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Author | Topic: Who Owes Income Taxes? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
crashfrog Member (Idle past 1489 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
but the amazing degree (and how easily) to which we, the public, can be fooled by propaganda when we trust, unquestioningly, those who appear to have "authority". But the US government does have authority. They have real authority. They're the very definition of "the authorities."
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1489 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Nice to see the Red state guys hankerin' for a tax cut when their states are the ones that recieve, generally, the highest amount of federal money per tax dollar collected in their state.
Good job, guys. Maybe we can have a tax cut when your states quit freeloading off the Blue states.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1489 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Yeah that map pretty much sums up the seething hatred I still feel for all you red state clowns handing Bush a mandate to torture, to pillage, and to gut our government's solvency and hand the proceeds to Wall Street. Good job on that, assholes. Of course, I can't wait to hear you reply, in the years to come "but we didn't know! We didn't know a vote for Bush was a vote for torture!" Bullshit. We only told you, over and over again, during the election. But you were too busy counting bullet holes on John Kerry's swift boat to pay attention.
Goddamn. I'm still angry. What is it going to take to get you Republicans to wake up? George Bush thinks that you've released him from any sort of accountability for anything he's done, ever. He's said so. What do you think the next four years have in store? This message has been edited by crashfrog, 02-11-2005 12:57 AM
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1489 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
I think I'd be willing to bet the farm that I'm not going to experience any torture over the next four years. I think you're being a little hysterical. Hysterical? You do realize that, under tacit approval from the top levels of government, our military tortured at least 8 people to death? I'm sorry, I didn't realize that torture was only bad if it happened to people we knew.
More of the same as the last four years without quite as large an increase in spending. So, you haven't read the new budget, then? The one that counts on billions in revenue from ANWAR drilling? One problem with that - drilling ANWAR is currently prohibited by law, and not likely to change. This too is the budget that doesn't actually include any budget expenditures for our operations in Afghanistan or Iraq, which could amount to hundreds of billions of dollars.
Obviously, there were a lot of people who were okay with the first four years. Actually, when you look at the President's approval ratings, they've rarely been over 50%. So, obviously, you're wrong. There weren't that many people who approved of how things have been going. There were, on the other hand, an enormous amount of people whom the GOP lie machine scared into voting against Kerry.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1489 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Is it impossible for our government to act like it has authority over matters it does not? Yes, it's impossible. By which I mean, there's no difference between the government acting like it has authority and the government having authority. It is, however, possible for the government to exert authority over matters it is barred from doing so by the US Constitution. This is obviously not something we should allow it to do, though I'm not certain what our recourse would be if it did. They do have the guns, and the mechanisms of authority. Like the man said political power comes out of the barrel of a gun. This message has been edited by crashfrog, 02-12-2005 01:48 AM
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1489 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
But don't you feel much safer now that Bush has established "Fatherland Securi...uh...I mean "Homeland Security?" Heh, not especially, no. In fact I couldn't believe my ears when I first heard of his plan. Homeland Security? Wasn't it Hitler who first coined that term, "Homeland"? Isn't that how all those dystopian-future science fiction novels start? With a shadowy government organization called "homeland security"? Could he have picked a name with more totalitarian overtones? I doubt it.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1489 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
The reason you or I know about any of that is because there are people, even in top levels of government, who care to put a stop to it. And yet the reason that no stop hs yet been put to it is because a slight majority of Americans don't seem to give a damn, and make no mistake, the Bush Administration clearly considers that "the accountability moment" for torture, a moment which has passed.
I can't speak for all of America, but it seems to me that Kerry's stiffness and lack of charisma You say those things like they're fact, but I found Kerry neither stiff nor uncharismatic. In fact I repeatedly observed him display far more poise and confidence than the petulant, "its hard work!", whining figure Bush became during the election.
I was pointing to his election win, anyway, meaning only that enough people were okay with the first four years to elect him to a second four years. And yet, when literally that question is put to the American people, a majority assert that no, they weren't ok with the first four years. So why did the American people appear to elect a president that they didn't like much in the first go-around?
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1489 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
This doesn't seem true to me. Here's John Yoo, counsel to the President and author of the legal brief that argued that the CIA and other organizations are exempt from restrictions on behaviors we would consider torture, as quoted in a piece by Jane Mayer:
quote: Reporting | The New Yorker Here's the President, directly:
quote: Now, he was speaking of his Iraq policy (which a majority of Americans don't support), but its pretty obvious that he and his staff are applying that rationale to literally every issue. The "accountability moment" has passed for this administration; a 3% victory in the election is taken as a mandate to do whatever they like.
This struck me as odd, since what I said was, "I can't speak for all of America, but it seems to me that..." I'm not sure why you said I say those things like they're fact. Because you said them like they were fact. Here's your exact words:
quote: You didn't say "it seemed to me that Kerry was stiff and lacked charisma", you said that it seemed to you those attributes were responsible for his loss. I don't see any qualification in that statement that suggested he possessed those attributes only in your view, or anything like that. You asserted that he was stiff and uncharismatic as though it were fact; what you qualified was that those attributes were responsible for his loss.
They weren't confident Kerry would be better. And why do you suppose that would be, given that his record in the Senate in regards to defense and the military represents a superior qualification to anything the Bush administration had to offer? Why do you suppose it was that Bush couldn't run on his own record? I mean, the only Bush campaign ad I ever saw that was about Bush's record as president was the one where he hugged the girl. You can keep acting like the American people made a reasonable choice, but the polls indicate that just isn't so. A whole lot of people voted against their own better judgement, against the facts, against every indication that a second Bush term would be bad news. We're going to have to figure out why millions of people voted against their own interests while they knew they were doing so. It sounds crazy, but the fact that a majority of the American people elected a president that only a minority actually approved of is crazy.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1489 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Just in case there was any doubt that my government is torturing people to death:
AP: Iraqi Died While Hung From Wrists
quote:
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1489 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
When torture is made public, Bush has to deal with it, and heads have to roll I don't see how you can say that, when its clear from your own statements that he feels he doesn't have to deal with it, and that heads don't have to roll. That's why I used the phrase "accountability moment." That's Bush's own words. What did you think he meant by that? Will there be accountability? That's up to us. But clearly Bush and his administration believe there is none.
I don't have a TV, and talk radio, left or right, doesn't seem to run campaign ads (not sure why) My guess is, because you live in Tennesee. There was little doubt who your state was going to elect; hence, little ad presence in your state. Missouri may have been the same way. I did try to keep up with the ads on the internet, though.
I don't think they did that. I don't see any other explanation. The American people did not make a rational choice.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1489 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
I don't think he meant that on torture. I think he meant that on other things. An interpretation I believe is contradicted by John Yoo's statement, specifically on the subject of torture:
quote: Yoo believes that the 2004 election, plus the acceptance of Gonzales as Attourney General, means that the American people have given their imprimateur for torture by the government, and he uses the language of the president to say so. I believe this is clear indication of the administration's views on the subject - they believe that their 2004 victory is the American people absolving them of responsibility for anything that they do. You can close your eyes to this, but the evidence is pretty clear to me - we re-elected a large group of people that are interpreting that re-election as tacit approval of everything that they've done so far, and anything they might continue to do in the same vein.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1489 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
He asked for all the slaves to give 1/5 of their food to store for the drought. They were "taxed" 20% and look at us today. The slaves in Egypt were doing much better (at least in that department). I think that's a great example, because many of the taxes we pay are based entirely on that principle of "a little money now saves us a lot of money in the future." So many of the social programs conservatives decry actually save us money in the long run.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1489 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
That would be bizarre, and I don't believe it happened. What else would you conclude when at the same time that majority re-elected the incumbent who ran on a platform of "more of what he did in the first term", a majority expressed disapproval with the decisions he had made during the first term? Combine that with the fact that, in polls that did not mention specific political candidates, a majority of Americans supported the policy goals set forth by Kerry? The polls are clear:1) A majority of Americans disapproved of Bush's first term. 2) A majority of Americans approved the policies and positions set forth by Kerry. 3) A majority of Americans voted for Bush. Any way you slice it, that's Americans knowingly voting against their own interests. Either that, or its a massive election fraud. But there's no evidence of the latter.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1489 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
and leftward on morality. Are we talking about the same O'Reilly? Bill O'Reilly? Fox News commentator and author of such books as "Who's Looking Out For You"? That guy? The one who rails against the "secularists" trying to eliminate the morals of our godly nation on every other broadcast? I have yet to see the slightest indication that he leans "leftward" on morality.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1489 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
I'm starting to get the idea that his TV and radio show are very, very different. Maybe this accounts for the wildy divergent opinions we're seeing.
BTW see if you can find the episode of Terry Gross's "Fresh Air", which airs on National Public Radio, where she interviewed Bill O'Reilly. I believe all her shows are archived at NPR - Breaking News, Analysis, Music, Arts & Podcasts : NPR, it's a pretty interesting listen. He storms out about halfway through.
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