Where is the US economy headed?

I'm afraid you are absolutely right, H2OMAN. Certainly Cyclops fails miserably. I have basically given him a challenge, and he failed, to which I have come very close to calling him a coward. To qualify that accusation, he is either very cowardly or very very deficient in having any honorable principles. But then again I have to remember this is a man that sees no more value to a human being than a rat, so it could be just a case of a total lack of any honorable principles.

Lee surrendered on 8 April 1865 and Lincoln was shot less than a week later on the 14th. Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address was made 4 March 1865, prior to the end of the war. Lincoln could not . . . let me repeat, COULD NOT . . . have made any plans . . . let alone "efforts" in re: the state of the nation after the war.

Your statement is illogical.

Furthermore, my generation was raised on textbooks that were written to appease the Texas State Board of Education. They seriously misrepresented both the Civil War and Reconstruction. Those books did not describe history but the conservative American point of view. Read Lies My Teacher Told Me. The author is not a liberal.

But Lincoln's speech is very liberal. Compare and contrast that speech with JFK's and Ronald Reagan's first. The conservatives do not engage in flattering or even moderate speech.

Have you read the article in the NY Review of Books, 25 March 2010? About the racism in the Tea totalitarian movement?

Surely, you have seen how the right slings constant mud at the left on this forum.

Why are you insulting me? Do you think you could ever have been honest? That you could have looked at your classmates with a clear eye?

When I was in college, the majority of my classmates were pretty apolitical and that was a tragedy. The most outspoken rightie on our campus would regularly debate me in the locker room (we were commuting students). I have to say that she was always polite and always backed up her arguments with references and never name called.

You just told me that I am on welfare or that I have been. If not, please express yourself with logic!

You think that I don't pay my taxes. Are you suggesting that I have been in jail? You sentences suggest that.

I have no idea where you were in the 60s, although your nom d'email suggests Oklahoma. It is hard to imagine an active SDS group in Oklahoma.

I was in a place where fraternities were closing down and their houses were being sold due to lack of interest. The kids still in frats tended to be business majors who handed in frat papers from a file in the remaining houses and frat boys drank rather than smoked pot.

I knew a great many politically active people who worked within the system with diligence and intelligence. And, yes, I knew people who were activists, myself included. My adult kids are proud that I marched with Martin Luther King. They love my friend who was a Freedom Rider and my friends who went down south for Freedom Summer.

Furthermore, it was the left wing students who wanted to return to the Seven Liberal Arts while the right wing students drank. It was the left wing students who wanted to teach who insisted on majoring in a subject rather than majoring in education. I knew of no campus in Michigan where the righties acquitted themselves with honor or took an interest in intellectual life.

Your constant insulting of me and my friends is enough. And if you are going to attempt to slime out of acknowledging that "the one that belonged to SDS and were lost souls, the liberals" is an insult, then you are not worth polite regard.

This air of ego and superiority that you righties have is galling. You had an exchange with Cyc about there being fewer conservatives. Don't you think that conservatives make trouble for themselves with their attitudes of superiority and . . . entitlement?

And there is no word for your attitude but entitlement.

Now, I realize that not all conservatives are members of the religious right but the long history of using the Bible to excuse any and all anti-social behaviour from supporting slavery to hosing freedom marchers to spitting on hospital workers because the picketers assume they are women going to get abortions just makes people hate Christians. I have always been a member of a Christian religious community . . . whether it was Roman Catholic, the Religious Society of Friends or the Unitarians . . . but the fundamentalists and their accepting Jesus Christ as their personal saviour then committing crimes in the name of Jesus makes me want to be a pagan . . . the problem is that I couldn't stand the continual presence of Wiccans.

I also am well aware that many conservatives are appalled by the Tea Totalitarians and by sarah palin.

I let it pass when you said that I did not understand the philosophy behind conservatism. I do and I know well and understand the history.

I sent a personal message to another leftie here that I was going to ignore . . . without announcement . . . the posts of one of the more prominent righties and I asked the left-leaning person to remind me if I slip into correcting the conservative person. I began to read a thread on a recent new item that interested me but a rightie was on it, jabbering away endlessly. "He" was told several times that he was making a fool of himself with his groundless remarks. I decided to simply skip his contributions and I still had the gist of the thread.

After a time, the left just stops listening. The name calling, the misinterpretation, the contradiction of their own stand means that these folks have lost all credibility.

I can never forgive the right for making the left wage so many battles to improve life . . . beginning with the abolition of slavery through the enfranchisement of women . . . through the child labor laws . . . into the anti-trust laws and the labor safety acts. But I might come closer to forgiveness if the right would be honest.

One last example. I hate non-literary novels. Waste of time. My former bookgroup read Memoirs of a Geisha. The book angered me because it is Gone with Wind reset in Japan. When the woman who nominated the book ran the discussion she said that she liked it because it was Gone with the Wind. I could deal, then, with having spend several days reading it because it made sense that someone would like something for the same reason I disliked it. She was honest.

I would love to meet an honest conservative. I hope they aren't unicorns.

POM, all I can say is that you have issues, lots of issues.


Good night.

No need to rebut all of your silly, illogical, and inaccurate statements, as this one is illustrative of how screwed up you are in your head. Suffice it to say I knew some SDS guys, and yes, they were at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma, believe it or not. They were some screwed up heads, that were confused, from sort of dysfunctional home lifes, looking for something that made sense to their twisted view of the world and help them understand things like Vietnam and all of that. The students that had their heads screwed on straight and did not waste time partying or pot smoking never wasted their time with that sort of stuff, they went to college to learn something useful to prepare them for a responsible career into something to support their plans for adulthood and supporting a family.

Indeed she does. Serious ones.

Another example of nonsense out of you. Do you even read my posts? I do not recall ever accusing you of being on welfare. If you have an example, please provide it. You truly do have multiple problems of comprehension here, pom. If you can't read these posts accurately, then that explains why your understanding of history and Lincoln for example is so skewed completely out of reality. And unfortunately, I hate to say this, but it seems to me that alot of hatred and resentments come forth from pom's opinions here. I have even complimented her at times, but no return favors, she castigates anyone that disagrees with her with some of pretty severe venom. She seems to want to blame or hate anyone that disagrees with her, and it isn't based upon evidence, it seems to me to be based upon emotional prejudice, maybe instilled at an early age or in school or something. I would be interested in her early growing up years, what happened pom?

Okie-It is obvious that plainoldme is supremely ignorant about a great many things. She obviously is not widely read and knows little about what is really going on.

SDS at Oklahoma--OF COURSE. All Plainoldme would have to do is to do a little basic research(My 12 year old nephew can find an answer--why can't she?)

Note the following, Okie, which backs up your assertion:


National Day of Action Against the Occupation of Afghanistan

Endorse our Call to Action: : "U.S. Out of Afghanistan! End the War Now!"

Participating/Endorsing organizations:
1.University of Minnesota SDS
2.Animas SDS
3.UNC-Chapel Hill SDS
4.UNC-Asheville SDS
5.Tuscaloosa SDS
6.Milwaukee SDS
7.UCLA SDS
8.Rochester SDS
9.Connecticut Students Against the War
10.University of Cincinnati SDS
11.DC SDS
12.University of Rochester SDS
13.College Park SDS
14.Tacoma SDS
15.UNC Charlotte SDS
16.University of Illinois - Chicago SDS
17.University of Florida at Gainesville SDS
18.University of Central Florida " Orlando, FL
19.Durham SDS " Durham, NH
20.Columbus State University " Columbus, GA
21.Roberts Wesleyan College - Rochester, NY
22.Houston SDS - Houston, TX
23.Harrisburg Area Community College - Harrisburg, PA
24.Chicago SDS - Chicago, IL
25.Montevallo SDS - Montevallo, AL
26.University of Oklahoma SDS - Norman

***********************************************************
She is as clueless as Cyclops. Both of them write without giving any evidence.

Plainoldmewrote:

Furthermore, it was the left wing students who wanted to return to the Seven Liberal Arts while the right wing students drank. It was the left wing students who wanted to teach who insisted on majoring in a subject rather than majoring in education. I knew of no campus in Michigan where the righties acquitted themselves with honor or took an interest in intellectual life.

**********************************************************************
I do not think that Plainoldme can find a shred of evidence to back up such
GENERALIZATIONS. Note--It was the left wing students( all of them?????) who wanted to return to the Seven Liberal Arts while the right wing students drank( all of them????)

No-Plainoldme- You are very very mistaken. Here is some evidence that you are mistaken and more is available.

It is the left wing which does not want to return to the Seven Liberal Arts, plainoldme--not the right wing. Jet Stream Jesse and his leftist crew worked very hard to destroy the Seven Liberal Arts:

Note:

Printer Friendly Version...

November 06, 2004

Learning To Love The West
By John Zmirak

[Recently by John Zmirak: Vatican Smelling The (Turkish) Coffee]

If you have a college bound child and you hope he will be taught about Western civilization, be prepared to choose carefully. Only a few universities will have what you’re looking for.

At most American colleges"including, emphatically, almost all the elite institutions"the curriculum from your undergraduate days has been eviscerated by multiculturalism, careerism, and consumerism.

VDARE.COM readers know about the ideologically driven assault on Western Civilization courses. This attack, which began quietly in the 1970s, became brazen during next decade. The turning point in the struggle is discussed in the educational guide I edit, Choosing the Right College

“Stanford University’s reputation as a leader in both the sciences and the liberal arts diminished when it abandoned its Western civilization requirement in 1987 after a storm of student protest led by Jesse Jackson (“Hey ho, hey ho, Western Civ has got to go”). These events, considered by some critics to mark the coming-of-age of academic political correctness, placed Stanford at the center of a two-decade-long nationwide movement that has virtually removed the systematic study of Western civilization from college campuses across the country.

According to a survey conducted by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, only three of the top fifty-five schools in America"Columbia, Colgate, and the University of the South"require a specific course in Western civilization. None of the schools requires a course in American history...

“Today, instead of Western civilization Stanford requires courses in world cultures, American cultures, or gender studies. Perhaps as a result, Stanford students have turned away from the liberal arts towards technical fields such as computer science and engineering.

************************************************************************

You got that-plainoldme--Only three of the top fifty-five schools in America require a specific course in Western Civilization or a course in American History.

Do you know why, plainoldme? It is because leftists like Jesse Jackson have put political correctness and gender/race courses before American History or a specific course in Western Civilization--They marched around chanting-Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western Civ has got to go.

Why don't you do some reading, plainoldme?

***********************************************************************
They also do not have any specific courses in Western Civilization at Berkeley where Cyclops is based, plainoldme. The reason is that they don't believe in Western Civilization at that place. The favored course is called, I have been told,
The UN and World Government.

And the SDS group in Oklahoma was in the 60's, when I was there. I knew the people, so it is obviously a fact, I have no need to lie about it here. Besides, I don't care if she believes it or not, I know it to be true, I was there. But the interesting thing is that she has this stereotypical bias in her head about so many things, that apparently she believes SDS could not exist in such a conservative and backwoodsy place like Oklahoma, at least that is the impression I get out of her opinions, she has her mind made up about groups of people, places, states, whatever, and if facts don't agree with her predisposed beliefs and biases, she is quick to accuse the bearer of facts as a liar. Very serious headcase it appears.

Do you think it might be possible that she would read the list which was replicated for her?

Plainoldme wrote:
quote
I let it pass when you said that I did not understand the philosophy behind conservatism. I do and I know well and understand the history.
end of quote
I am eager to learn. I pray that she would teach us about the philosophy behind conservatism, but if it is as mixed up and erroneous as the rest of her posts, I don't think our time would be well spent.

Plainoldme is not only lacking in Historical knowledge but also in grammatical skills.

She wrote:

@okie,

Finally, your third paragraph is completely incorrect. Business has nothing to do with freedom and liberty. You ignore the Robber Barons . . . the sweatshops. . . child labor . . . the struggle for the 40 hour week . . .the need for OSHA and workman's comp.

*****************************************

Note--She said that business has( present tense) nothing( gross generalization) to do with freedom and liberty, You ignore the Robber Barons, the sweatshops, child labor,the struggle for the 40 hour week,the need for OSHA and workman's comp.

Since she used the present tense HAS, I am assuming she is talking about the PRESENT, yet she uses examples which refer to many years past.

Poor grammar or confusion? Or both?

Liberals crack me up over their obsession with "Robber Barons, sweatshops, child labor, and all the rest of their garbage taught them by leftist and Marxist professors in college. Its like pull a string on a toy, and out come the buzzwords like clockwork, pre-recorded mantras. I wonder if when I had to go out and feed the chickens and milk the cows when I was a little kid, could I have sued my parents for working my little tail off too much? And I always dreaded the day my Mom, would say, hey its potato digging day, man it was hot out there scratching through the dirt after the potato fork brought up the potatos, then hauling them all off to an old shed to store for the winter. And I probably wasn't even 6 or 7 years old when she started working me like that. Little did I know I was being absolutely abused!

As far as Robber Barons, has anyone ever informed pom that it was a free country, nobody held a gun to anyone's head to force them to work for anyone. They only did that in places like the old Soviet Union probably, which is possibly a place she has always wished she could have grown up, at least that is the impression she gives, after all America has been a totally unjust place for a very long time. I am fairly confident that pom loves to hear Obama mention the term "SOCIAL JUSTICE," a favorite term of ultra-leftist wild eyed tyrants. His hero, Jeremiah Wright, also likes that term.

Profoundly ignorant on your part and also disrespectful. My guess is that you enjoyed the fruits of the labor struggles which came before your time; you ought to thank those who fought to get reasonable labor laws applied in the US.

Those things you call 'garbage' are real things, Okie, whether you want to admit it or not.

Cycloptichorn

I am not favoring abusing children, no way, but working a few a little would sure beat what we see now, unattended children coming home to an empty house to do drugs and sex. Use some common sense, cyclops, your liberal agenda can also and has also taken things to the extreme in the opposing direction. Besides, nobody had a gun held to their head to make them work their children work in sweatshops, parents ultimately should be responsible for what decisions are made. My point is that your obsession with all of those so-called abuses are far too exaggerated from the reality of it. I think some laws are okay, reasonable ones, but in alot of cases those problems could have been taken care of by simply exercising common sense and our liberties and freedoms. And the effects of liberal laws now are causing widespread abuse involving sweatshops and employment abuse in other countries that have to build all the junk to sell to us at cheap prices. We could be doing it here if not for all the ridiculous labor and production regulations and laws. A few are fine, but we have gone to the extreme.

Better to abuse them by allowing those same irresponsible parents to ship them off to work, eh?



Like what?



Yes but the point of Child labor laws is to protect them from both business AND bad parents. I'm sure you realize this is true. Those same parents who don't properly watch their kids probably would stick 'em in a sweatshop for money.



It's not exaggerated. Every protection the modern worker has was fought for and paid in blood.

Why don't you give us an example of which problems you think could have been taken care of by exercising 'common sense.' And try and show that you have any historical understanding at all by describing the process that you think should have been used for people to secure these rights from business.



Which ones do you think are extreme? Minimum wage? Workman's comp? The 40-hour week?

Do you really want to see sweatshops here in the US?

You can't blame liberals for the fact that other countries have poor labor laws, Okie. You should blame the Conservatives that run those countries.

Cycloptichorn

Is running a paper route abuse, cyclops? That would be one example.

At least you are good for a few laughs everyday, cyclops, even if you don't have much common sense as a liberal residing in Berkeley. I had a friend that taught in Berkeley, and he was also a hoot. He was obsessed that Marxism was the answer, until after living in numerous countries he finally admitted capitalism was the worst economic system on the face of the earth, EXCEPT ALL THE REST OF THE SYSTEMS, and also admitted the old ragtag farmers he grew up with in Oklahoma that vigorously and openly were proud of America had been absolutely right all along. He wasted half of his life trying to disprove it, did drugs, and all the rest of it. Yes, he finally woke up to why the Europeans, including his ancestors, risked their entire being to come to the hope of the world, the shining city on a hill, the bastion of freedom and liberty, the United States of America!

Are you saying it is illegal for a young person to run a paper route?

That's a choice the kid makes, man. It's not forced labor. Neither is mowing lawns. C'mon.



Your friend's experience has nothing to do with how Berkeley is today, at all. Seriously. You guys seem to think that this place is frozen in the 60's. I assure you it is not. Berkeley is essentially a rich suburb of San Francisco at this point, and while it is socially liberal, you find quite a bit more fiscal conservatism then you imagine.

You didn't respond to my question: which historical labor laws do you think could have simply been accomplished by 'common sense?' I do not think you will be able to offer a coherent answer to this question.

Cycloptichorn