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There's some guy on there texting how he's "drowning himself in cigarettes". White people are weird.
Hey I'm white... and I voted for Obama... and I'm a Republican.
Mitt Romney is a douche bag. He's a worthless creep. How could 46 million people vote for him? He lied his ass off for six months in an attempt to get hispanic, women and the middle class to vote for him. He lost. I'm happy.
.....oh for the love of.....These people can't be real. They just can't.
My sister is one of them, along with almost my entire family. They were devastated by their loss.. yes... their loss. They view it very personal.
Last election my sister swore she was moving to Canada if Obama won. When I asked why she said that Obama was going to turn America in to a Socialist country. I looked at her with a bewildered look, "but sis, Canada is a socialist country, they have Universal Health Care." Her reply, "It would still be better than living in this country with a Communist for a President".
This election I didn't say a fucking word. I kept my mouth shut, but I know what they are thinking. The worst thing is that if Obama would have lost I would have been catching shit from twelve different directions. It would have never stopped. On top of which, no matter how bad it got, they would still have blamed Obama and if things got better is was because Romney was President.
They are so fucking ignorant.
LMAO!!!
That Kristen Neel is all over the web. People are trashing her for her comments.
Apparently Australians are trashing her because their Prime Minster (not a President) is a woman, an Atheist and lives with a man who she is not married to... HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Too fucking ironic.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/08/kristen-neel-anti-obama-australia-tweet-backlash_n_2093160.html
And that Australia has Universal Health Care... lol...
I'd say they can no longer afford that, so you're right to cut them some slack. They did lose something very personal : Their illusions. The hangover is going to be a bitch.
And to be fair to that Dunst kid, back when Dubya won his second term, the other side wanted to emigrate too. Only they knew where they were going. And they would have been welcome.
is a woman and an atheist who lives with her partner unmarried. And she doesn't always support what she believes.
Kirsten was thinking of John Howard, our former conservative PM who, in hindsight, is regarded as a leader of balance and integrity by both sides of the house. He was a deist rather than a christian.
Howard and his treasurer spent 2 terms paying off every skerrick of government debt and getting the Aussie budget into surplus in 2007.
Given the rest of the world's current government debt levels it was an awesome achievement.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Pretty tough on immigration too, wasn't he ? Not sure he would have let Kirsten in. Or me, for that matter.
I'm white and am certainly NOT mourning Romney. I could not stand him, Ryan or any of the rest of that crew.
I actually wanted Gary Johnson for President ( even though I knew he had a snowball's chance in hell of even carrying one state).
But between the Romney/Obama race. I preferred Obama to win.
The last thing we needed was some Mormon/Christian nutcase with a bunch of inept ideas.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
What policies of the their political platform did you find so acceptable that you actually considered yourself Republican ? What was it about the Democrats that you ( heretofore ) just couldn't bring yourself to abide by ?
Sounds like Thomas Jefferson.
Personally, I dislike both parties. There is no balance on either side.
I dislike pork spending. I dislike that the government pays contractors who are building a "weapon" even if they are behind schedule, if the weapon isn't working, or it isn't ever going to come to fruition. I dislike spending $5000 on a wrench (see 1980's).
I believe that when a bill passes no other shit can be added to it. I dislike that all too often bills have "tacked" on items which famously happened to Bush Sr. when he said "no new taxes" and low and behold, there was a bill he signed which had taxes added on to the coat tails. Yeah, I know why they do it, but that is politics as usual and it needs to stop.
I dislike "sink or swim" attitude of the Republicans and while I believe in helping others when in need, I do not believe in the abuses of the current system. I believe that we could make a system of giving which would work if we think outside the box. I'm all for preventing fraud.
I dislike war and dislike spending so much for so little. There hasn't been a war worth while since WWII when we had a dictator actually taking over the world and committing genocide. This does not include little involvements in skirmishes like Egypt or Libya. I believe in increasing the drone attacks and keeping smaller forces on the ground
I believe in closing down most of our bases around the world and bringing our troops home. I believe in a smaller military, but more high tech.
I am against abortion but I understand that in specific situations an abortion of the pregnancy is needed to keep the mother from dying. I think this is a personal decision which has no place in politics. I believe that abortion is used mostly as a form of birth control and I'm against this because people are lazy and don't plan ahead. I also believe in abortion in the situation of rape but I believe in the "morning after pill" instead of waiting so long to handle the issue.
I believe in a fair tax or flat tax. I believe that all businesses and individuals/families should pay X amount of their income to the government. No deductions. No red tape. One simple form for all parties.
I believe the IRS should be kept and that they could be used to investigate people who try to avoid paying taxes. I believe there should be stiff penalties for people who cheat on their taxes.
Taxes should be higher along with cutting in spending in order to decrease the national debt. It is the only way that we will get out of debt. It is the only way to rid America of a deficit.
I believe that unless their is an emergency (war, famine, weather) that there should always be a surplus or balanced budget. Did you know that in America there were only two Presidents who ever had a balanced budget or surplus? Holy shit Batman!
I blame the Congress most of all for excessive spending. This crap I hear about Boehner wanting to "cut spending" and "save America" is a complete joke. That fucker has been screwing America for years and doesn't even give the courtesy of a reach around.
People forget the check and balances of the United States government. Congress is the part of our government which decides spending. Yes, the President signs off on it, but so does the Senate. They are actually all to blame, but it starts with the Congress which is really the source of the problems.
I am pro-gay marriage. Marriage is not specific to christians.
I am pro-green, strict, policies on waste, green house gases and recycling. I would make recycling mandatory like they have in some European counties, meaning that companies which sell appliances are responsible for taking broken down appliances and recycling them instead of going to landfills.
I am pro-marijuana. I believe it should be taxed as well, other drugs. It would end the drug wars, in a sense. The same rules would apply for DUI and I believe that DUI penalties should be stiffer, a lot stiffer.
I am pro-prostitution. I believe it should be taxed and that the profession should be licensed and controlled.
I am against all forms of religion in the US government, which includes removing "in god we trust" from money and all references to any god on any federal property.
I'm pro-strict gun control. I do not believe the 2nd Amendment was written for the society of today, but I do believe that they can have weapons. I believe it should be controlled and very strict.
I am pro-universal health care.
There are other items which I won't mention here, I've gone on long enough, but I have a belief that some portions of the US government should be left alone (FEMA) while other portions of it should be left to the states (drug trafficking)
In closing, no I am not a Libertarian.
Digital, time after time i have repeatedly said that "everything sounds nice on paper". I agree that their is too much spending and I agree that we should have a surpluss. However, The government is not a checkbook nor is it a business. It is a social contract. While you can and should keep track of pennies, which we have not been doing, you are still dealing with a diverse society with all sorts of political and class differences, on top of unstopable natural disasters and a global economy that has an affect on us beyond our control.
I do see the biggest problem as being money having far too much an influence on government. If big money were concerned about our economic climate, that would be one thing, and there was a time in the past when it did reflect a more ethical attitude. But that climate simply is not there right now. Self interest is the norm in big money. It is why the military says right now "we don't need that extra money you are giving us". It is what has allowed banks and car companies and housing to wreck our economic car.
We need a real economy based on supply and demand at the conssumer level, not the extraction market we have now which is based solely on pleasing CEOs and shareholders. We SHOULD NOT kick the dept can down the road forever. But the order in which cuts are made matter. We need to invest first and raise taxes on the top first, then when revenue gets high enough and unemployment is low enough, then cuts would not have the affect the will if we do it now.
The IDEA of less government cannot work in our extraction market now. If the climate would change at the top, then I could jump in on that idea. But that requires the top to think about the invironment we all live in and not just about themselves.
We are falling behind in infrastructure and education. If we simply say "don't spend a dime", those two allready decaying things will simply long term, make us worse off. For cuts to work long term, we have to become introspective as an economy and be problem solvers rather than simply dreaming up ways to make money.
We cannot afford selfish narscissism which has been in control of our economic climate for the past 30 years. It has exploded the pay gap and cost of living and we spend the most on health care with an industry that makes its money by increasing the amount of denial of service.
I cannot state it enough, in an ideal world, it would be nice to have less government. But that climate just simply is not there right now and unless it changes, someone has to step in to correct things. So any reduction in government also has to come with the responsibility of self policing with direct investment in the private sector.
Right now what we need is not bigger government vs smaller government. Right now we need the private sector to do the right thing which it has not been doing at the top(not mom and pop shops), but big business needs to be concerned with us, not just it's CEOs or it's mansions or it's heavy handed influence. It needs to be the problem solvers it was that help us win WW2 and built our highway system and electric grid. If it did that, instead of creating the bubbles it has, we never would have gotten into this mess in the first place.
Nothing would make me happier than to have small and big business succeed. I do not like having my hours cut back. I do not like seeing job after job leave our boarders. But I am tired of the top saying "take less take less, take one for the team". That is what we have had for far to long and it is a lie that it works.
The bottem line is that when the non business owner does better, we all do better, including the business owner. So I constantly suggest that if the top wants less government, they can do it. They can set up the positive conditions themselves by doing more directly for their workers. And I will continue to bring up the billionaire Nick Hanour who said that WE, the bulk of the economy, the working class and middle class, create the demand. If our top were a majority of his mindset, I would have all the confidence in our economy. It is my hope that Nick can and will succeed in convincing his fellow billionaires to stop thinking aobut themselves and start thinking about the CLIMATE we all live in.
I am postitive that when that climate changes from the casino climate it has been, to a building investment climate where more demand is in the hands of the consumer, we can get back to being in the top of the global economy.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
toughness using offshore processing of migrants in places like Nauru in the unpleasantly named 'Pacific Solution'. All the migrants eventually were allowed in to Australia. But the idea of a few years in Nauru playing scrabble in tents in 40 degree heat kept the boats from coming. Australia lets in about 125-150,000 immigrants a year. Boat arrivals totaled a couple of thousand - 5000 or so. Mostly Hazaras from Afghanistan and Tamils from Sri Lanka. Both these groups are persecuted in their home lands.
The major numbers for 2010/11 are:
Country of birth Arrivals % Variation
New Zealand 25 772 42.2
China 14 611 -12.2
United Kingdom 10 944 -29.6
India 10 566 -32.4
Philippines 5 048 -15.3
South Africa 4 752 -33.6
Vietnam 3 339 -10.9
Sri Lanka 3 225 -27.4
Iraq 2 988 16.4
So as you can see, we are being invaded by the godless bloody kiwis.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
I read this and about fell off my chair laughing
I suspect that not everyone would describe him as a leader of balance and integrity, but I'll let that one through to the keeper.
I missed part of his term as leader, but he always struck me as a Christian, though I don't recall any bible bashing.
So, I'm curious as to why you describe him as a Deist.
http://eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=24159
is by someone who has studied the religion of all the PMs and Howard does come across as at least a nominal Christian.
http://www.stopthenscp.org/religioninpolitics.htm
is more didactic, pointing out how Howard utilised Christianity and quotes him saying:
‘I have endeavoured, completely inadequately, to live as best as I can according to the basic tenets of the Christian religion … there is no force which is greater for the enhancement of individuals and the liberation of the human spirit.’
Of course, Gillard also knows where the votes are and as far as I can recall, hasn't made any anti-religious statements, though she did have a go at the Australian Christian Lobby nutters and the Muslim rioters recently.
That wouldn't lose many votes though as I imagine most Christians and Muslims consider both of those groups to be fruitcakes.