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Post by Cornflake on Oct 27, 2006 21:20:31 GMT -5
"Evan Bayh and Richard Lugar."
I'll take it.
Millring, most of us here are really--down deep, underneath, if no one is listening--centrists. It's the bell curve at work. There's no inherent virtue to that.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2006 21:53:33 GMT -5
If there's a positive thing, it's that the left wing of the Democrat party is so extreme -- so unyielding -- that I believe they have forced a sizable portion of Democrats toward a conservative middle. Millring, examples please. BTW, I don't necessarily disagree, but I disagree with the timing. Democrats were far more left a generation ago then they are now, left enough to get me to (GULP!) vote Republican a couple of times. Clinton helped them get away from that (some bitter liberals say sarcastically that he was the best Republican president we ever had). Nancy Pelosi would be a moderate a generation ago. Not very revolutionary today with her 5 kids and numerous grandkids around her. But i would like examples of what you consider far left people among the Dems (minus the fringe people). Oh, Evan Bayh seems to be a good candidate to me also. Where is he, though?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2006 21:59:54 GMT -5
Breaking my self-imposed rule again on political posts. I think if you took a look at most issues that our country is so divided over, took it out of the hands of the politicians running for office and gagged the media, I think you'd find that on most issues a common ground could be found once we are allowed to see the truth of the issues and not what gets us whipped up for some good news reporting. The problem is that people getting along doesn't sell air time or news print. I'm for throwing everyone out of office. We start with a clean slate and run the election like we run a beauty pageant. Eveyone wanting an office must stand before us and tell us what they love about our country, and what they will do to help our country and the world. Everyone knows that no one wins a beauty pageant by trashing the other contestants and that will apply in this selection process as well. I haven't decided if there should be a swimsuit competition.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2006 22:18:40 GMT -5
"I haven't decided if there should be a swimsuit competition."
Karlynn, say what you want, but no one is going to get this old man into a swimsuit.
Seriously though, very few of us are all liberal or all conservative. It's just that issues get presented in a way that seem to force people into taking particularly rigid stands. I'm conservative about several issues, which would suprise some. Good post.
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Post by timfarney on Oct 27, 2006 22:25:18 GMT -5
Breaking my self-imposed rule again on political posts. I think if you took a look at most issues that our country is so divided over, took it out of the hands of the politicians running for office and gagged the media, I think you'd find that on most issues a common ground could be found once we are allowed to see the truth of the issues and not what gets us whipped up for some good news reporting. The problem is that people getting along doesn't sell air time or news print. I'm for throwing everyone out of office. We start with a clean slate and run the election like we run a beauty pageant. Eveyone wanting an office must stand before us and tell us what they love about our country, and what they will do to help our country and the world. Everyone knows that no one wins a beauty pageant by trashing the other contestants and that will apply in this selection process as well. I haven't decided if there should be a swimsuit competition. I think there's a much simpler solution: Remove the money from politics. It's really easy to say that and really hard to accomplish, because the people getting the money, hooked on the money, the people who believe they cannot survive another election without the money are the very people who would have to pass the election reform. But that doesn't change the fact that it is the answer, because money is the problem. There are other problems. There will always be problems. But the biggest problem, beyond a doubt, is that you can't get a congressional seat, much less the presidency, without millions of dollars. Those dollars inevitably come from special interests with special agendas, and they expect something for their investment. Modern politics is based on a carefully designed and legislated system of bribery, and a huge industry -- the lobbying system -- has grown to feed it and educate it. And really, not much is going to change until that does. The parties will continue to look more and more polarized while they miraculously manage to serve the same masters. It's really not much of a miracle when you think about it. The real masters our politicans serve don't care about abortion or social security or even that much about healthcare. They care about money. They want a return on their bribery investment. Washington works for corporate interests, and to a much smaller degree, a few highly organized and well-funded political interest groups. The electorate is secondary. Representative democracy is dead. Throw a flag over its casket. Tim
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Post by Cosmic Wonder on Oct 27, 2006 22:28:49 GMT -5
I think if you took a look at most issues that our country is so divided over, took it out of the hands of the politicians running for office and gagged the media... I think if you did that you would have Saddam's Iraq. Mike
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Post by millring on Oct 28, 2006 3:32:57 GMT -5
Even simpler solution: Constitutional amendment that prohibits amending a bill until it is passed or voted down. No more adding "education" spending to a military spending bill and then throwing a civil rights amendment onto the bill for good measure. No more "earmarks" goes without saying.
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Post by millring on Oct 28, 2006 3:39:47 GMT -5
You mean an example of the left being unyeilding?
Abortion would be one place. Irrationally unyeilding. I'll betcha every person in the country knows at least one child born after a brief 24 week gestation. Certainly everyone on this board knows at least one. And yet the left will scoff at any suggestion that life begins at conception, while fighting tooth, nail and vitreol to keep late term abortion legal. Hardly centrist. Hardly compromising. It's been all or nothing with the pro-choice crowd for over thirty years now.
Sure, the Pro-life crowd wants its way too -- talks a pretty unyeilding game. Difference? It didn't get its way and never will.
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Post by Doug on Oct 28, 2006 5:05:42 GMT -5
It it is politics then it's money, always has been. Been here as long as there has been a country. Washington attacked the farmers of W. PA over an unconstitutional tax. And it's never changed.
Before the US money was always politics, England, Spain, Rome, etc. even Ug was getting payoffs. Good definition of politics is: "Some people using money to make slaves out of other people"
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Post by timfarney on Oct 28, 2006 7:16:26 GMT -5
I don't think they're the same problem, but I'll take that too, John. I think that comes in a close second to private money in politics.
Tim
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Post by timfarney on Oct 28, 2006 7:41:15 GMT -5
Make the issue gun control, John, and you can reverse the whole argument. But I really don't think it's that the left is unyielding or the right is unyielding in any broad sense, I think it's that Washington has deliberately pushed a handful of dramatic, divisive, issues, that don't matter a lick to the folks in charge, to opposite extremes in an attempt (a pretty successful one) to polarize and divide the electorate and get it out of their way. The fewer intelligent, informed moderates there are in the electorate, the better. The more voters turning away in disghust and staying home on election days, the better. i don't think a bunch of corporate puppet masters got together in a sci-fi hideaway carved into the side of a mountain and plotted it. I think it evolved, that they figured it out a bit at a time and that it's still evolving and they're still figuring it out. But it's happening nonetheless. The electorate is becoming irrelevant.
And I'm starting to sound like a conspiracy theorist, so I'll quit now.
Tim
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Post by timfarney on Oct 28, 2006 7:43:53 GMT -5
Notice how they change with the content of the board. Hell, I'm going to keep watching. I think they might even be changing, for my view, with the content of my participation on the boards.
Damn Google is smart. Scary smart.
Tim
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Post by Deleted on Oct 28, 2006 8:35:26 GMT -5
You mean an example of the left being unyeilding? Abortion would be one place. Irrationally unyeilding. I'll betcha every person in the country knows at least one child born after a brief 24 week gestation. Certainly everyone on this board knows at least one. And yet the left will scoff at any suggestion that life begins at conception, while fighting tooth, nail and vitreol to keep late term abortion legal. Hardly centrist. Hardly compromising. It's been all or nothing with the pro-choice crowd for over thirty years now. Sure, the Pro-life crowd wants its way too -- talks a pretty unyeilding game. Difference? It didn't get its way and never will. Not sure I get it. Most people are against late term abortions, including many democrats. Contrary to popular belief late term abortions are NOT a common procedure and are usually performed when there are major medical problem. This seems like a bit of a straw man. Yes, there are fanatics on the Left who want this procedure available under any circumstances, and they are balanced on the Right by fanatics that want to ban all abortions, including those for rape or incest.
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Post by millring on Oct 28, 2006 8:43:10 GMT -5
No, they aren't " balanced on the Right by fanatics that want to ban all abortions, including those for rape or incest".
They get to have their way and kill babies in getting to have their way.
The "fanatics" you cite (on the Right) do not have their way. They have, in 30 years, had no impact on public policy.
And the "pro-choice" aren't about to compromise.
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Post by iamjohnne on Oct 28, 2006 8:44:49 GMT -5
Notice how they change with the content of the board. Hell, I'm going to keep watching. I think they might even be changing, for my view, with the content of my participation on the boards.
Damn Google is smart. Scary smart.
Yeah that is kinda scary. I wonder if they do that with email content?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 28, 2006 9:30:42 GMT -5
I think if you took a look at most issues that our country is so divided over, took it out of the hands of the politicians running for office and gagged the media... I think if you did that you would have Saddam's Iraq. Mike Didn't suggest that in terms of creating a new government. (And in Saddam's Iraq, no one was allowed to discuss anything unless it was how fabulous Saddam was.) My point was that if people were just allowed to discuss and understand without the politicians and media telling us how we should think based on their agendas, that we'd find that we really aren't as divided as it would seem.
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Post by guitone on Oct 28, 2006 9:45:37 GMT -5
Even simpler solution: Constitutional amendment that prohibits amending a bill until it is passed or voted down. No more adding "education" spending to a military spending bill and then throwing a civil rights amendment onto the bill for good measure. No more "earmarks" goes without saying. They will never buy this, as smart as it is it will limit the terror they can inflict on each other to get their bills passed....great system we have.
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Post by guitone on Oct 28, 2006 9:48:24 GMT -5
No, they aren't " balanced on the Right by fanatics that want to ban all abortions, including those for rape or incest". They get to have their way and kill babies in getting to have their way. The "fanatics" you cite (on the Right) do not have their way. They have, in 30 years, had no impact on public policy. And the "pro-choice" aren't about to compromise. and pro-life is not about compromise either....we must agree here to disagree. The pro-choice folks, while not to your liking are certainly in my book more flexible than the pro-life camp.
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Post by millring on Oct 28, 2006 10:01:16 GMT -5
Joel,
What is "flexible" about any abortion at any time for any reason? ...especially in light of the fact that most Americans, even those who claim to be moderately pro-choice Democrats, believe that life, though not starting at conception, has definitely begun WAY before birth.
There has been no compromise from those "flexible" pro-choice folks in 30 years.
When compromise legislation is sought -- whether to limit access to minors, or to limit late term, those same "flexible" pro-choice folks mobilize and make sure that no compromise is met.
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Post by guitone on Oct 28, 2006 10:06:33 GMT -5
If you want to look at extremists than your statement is right, as mine is right when I look at extremist pro-life people...so if we take the extremists out of the equation and look at the Silent Majority of both Pro-life and Pro-choice people, how far off then are our differences? I am in favor of a woman having this choice for herself, but there is a point in a pregnancy when it should not be done unless we see that there are extenuating circumstances for mother or child...as far as the banning of abortions in early term, that is not for someone else to decide for a woman that finds herself unprepared to be pregnant....but again, if we factor out the extremists in both camps are we really that far off, I bet not...... We can talk all day long about giving the child up for adoption, but that does not happen often, many children are born to parents unprepared emotionally, financially and in other ways to have children and it is the children who suffer. Even if we say we can take care of these poor children, we don't, and they suffer more for being born very often. There are more than two sides to this issue. Joel, What is "flexible" about any abortion at any time for any reason? ...especially in light of the fact that most Americans, even those who claim to be moderately pro-choice Democrats, believe that life, though not starting at conception, has definitely begun WAY before birth. There has been no compromise from those "flexible" pro-choice folks in 30 years. When compromise legislation is sought -- whether to limit access to minors, or to limit late term, those same "flexible" pro-choice folks mobilize and make sure that no compromise is met.
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