I support the people being able to decide if they want marijuana legalized or want same-sex marriages. In our democratic republic, with very few exceptions defined in the Constitution, it is the people and not an authoritarian govrenment who determine what the social contract shall be. The Constitution ensures that there will be no tyranny of the majority and allowing the people maximized liberty to develop the social contract ensures that there will be no tyranny of a minority. So long as individual liberties are not infringed, no group with an agenda should be able to override the social contract, and, so long as individual rights are not compromised, the will of the majority is the only logical means of writing that social contract.
So when the current president ran on a platform of universal health care, and was voted in by a clear majority, you accept that as the will of the majority to have universal health care?
Foxfyre, do you, or do you not, support legalizing marijuana and same-sex marriage?
For the second time yes under the conditions I described. If you want an unqualified yes or no I cannot provide that because both issues are too complex for an unqualified yes or no, and no, I do NOT wish to debate either on this thread unless it should become appropriate on this thread. I have debated both ad nauseum on other threads, however. Conservatives will likely represent my views on those issues honestly. Many liberals will represent my views on those issues dishonestly. So let's let it go at that.
Perhaps, but it seems to be you who can't or won't answer questions about the statements you are making. I have a pretty good idea of what I am saying in the statements I am making.
Does she know that she's constantly contradicting herself?
Conservatives will likely represent my views on those issues honestly. Many liberals will represent my views on those issues dishonestly.
I don't care to debate those issues here, either, but my God this is hilariously hypocritical. Do you realize how dishonest this statement of yours is?
You can't know what's in other people's heads to know if they're being dishonest or not, so stating that you do know they're dishonest is a falsehood.
Just another Foxie bs that others can see, but she is totally blind to. She even believes she's capable of making such sweeping statements about honesty while being totally ignorant about what she's talking about. Does two negatives make a positive - in her case? LOL
Foxie's flaws are too many to count, but I'll make a bet with anyone that she's going to do it again in short order - whether it's about contradicting herself or making a complete ass of herself by making unprovable statements!
0 Replies
DrewDad
3
Wed 30 Sep, 2009 06:54 am
@FreeDuck,
FreeDuck wrote:
Foxfyre wrote:
I support the people being able to decide if they want marijuana legalized or want same-sex marriages. In our democratic republic, with very few exceptions defined in the Constitution, it is the people and not an authoritarian govrenment who determine what the social contract shall be. The Constitution ensures that there will be no tyranny of the majority and allowing the people maximized liberty to develop the social contract ensures that there will be no tyranny of a minority. So long as individual liberties are not infringed, no group with an agenda should be able to override the social contract, and, so long as individual rights are not compromised, the will of the majority is the only logical means of writing that social contract.
So when the current president ran on a platform of universal health care, and was voted in by a clear majority, you accept that as the will of the majority to have universal health care?
MENLO PARK, CA -- Public support for health reform ended its summer slide, reversed course and moved modestly upwards in September, according to the latest Kaiser Health Tracking Poll.
Fifty-seven percent of Americans now believe that tackling health care reform is more important than ever -- up from 53 percent in August. The proportion of Americans who think their families would be better off if health reform passes is up six percentage points (42% versus 36% in August), and the percentage who think that the country would be better off is up eight points (to 53% from 45% in August).
Despite the uptick, a substantial share of the public (47%) favors taking longer to work out a bipartisan approach to health reform, compared to 42 percent who would prefer to see Democrats move faster on their own. Meanwhile, the public continues to view the action in Washington with mixed feelings: The largest share (68%) said they were "hopeful" about reform, but 50% are "anxious" and 31% "angry."
Quote:
Methodology
The survey was designed and analyzed by public opinion researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation and was conducted September 11 through September 18, 2009, among a nationally representative random sample of 1,203 adults ages 18 and older. Telephone interviews conducted by landline (801) and cell phone (402, including 147 who had no landline telephone) were carried out in English and Spanish. The margin of sampling error for the total sample is plus or minus 3 percentage points. For results based on subgroups, the margin of sampling error is higher.
The full question wording, results, charts and a brief on the poll can be viewed online.
Here is a good piece that relates to the slander and libel heaped upon Obama.
Where Did ‘We’ Go?
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: September 29, 2009
I hate to write about this, but I have actually been to this play before and it is really disturbing.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Thomas L. Friedman
I was in Israel interviewing Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin just before he was assassinated in 1995. We had a beer in his office. He needed one. I remember the ugly mood in Israel then " a mood in which extreme right-wing settlers and politicians were doing all they could to delegitimize Rabin, who was committed to trading land for peace as part of the Oslo accords. They questioned his authority. They accused him of treason. They created pictures depicting him as a Nazi SS officer, and they shouted death threats at rallies. His political opponents winked at it all.
And in so doing they created a poisonous political environment that was interpreted by one right-wing Jewish settler as a license to kill Rabin " he must have heard, “God will be on your side” " and so he did.
Others have already remarked on this analogy, but I want to add my voice because the parallels to Israel then and America today turn my stomach: I have no problem with any of the substantive criticism of President Obama from the right or left. But something very dangerous is happening. Criticism from the far right has begun tipping over into delegitimation and creating the same kind of climate here that existed in Israel on the eve of the Rabin assassination.
What kind of madness is it that someone would create a poll on Facebook asking respondents, “Should Obama be killed?” The choices were: “No, Maybe, Yes, and Yes if he cuts my health care.” The Secret Service is now investigating. I hope they put the jerk in jail and throw away the key because this is exactly what was being done to Rabin.
Even if you are not worried that someone might draw from these vitriolic attacks a license to try to hurt the president, you have to be worried about what is happening to American politics more broadly.
Our leaders, even the president, can no longer utter the word “we” with a straight face. There is no more “we” in American politics at a time when “we” have these huge problems " the deficit, the recession, health care, climate change and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan " that “we” can only manage, let alone fix, if there is a collective “we” at work.
Sometimes I wonder whether George H.W. Bush, president “41,” will be remembered as our last “legitimate” president. The right impeached Bill Clinton and hounded him from Day 1 with the bogus Whitewater “scandal.” George W. Bush was elected under a cloud because of the Florida voting mess, and his critics on the left never let him forget it.
And Mr. Obama is now having his legitimacy attacked by a concerted campaign from the right fringe. They are using everything from smears that he is a closet “socialist” to calling him a “liar” in the middle of a joint session of Congress to fabricating doubts about his birth in America and whether he is even a citizen. And these attacks are not just coming from the fringe. Now they come from Lou Dobbs on CNN and from members of the House of Representatives.
Again, hack away at the man’s policies and even his character all you want. I know politics is a tough business. But if we destroy the legitimacy of another president to lead or to pull the country together for what most Americans want most right now " nation-building at home " we are in serious trouble. We can’t go 24 years without a legitimate president " not without being swamped by the problems that we will end up postponing because we can’t address them rationally.
The American political system was, as the saying goes, “designed by geniuses so it could be run by idiots.” But a cocktail of political and technological trends have converged in the last decade that are making it possible for the idiots of all political stripes to overwhelm and paralyze the genius of our system.
Those factors are: the wild excess of money in politics; the gerrymandering of political districts, making them permanently Republican or Democratic and erasing the political middle; a 24/7 cable news cycle that makes all politics a daily battle of tactics that overwhelm strategic thinking; and a blogosphere that at its best enriches our debates, adding new checks on the establishment, and at its worst coarsens our debates to a whole new level, giving a new power to anonymous slanderers to send lies around the world. Finally, on top of it all, we now have a permanent presidential campaign that encourages all partisanship, all the time among our leading politicians.
I would argue that together these changes add up to a difference of degree that is a difference in kind " a different kind of American political scene that makes me wonder whether we can seriously discuss serious issues any longer and make decisions on the basis of the national interest.
We can’t change this overnight, but what we can change, and must change, is people crossing the line between criticizing the president and tacitly encouraging the unthinkable and the unforgivable.
Foxfyre, do you, or do you not, support legalizing marijuana and same-sex marriage?
For the second time yes under the conditions I described. If you want an unqualified yes or no I cannot provide that because both issues are too complex for an unqualified yes or no, and no, I do NOT wish to debate either on this thread unless it should become appropriate on this thread. I have debated both ad nauseum on other threads, however. Conservatives will likely represent my views on those issues honestly. Many liberals will represent my views on those issues dishonestly. So let's let it go at that.
Foxfyre, I think liberals tend to look at many issues from the wrong perspective. Individual liberty is wonderful, but that does not mean that our liberty should be harming the liberty and well being of others. For example, we don't have liberty to steal, commit murder, speed on the highways, drive unsafe vehicles, drive while drunk, commit incest, and so forth. Some of the things that liberals consider as a right that they should have, is for everyone to pay for their health care, or something like that.
Enter into the mix here, smoking pot, same sex marriage, abortion, liberals claim a right over their own bodies, but this is not really a fact, as we do not have a right to every kind of drug use, nor is prostitution a right in most areas, nor can we yell fire in a crowded room or even play loud music all hours of the day in some places. It is offensive and it offends the rights of other people. In the case of abortion, it takes the life of another human being, or another human being to be born, that point has to be resolved and debated. When a behavior or act harms someone else's rights, then the line has been crossed. So in the areas of marijuana and gay marriage, that is the sticking point, where do your rights end and someone else's begin. One of my basic beliefs as a conservative about what government properly should do - is to protect us from each other, and so the really tough work is to nail down just how some laws fit into that idea, whether they are proper or not and just where do we draw our lines in society to accomplish that.
That pretty much spells out our current political life in the US: it's not only our economy that has lost its way. I'm not so sure there is any turning around the ugliness that has permeated our politics since January 20.
0 Replies
okie
0
Wed 30 Sep, 2009 08:46 am
@Advocate,
Advocate, it is not slander or libel if it is true. Also, opponents of conservatives have been making a practice of demonizing them for a very long time, going back to even Barry Goldwater. I remember the daisy girl ad, it was burned into my mind as one of the most despicable political ads ever produced, and the liberal media mindset has never changed much in my liftetime, from then - to Reagan and the Bushes. They also demonized the Republican Congress, Newt Gingrich, accusing them of wanting children to starve, old people to die, and so forth. Here is the daisy girl ad run by LBJ, which should be noted he promptly trumped up the Gulf of Tonkin incident to send troops to Vietnam. Tactics have not changed, Clinton accused conservatives of burning black churches, a total crock, dragging deaths, another total crock.
And I would advise you to wake up to the facts now, that anytime conservatives advocate anything, we are accused of racism or bigotry, it happens routinely here on this forum. If we sensibly advocate secure borders, we are bigots, if we criticize Obama's policies, we are racists. It is becoming impossible to conduct a sensible conversation about reasonable policy. Heck, you should know about this when ebrown attacks your immigration and border policy? Ask yourself, who are the true bigots and racists in today's world? Demagoguery is alive and well in today's world, and the liberal Democrats have honed it into a highly polished craft.
Are you actually saying that the hundreds of lies spread about Obama are not slander and libel. I suggest you take a look now and then at snopes.com. For instance, consider the charge that Obama is a Kenyan in the face of tons of evidence showing the opposite. Consider the charge that Obama is a racist, etc. The right loves to deal in lies. The daisy ad was polemical, and was not a lie.
0 Replies
Foxfyre
1
Wed 30 Sep, 2009 10:18 am
@okie,
okie wrote:
Foxfyre wrote:
DrewDad wrote:
Foxfyre, do you, or do you not, support legalizing marijuana and same-sex marriage?
For the second time yes under the conditions I described. If you want an unqualified yes or no I cannot provide that because both issues are too complex for an unqualified yes or no, and no, I do NOT wish to debate either on this thread unless it should become appropriate on this thread. I have debated both ad nauseum on other threads, however. Conservatives will likely represent my views on those issues honestly. Many liberals will represent my views on those issues dishonestly. So let's let it go at that.
Foxfyre, I think liberals tend to look at many issues from the wrong perspective. Individual liberty is wonderful, but that does not mean that our liberty should be harming the liberty and well being of others. For example, we don't have liberty to steal, commit murder, speed on the highways, drive unsafe vehicles, drive while drunk, commit incest, and so forth. Some of the things that liberals consider as a right that they should have, is for everyone to pay for their health care, or something like that.
Enter into the mix here, smoking pot, same sex marriage, abortion, liberals claim a right over their own bodies, but this is not really a fact, as we do not have a right to every kind of drug use, nor is prostitution a right in most areas, nor can we yell fire in a crowded room or even play loud music all hours of the day in some places. It is offensive and it offends the rights of other people. In the case of abortion, it takes the life of another human being, or another human being to be born, that point has to be resolved and debated. When a behavior or act harms someone else's rights, then the line has been crossed. So in the areas of marijuana and gay marriage, that is the sticking point, where do your rights end and someone else's begin. One of my basic beliefs as a conservative about what government properly should do - is to protect us from each other, and so the really tough work is to nail down just how some laws fit into that idea, whether they are proper or not and just where do we draw our lines in society to accomplish that.
You and I are probably on the same page though possibly from somewhat different perspectives. Or maybe the same perspective.
Unalienable rights are those that require no participation or contribution from anybody else and it is our unalienable rights that the Constitution sought to secure and provide a means to defend. There is absolutely an unalienable right for anybody to seek to legally obtain healthcare or housing or food or clothing or transportation or any necessities of life for himself and/or others. There is no unalienable right to have healthcare or housing or food or clothing or transportation or anything else, necessities or not, provided at the expense of somebody else.
Once our unalienable rights are secured, we humans can then choose to organize ourselves into mutually beneficial societies and agree on the rules and values and disciplines and propriety that benefit the whole. The society can choose to make accommodations for the young and helpless, can agree on what shared services, infrastructure, regulation, and laws will be necessary or mutually beneficial and can order certain aesthetics and/or customs that are simply pleasing and satisfying to the whole such as public parks, gardens, and landscaping.
The Constitution guarantees that a majority cannot establish a social contract that violates the unalienable rights of any minority or individual. And it also allows establishment of social contract that prevents a tyranny of a minority.
When our executive, legislatiive, and/or judicial government is determined to grant power to the minority, however, unalienable rights can be violated, and that's when we begin to see an erosion of both the Constitutional authority and the social contract. And that is very rarely a good thing.
