Bush is back!

Here is a history lesson for you, DS.Which president founded OSHA and the EPA?

This will only fuel more revision of voting systems.I voted by absentee ballot this year for the first time, and I look at the difference between that and the "provisional" vote that was used in a lot of places (although not equally well implemented -- ohio sticks out as a bad example).The point is that you cast a paper ballot vote and put it in an envelope that you seal and sign and certify your elegibility to vote, and in both cases this information is checked to ensure that (1) it is valid (ie that I am registered) and (2) that there are no other votes with my registration tagged on it.This would seem to answer all the questions republicans raise on voters and the "democratic vote fraud" system.Take this a step further: make the ballot with a carbon copy that the voter keeps and that it has code number on it.When the votes are counted they produce a list with the votes opposite the code numbers so that the voter can confirm (1) that the vote was counted and (2) it was counted properly. Add a method to appeal votes that are not counted so that legitimate votes that have been held back can be counted if the correct information is provided.This would answer all the questions democrats raise on vote counting and the "republican vote fraud" systemMake this program universal, and the lawyers can go to bed with the rest of us when the votes are cast ... the votes can be counted later.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

Going back to this from the first page I would like to know why all terrorists and/or facist groups we are fighting are Islamic. Last I checked we were attacked by an American, Timothy McVeigh(sp?) attacked Oklahoma City and were not at war with all American terrorists just Islamic ones, because it is easy to ethinicly profile them.Also on the facists the biggest one in the world , North Korea which has WMDs and is still communist, is being ignored by Bush.

It's not the people. It's the lifestyle. Like it or not, a solid majority of Americans see the gay lifestyle as voluntary, unnatural, and morally problematic.On the other hand, a solid majority also don't care much what adults do in the privacy of their homes, as long as they are not asked to cheer it on or subsidize it. Nor do they wish to deny anyone the right to work, live anywhere, keep and bear arms, etc. on the basis of such private adult conduct.There is a distinction between tolerance and enthusiastic approval. Learn it.

Being gay isn't a lifestyle, though.Fishing is a lifestyle. Homosexuality is a sexual orientation. Not a lifestyle.

I think I'm going to get a suspension for saying this, but what the hell. F*** you, paisano.

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Hate world.Revenge soon!

Ah yes, the tolerant Left.

You know, we're actually done with tolerance. Sorry. I figure that if the anti-civil rights movement can string up black folks and tie gay men to fences and beat them to death, well... turnaround is fair play, don't you think?Tolerance is done. It's been replaced by seething anger. If I were you I'd think twice before you started picking on the "tolerant" liberals you think won't fight back.

No, I don't. I find that stuff repugnant. I have never advocated it, here or anywhere else, and I blackly resent both the insinuation, and what I regard as perilously close to a personal threat.I think it is far past time for the administrators to step in here.

But largely, you stand with those who do. I mean, you're not with us, so you must be with them, right?I mean, I really don't see much of a substantial difference between folks like you, who want gays to be just a little less equal, and them, who want gays to be all the way less equal.Look, if you don't like the company your beliefs put you in, that's not really my problem.

No, it's not fair play and it also is not the type of thing that should be encouraged or condoned here.

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How pierceful grows the hazy yon! How myrtle petaled thou! For spring hath sprung the cyclotron How high browse thou, brown cow? -- Churchy LaFemme, 1950

Meh. I'm sorry you folks got all touchy about it, but honestly, I haven't said anything worse than what I've been hearing from folks like Paisano for the past couple of days. Of course, I was being facetious. The scary thing is, the folks I've been hearing haven't been.But I trust my point is clear. The days when liberals are going to be your kick-around guys in the name of "tolerance" are over. If conflict is the price for civil equality and opposing theocratic intrusion into our pivate lives, then that's the price we'll pay.

When you become the enemy to win a battle you have lost the war.The problem is not tolerance but intolerance and how to defuse it.Liberals will survive and continue to work for improvements: that is what being liberal is about.I think it was Ned that asked for definitions of liberal and conservative, and to me a liberal looks forward to the future with hope for the opportunities that it implies, while a conservative looks at the future with apprehension, worried that they will have to change. Liberals believe in change, conservatives don't.Change happens, it is inevitable, so those that are better equipped to understand and manage the changes will be happier. They will also be liberal. Those that fight change and do not try to understand and manage it will be unhappy. They will also be conservative.There is opportunity. There are libertarians, there are fiscal (old school) conservatives, that are not being served by the current GOP pogrom. The democrats can take fiscal responsibility (pay as you go or financially planned spending) and government review (started by Clinton and Gore and actually resulting in reductions in government size and costs) and incorporate them with a strong emphasis on core American ideals of freedom, liberty, justice, equality and basic individual rights. Show that their programs are based on these concepts and that they are rationally developed to provide the best service to the people of the whole united states, and allow the party to accept even more people and ideas than ever before, and the party will grow. Let the party show the way to voter reform by the way they run their primaries and invite everyone to partake. Solve the issues of voting for multiple candidates and for properly validating and counting votes so that lawyers can cast their votes and go home like other citizens and people can be assured that they have the best voting system in the world -- for we should settle for no less than the best.That is how to be a model for others to follow.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

Being tolerant of intolerance is not going to accomplish that. Our Founding Fathers went to war because their freedom was unfairly restricted. They never tried to make the argument that other people had the freedom to restrict their freedoms.But I see what you're saying. Conservatives believe that things worked in the past, so the past should continue into the future. DarkStar and his ilk have made it very clear that they see the problem as one of a deviation from some kind of "Golden Age."We need to help them see that, if that age ever even existed, it was Golden only for the rich white anglo-saxon Protestants. Everybody else took it right in the ass.

paisano writes:

quote:

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Like it or not, a solid majority of Americans see the gay lifestyle as voluntary, unnatural, and morally problematic.

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So you think you're right because the crowd that agrees with you is bigger than the crowd that doesn't? What grade are you in, again?