The other day, I see Grey Davis on TV, trying to beg the people not to kick him out of office. His excuse for everything that has gone wrong under his watch is that the vast right wing conspiracy is trying to gain control. Wake up asshole! Maybe people are going to kick your sorry rear out because you were arrogant from day one, and under you California experienced the worst energy crises in the nation's history and your state accumulated a debt large enough to accomodate the entire country. Davis can suck it, and he definitely deserves to be kicked out. Whoever has followed his progress as governor realizes that he is incompetent and arrogant in the face of crises. When his state didn't have power, he was lauding himself as a genius in front of the cameras. Now Californians have taxes through the roof, have to pay more than in any other state for energy, and face a 27 BILLION dollar debt which was nearly been classified with a "junk" rating from the S&P. Have fun in the unemployment line Grey.
Gross, in my opinion, its never the "President's economy." The economy is too huge and too international for it to be on the shoulders of one man, and the President is hardly the person to give credit for a good or a bad economy. Alan Greenspan, for example, has much more influence on economic matters than the president does. I do believe, however, that the president can negatively or positively effect the economy. When a president lowers taxes, the economy is positively effected because more money is in circulation and the opposite is true when taxes are raised because less money is in circulation. So to answer your question, its not Bush's or Clinton's economy, but the Bush tax cuts did help the economy, although to what extent can certainly be debated.
Haven't you seen the commercials? If subaru was really made in Japan, why is Paul Hogan (Crocodile Dundee) driving it? Why would it be called the "outback" instead of the "Mt. Fuji?" Come on Jesse! And even if it was made in Japan, Japanese have killed plenty of chinese in their day, so the ridiculous comparison stands. Booya!
These days, many people claim that cultural and racial diversity is essential. There are quotas to make sure that blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans get special opportunites to advance in society because of this high view of "diversity." I do not think that racism is non-existant, but I also believe that it is not such a major factor that entire groups of people are held down solely because of their race. I also believe that elites forget a very important factor when deciding what is diverse, that is the opinions and views represented. The color of ones' skin does not effect the way of thinking, and therefore if you hire a black person over a white person, you still may receive only one point of view. No diversity is accomplished, and in this "democratic" society, group thinking will take place and reason will be lost. The only way to ensure our most important freedom, one that is not constitutionally protected, freedom of thought, is to allow people to be exposed to many viewpoints and choose for themselves the right path. Instead of checking what skin color a person has, maybe universities should explore whether or not a potential faculty member of student will add new perspective and world view to the institution. That would benifit a free-thinking society much more than checking the "race" section.
Any soldier, any person, who does not stand up to evil when they see it is responsible for its existance and ultimately for its actions. Those soldiers had free will, and if you hold Hitler responsible for his actions, so too must you hold responsible those who carried out the orders. This is true for any situation, and not just hitler. Hitler is something that is so overused that it makes me sick. I guess that he is the only evil guy around that its politically correct to bash. Don't get me wrong, I hate Hitler with a passion, but others have also done evil things in history as well and get glazed over. Stalin is the most obvious example of this, as Gross has already alluded to. There are also many other evil mass murderers that get glazed over like Pol Pot and Saddam Hussein. I know that for a question like the one Gross posed, there is no easy answer. I will ask you all another very difficult question, would you forgive the soldiers who committed genocide? Simon Weisenthal wrote of such an experience in a hospital, when a Nazi SS soldier, on his deathbed, confessed to him of literally burning hundreds of Jews alive because he was following orders. The SS man wanted Weisenthal's forgiveness because he was a Jew. Weisenthal walked out of the room. Does the Nazi deserve forgiveness, and does Weisenthal have the ability to give it? I think he did the right thing.
The copyright laws are a form of control. The record companies try to cram crap down the throat of consumers through radio, MTV, and CDs, all the while taking all the $ for themselves, screwing the artist. What all these old hacks fail to realize is that the internet is a great marketing tool. What they also do not understand is that they cannot destroy the file sharing or the internet. The freedom of information cannot be stopped. If you want to support an artist, go to their concert. That is where they make most of their revenue anyways.
Yoko was obviously sent by Satin to reek destruction on all that is good. If it wasn't for her, right now we would be grooving to the beatles 20th comeback tour, with all the original members! Yoko is darkness and envelops all light. Have you ever listened to her music? WOW. Only a demonic entity could make sounds like that, and only the anti-Christ would currupt John Lennon with that pure evil. How dare you defend the epicenter of evil in the world Jesse!
For the left, the way of thought control is political correctness, for the right, it is patriotic correctness. This is a recent trend and it pisses the hell out of me. I am all for the singing of the star spangled banner and the pledge and all that, but when people refuse to stand, they are crucified! This is an unspoken way of stigmatizing debate and trying to control people's thoughts. Today, I went to a baseball game. At the beginning, was the national anthem, which was ok because the national anthem has been said at the beginning of baseball games for over 100 years. What bothered me was in the seventh inning stretch. The PA announcer asked everyone to STAND for a singing of "God Bless America." This is a song with no historical or traditional significance in it at all, it just says GOD blesses the country. I know that if someone didn't stand, they would be looked down upon by everyone else. Stop with this craziness! Stop with this chest pounding! This evangelical patriotism and patriotic correctness sucks!
Gross, I agree completely that America absolutely must hold itself to a higher standard than the rest of the world. That is why the right to dissent in the United States is so important. The citizens of this country must be allowed to make sure the government is kept fair and moral, because we all know the government won't do it themselves. For the same reason the United States must hold itself to a high standard, it must not hold itself to a low standard when dealing with the rest of the world. I agree with Gross' premise, but I also believe that it is the duty of the United States to oppose evil and brutality if we are to truly hold ourselves to a high standard. I realize that we are not perfect in that respect, but we should be.
Gross, I did read your post, and what I saw was you comparing the United States to Saddam Hussein. If it wasn't that, I don't understand the point of you getting so angry at me. "I agree that the number of prisoners in itself is not enough to condemn Saddam" is a direct quote from my post. Obviously your post had a lot more in it than just the statistics don't reflect that Saddam is bad. I agree with that part. You ignore the fact that Saddam did his horrid things to anyone who dissaggreed with him. You call them "traitors" and say that we too punish traitors. The law in the U.S. does not define a traitor as anyone who disaggrees with the government. If that was so, you would have been arrested by now. I don't think that all your logic is bad. We only talk about foreign policy too much on this forum. I probably agree with you much more on other issues.
