there are just too many cases of things being proven wrong with DNA, further evidence etc. Someone who kills someone and then gets puts to death suffers for what, a minute? Seriously is that enough suffering? I've had a family member murdered and the bastard that did it is rotting in jail for the rest of his life, with no chance to ever get out. To me that's much more satisfying than if he had gotten a quick shot to the veins. What needs to happen is that US prisons need to start copying some of the more hardcore penal systems out there. Take away all this lap of luxury crap. There's a prison that looks like a freaking college campus, that's ridiculous. I'm talking stone buildings, a bed and a toilet. Take away all these leisure time and cable tv and distance college. Make it so prison is actually a place where you suffer again.

As far as these posts, i've been very pleasantly surprised at the mature level that has mostly been maintained. Almost no one has posted random stupid stuff without making some attempt to back things up. It's making this runup to the election a lot of fun. I look forward to the discussions.

[ClakarEQ]

The sentence is still correct, something illegal is more difficult to obtain than something legal. The nature of making something illegal means there is more risk and more difficulty

I don't want to turn this into a gun debate, we've had TONS of those already and I've never swayed from my opinion and I don't think anyone else has swayed from theirs. Lets agree to disagree .


Lets get back to the one foot in the grave McCain and his I hope this works VP

EDIT
As for the ban, you'll note that I said it won't work and would never be tried, I was just for attempting something "else".

[Eziekial]

[quote="Haylo"]Truthfully the gun issue is probably one of the hardest things to handle fairly imo. I don't think that banning them is the answer but I also don't like the fact that they are so easily accessible. There has to be some way for your average law-abiding citizen to have access without making them so damn easy for thugs to obtain. I'm tired of having to open the paper and read about babies being shot in the head because they got caught in cross-fire.
[/quote]

This line of thinking mixes up cause and effect. By focusing on the effect (babies being shot) you distract from the cause. It's common on a lot of hot issues and it's not particular to any party. However, it's difficult to determine cause and therefore, much less likely to part of the discussion. Many times, if you analysis an issue thoroughly, you find that the cause is really many things contributing to the over all problem. That's really why a lot of these discussions on this board are mostly futile and degrade into immature flame-fests rather than blossom into mind-opening debate. It's just too difficult to tackle such problems as they are intertwined into seemingly endless other issues...

I was tempted to start an analysis of some of these hot topics as a run up to the elections but I just don't have the time nor the heart to play the part of ignored referee. Besides, I'm not sure how I can even structure a forum debate to create a Why tree analysis, let alone have the technical know-how to display it.

[Evermore]

The sentence is still correct, something illegal is more difficult to obtain than something legal. The nature of making something illegal means there is more risk and more difficulty

Sir there are street corners here in philly and across the river in Camden where you can buy a gun as easily as you can buy a big mac.

[Haylo]

I really like how during the introduction of Cindy McCain, when they were talking about how cute it was that her and John both failed to tell their true ages when they met, and how they fell in love, they neglected to mention he was freaking MARRIED. Jesus got to love those family values of the Republicans.

[Arlos]

He left her because she'd been in a car accident and was disfigured, but had stayed the faithful wife, watching over his kids and waiting for him to get released. He got back from the war, and started sleeping around, then met Cindy, who was Richrichrich, started chasing her for 6 months, then while his wife was in the hospital for another operation, demanded a divorce. Bought her off with a couple houses and agreeing to pay her medical bills, and she agreed.

Yeah, some "Family Values" there....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/artic ... ehind.html

-Arlos

[brinstar]

do as they say, not as they do

[Diekan]

Man I hope Obama loses.

[Haylo]

If Obama loses we had better all pray that McCain beats the statistics. There is no way I could vote McCain with Palin as his VP. Not even if I was previously inclined to vote Republican. I don't know what everyone else sees when they look at John McCain but I see a sick old man. He just doesn't inspire confidence in me.

[Diekan]

Obama is going to have a hard time winning this election. We tend to forget that the majority of this country is just to the right of being centrist. This is also why a right wing conservative has a better chance of winning than does a far left liberal. 80% of the country considers themselves Christian and I am willing to bet if you asked around and or researched it, people in general are growing sick of political correctness, attacks on Christmas and so forth.

Choosing Biden as his running mate was almost as bad McCain choosing Palin. Two extreme lefties will equal disaster this November. Hollywood, northern liberals do NOT represent the average American, their values, their wants, their desires.

The country KNEW full well how terrible Bush was/still is, yet he was elected for a second term. And, why? Because the Democrats put Kerry up against Bush and the country in general doesn’t take well to liberal thinking elitists. Far left liberals have done an excellent job of painting themselves as holier than thou people who think they know what’s better for you than you do.

The Democrat party has been hijacked by the likes of “NBC” and “Moveon.org” which is truly sad because I don’t believe that the average liberal ascribes to the venom and hate those types of elitists spew.

What’s worse is that many people are going to vote for Obama just because he’s black – even though he more or less denounces his “white side” out of political expediency. Moreover, others will vote for him simply because they hate Bush – not realizing, or even caring what’s best for the country.

McCain is not Bush, Bush is not McCain. In fact McCain tends to lean a lot more to the left than Bush does on many issues.

But, when it comes to crunch time this November 4th, it’s going to boil down to who the American people ultimately feel more comfortable with. Obama is far left, he’s no where close to the center – while McCain, although leaning a bit to the left of his conservative base, is much closer to the center.

Liberals are “supposed” to represent tolerance and understanding, yet through the past several months all I’ve heard from them is hate and venom. The voters are not blind to this.

As silly as this is going to sound… another factor that’s going to hurt Obama is the age range of his supporters. The typical “college kid” does a great job of talking the talk, but when it comes to election day the odds of them getting out of bed while hung over to stand in line at the polls isn’t something I’d bet money on. On the other hand, you can bank on the fact that baby boomers WILL turn out in force and vote… for McCain.

If a person wishes to vote for Obama because they truly believe in the same values as he does and agree with his voting record – then by all means vote of him. Just don’t waste a vote and hurt the country because you hate Bush, because he’s “black,” or because NBC told you to vote for him.

If Obama gets elected this country will fall to pieces. We’ll see many more terrorist attacks, your taxes will sky rocket, crime will also sky rocket, jobs will be lost in droves, and government will grow by leaps and bounds.

In sum - Obama doesn't have a good chance of winning. Regardless of what Moveon.org or NBC tell you. This is a centrist country that's much more apt to vote center to far right than far left. A lesson the DNC should have learned with Kerry.

[Diekan]

He left her because she'd been in a car accident and was disfigured, but had stayed the faithful wife, watching over his kids and waiting for him to get released. He got back from the war, and started sleeping around, then met Cindy, who was Richrichrich, started chasing her for 6 months, then while his wife was in the hospital for another operation, demanded a divorce. Bought her off with a couple houses and agreeing to pay her medical bills, and she agreed.

Yeah, some "Family Values" there....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/artic ... ehind.html

-Arlos

As opposed to getting blow jobs from interns and sexually harrasing other women?

[brinstar]

just stop, man