I am glad this thread took place even though a little hostile at times. It provokes a lot of thought. There is one thing that is certain. The economy is a very dynamic machines that has many things that effect it. It takes time and a stroke of genius to SIGNIFICANTLY alter its course. BRB

THON WROTE:
" Don't be taken in by too much B.S. about the "poor", liberal dems like to play this up, because they never have to prove anything. The poorest people in America would be considered at least middle class in most countries in the world. "

Name calling [ liberal dems ] is merely an expession of not just your own lack of civility but of the courseness of all political discussion. It is not only unnecessary but it hardly advances your agument in any substantial way-save among others who think as you do. If I call you stupid, a rube, a fascist or some other meaningless name have I made a contribution to yours or anyone else's understanding or have I shown myself and my arguments to be of dubious quality? Why resort to maningless phrases as though they advanced your argument? I believe it was a number of individuals who called themselves " conservative" who made the case for aiding those who were poor. You might wish to take issue substancially with their points but you do this by making an argument not by resorting to name calling. An argument should stand on its own merits. If you need to resort to name calling you are actually conceding that you have no argument. It should be possible to disagree and still be civil. You evidently feel that to call someone a liberal dem is to condem them much as calling some one a communist once did. It may convery a social stigma in some areas but it also does not take the place of a reason or thought.

" 'When the planes hit on 9/11, Bush was told immediately, but he remained seated for another, what, 10 minutes? ' [deb1919]


It was 7 and so what? Do you think it's just possible that secret service told him to stay put til they secured his exit? What should he have done? Run out of the building screaming " [THON]

But you, of course, know what the Secret Service advised. You have spoken with the agents on duty with Mr. Bush on 9/11 or have obtianed documentary evidence with which to debunk the other poster? No. You have no more idea as to why Mr. Bush sat in that class room for 7 minutes than I or deb1919. He choses to see it as a problem you evidently do not. However, do not act as though he is factually in error while you are not. You are as guilty of speculation as he is. However, I think most people would have preferred to have seen Mr. Bush acting much as Mr. Guilianni did on 9/11. You excuse it. Mr. deb1919 sees a problem with his actions. Nether of you has any clue to the reason behind Mr. Bush's behavior at the school or afterwards when he made numerous stops around the country.

You make assertions as though they were facts even as you criticize others for doing the same. You seem to believe that name calling is a substitute for a cogent, reasoned argument whcih is how I would describe your using liberal dem as a pajoritive. I think your behavior is evidence of the uncivility that passes for political discourse in this country. It helps to try to understand your adversay. You can even be friendly with someone with whom you disagree politically. Willaim Buckley was great friends with J. K Galbreath. Regan was very good friends with Tip O'Neal. My experience is that most of us would agree on the facts but reach different conclustions. This does not mean either of us is stupid, ignorent or evil.

I fear for our future as a nation. We are a divided nation. Gore won the popular vote last time and if the Supreme Court had not intervened who knows how the recount would have went in Florida. There is every reason to fear that this election will be equally close this time. If either side feels this election is stolen it is not hard to imagine violence resluting. I dislike the Carl Roves of the world who attack Karry's service in Vietnam via the Swiftboad folks and then have Bush and Chainey praise it. I prefer Gulianni's approach which is to praise Kerry for his service in Vietnam and to challage his actions and activities since he was a soldier. Can we not at least be civil and try to keep the name calling to a minimum?

And I would not have posted this here had your e-mail worked.

Alan

This message was edited by Audible Solutionns on 10/31/04 17:42 ET.

Tax cuts that Bush is making ARE improving this economy. There is no way to guage, how the economy will react if Kerry is elected. Only time will tell, because you can't take what he says to the Bank. He flip/flops on every issue, depending on where the political climate stands. One thing we can deduce, based on his record, is he will raise taxes on everyone, and will cut our defenses, and intellegence to the bone, leaving us more vulerable to terrorism! And if we suffer another 9/11, the economy will DEFINETLY tank, and put us all in a world of hurt!

Pay no attention to the name on the post, Thon here, need to fix my account.

Apparently I struck a nerve. You are the one who thinks liberal democrat is a pajoritive, I merely use it as an accurate representation of a group of people that favor liberal policies. Most of these people are PROUD to call themselves liberal.




You are correct, I have no way of knowing exactly what transpired during the mysterious 7 minutes, however I strongly suspect that there are procedures in place for just such emergencies which would likely include securing a safe exit for the President. Doug seems to think that this is some sort of lack in Mr. Bush's leadership abilities. I am challenging this notion, and asking what Bush could have possibly done during this time that would have changed anything. Michael Moore seems to see this as a big issue as well, I just see it as a means to demonize the President for something that was truly out of his control.



Once again I did not mean it as an insult. How would you refer to yourself?


The votes were counted 3 times before the Supreme Court voted to stop counting. Subsequently, several news agencies took it upon themselves to recount the votes themselves and Bush still won. It might be that because you are unaware of the facts, you feel ignorant, not because I referred to you as a liberal.



Agreed, I have respect for Kerry's service in Vietnam, I just happen to think his policies will make the US more vulnerable and weaken the economy, hence my comments about "the poor". I will tell you how true transfer of wealth should take place: someone who runs a business, like me or you, should charge "wealthy" people as much as the market will bear for outstanding systems and pass an appropriate portion of the profits on to hard working technicians who care about doing a good job. A lot of well meaning people think they are helping the poor, by handing tax dollars over to Kerry. It may make you feel good about yourself, but does very little to help anybody.



Sorry about the email, I am in the process of correcting it.

know what guys

I have my opinions

like everyone else's here...50% would like them, 50% wouldn't

It doesn't matter now though

because the Redskins...who have been 100% accurate in predicting the presidential winner based on a home win/loss in an election year, with an incumbant president, lost today...

According to Chris Berman of ESPN...here are the ONLY facts you need...

in the last 16 home games that the Washington has played at home right before an election...their fate (the skins) has been a 100% no fail predictor!

If they WIN...the incumbent president (IN ELECTIONS where this is applicable) get's re-elected

If they LOSE (which they did BADLY today, to Green Bay) the challenger (in this case Kerry) wins...

So...Kerry's the guy! Don't waste your votes the other way..

UNLESS

you believe the ALSO ALWAYS 100% accurate Halloween mask predictor...which is that, in presidential election years, the more popular mask (this year it's Bush 2-1 on Kerry) is always right.

Strange thing is, this election, for the first time ever, these two predictors DON'T AGREE...

they are un-decided as the U.S.A. is...

Happy Halloween all!

Just pick the lessor of your two evils...since those are your choices!

Still no e-mail.

It is not a question of my being insulted- and I am not - as much as I experienced disapointment at the level of intelectual discourse it exhibits. You may call me anything you'd like from stupid to naive to a dreamer and it would not upset me terribly. It is quite different to attack my motivations behind posting somethng, as did someone else with respect to an other thread, than to disagree with what I post. however stidently ( as did someone else when I suggested that tube amps produce seductive sounds). The former is illegitemate while the latter is perfectly acceptable. It was two individuals who identified themselves as conservative who spoke of the sense that helping the poor was a politically desirable aim. One may well take issue with them but to do so by referring to "liberal dems " is indeed to use a word that is perfectly honorable in a pajorative and political loaded way; and it is a phrase that has a transparent subtext in our current political climate, which I am sure you know and which is why you used it. Similarly, to call a conservative a Natzi is equally intellectually lazy unless that inidvidual turned the govenment's monopoly on the means of violence against some part of that society in an attempt to exterminate that group as was the case in the Balkins. Such attacks may be effictive but they are nonetheless reprehensible. Spend any amount of time listening to talk radio - and at this moment in time talk radio is conservative talk radio - and you will hear precisely this sort of anti-intellectual attack used in place of a rational thought and pursuasive argument. It sells which is why it is on the radio but it is still cheap and represents shoody thinking.

I defy you to make any judgement on my politics from what I have heretofore written. I suggested reading Pete Peterson and John Cay, both of whom are consrevative and both of whose books should be required reading, especially if you have trouble sleeping. I suggested we as a society share the sacrifice our soldiers are making. Are these liberal or conservative view points? I call for fiscal responsibility and, within reason, balancing the budget and not to pass our spending along to future generations. If this means cutting spending then cut spendiing. If it means increasing revenues to pay for that spending then so be it. Is this liberal or conservative? I do feel Bush has done a poor job stewarding the economy and a very qestionable job in his foreign policy. I do hold him responsible for 9/11 in so far as he was in office when it happened. Jimmy Carter was hardly reponsible for the Iranian students taking over our embassy but he is rightly held reposible for his failures to act--or the failures of our miltary when they did act. Few remember Herbert Hoover. He was a very decent and very intelligent man whose philosphical beliefs prevented him from using the government as did his successor. Bush is not responsible for the bearucratic failures of our intellegence community. These problems hardly originated with his administration but they reached their nadir under Bush so he gets the blame - and he loses my vote. If you believe in personal responsibility how can you reward incompetance?

I, like Mr. Perterson, see very little difference between either policial party. The Republican controlled Congress has been every bit as profligate as the Democrats were when they had control.

And the newpaper consortium that recounted all of the votes in Florida found that Gore won. But he never asked for a full recount only a recount is specific areas. Like Paul Harvey, I like to hear the rest of the story.

And if you did have a valid e-mail I would indeed have kept to my word and not particpated futher publicly.

Alan

If anyone's stolen this election, it's the Liberal Media! They constantly bag on Bush, and give Kerry a pass on just about everything. Liberal media is worth anywhere from 5 to 20 million votes for Kerry. And believe it or not, there are some GOOD things going on in Iraq! You just never hear about them! Half the things that Kerry beats Bush over the head with now, he agreed with before he became a presidential candidate!
Case in point, accusing Bush for "outsourcing the job" of capturing OBL. He told Larry King that our strategy of using afgan warlords"is having its impact, and it is the best way to protect our troops and sort of minimalize the proximity, if you will. I think we have been doing this pretty effectively, and we should continue to do it that way."
Of course, he has flip/flopped since then so he can beatup on Bush, and the Media gives him a pass, and does not point it out! Since the Media won't do its job, and expose this fraud, no one really knows the real story with this guy. They won't even cover his 20 year record in the senate, where he accomplished absolutly nothing, but vote to cut our military, and intellegence, and raise our taxes! People have NO IDEA who they are voting for, when they Vote for Kerry! The Media is the only reason this guy is even close to Bush! He has contridicted himself so much, he should not even be in this race. But hey, at least it's not Bush! People I am genuinly frightened of this guy getting into office, and screwing up every thing our great president has accomplished in the middle east!

Hard post to stay away from.....

Our government is the nations largest employer, yet it pays for itself by taking money out of the pockets of it's citizens, not by creating something.

Government costs money. It does not create money or profits the way our private businesses do. Government is a necessary parasite on the backs of our employers and on the backs of the employed. To a certain extent, that is good and necessary. Carried to an excess, it hurts us all no matter which tax bracket we are in. If you hurt my employer with high taxes... you hurt me because there is less chance of me getting a raise when profits are down.

Government takes... private businesses give. Thats not really that hard to understand if you look at the facts.

Lets take an example... GM maybe. General Motors pays their employees out of the profits they earn from selling a product. Now consider the IRS.... they pay their employees from money they took from BOTH GM and GMs employees. But even if they only took the money from GM (as a giant corporation the Democrats love to attack)... It would still hurt their rank and file because there would be less money for raises.

OR... considered another way, higher taxes raise the cost of GM doing business.... thus prompting them to send jobs overseas for cheaper labor.
m
Another thing that has not that has not been discussed much this election. During the debates, John Kerry ragged on Bush because the price of everything from food to gasoline has gone up.

Thats true.... but consider... We are paying record prices for gasoline and that is impacting us all. But if Kerry had had his way in 1993, you would be paying $2.50 or more a gallon. The reason? Kerry signed on to a bill in the senate to increase the federal tax on gasoline by 50 cents per gallon back in 1993. Only 3 senators signed on to it. Would you really like to be paying another half-dollar a gallon for fuel? If Kerry had had his way, you would be paying that additional 50 cents per gallon today.

And another...We are being held hostage to the oil prices from the Mid-East. George Bush proposed drilling on a part of the Anwar Reserve of Alaska that holds huge oil reserves. The Democratic Party... Kerry included voted against it. In essence, they voted in favor of keeping us hostage to the Mid East for oil when we have our own reserves. Anwar is a huge section of land set aside as a protected area. Thousands and thousands of acres. The part that was proposed for drilling was limited to just a few acres. Less than 10 out of thousands I believe.

People in the North-East part of the country will be paying huge prices this winter to heat their homes because the Democratic Party continues to pander to environmentalists and insist we not drill for the oil in our own country. That's kind of hipocratic if you consider they don't mind buying oil from the middle east... just don't drill for our own.

I don't care what business you are in.... Custom installations or building cars... high energy costs for building heat and air and for vehicles definitely has an impact on the bottom line.....and Kerry has a solid record of voting to keep us held hostage to Mid-East oil policies.

That is wrong for America... in my opinion. It is exactly those kind of policy decisions that are sending American jobs overseas.

Why vote for even more of that?

This message was edited by Warren on 10/31/04 23:35 ET.

No ... they did not....over 70 news organizations world wide... from many different countries recounted the votes themselves... not one single one of them came up with Gore as the winner. Not even one.... and most were biased againt Bush.

If even one had... that would have been all you heard on the news. They failed.... and that doesn't even take into account that Gore succeded in having over 2,000 votes thrown out from the military overseas because the military post offices did not get them delivered on time... and those were overwhelmingly Bush votes.

And you are right.... Gore never asked for a full recount in Florida... he only sued for recounts in areas he was strong in. That was part of the reason the Supreme Court ruled (on it's first ruling) with only one disenting vote that Florida could not keep recounting votes in the manner it was doing.

There was a second vote on another part of the issue that was 4 to 3... but by a 6 to 1 margin, the supreme court ruled that Florida was illegal in the way it was recounting votes. It asked the Florida Supreme Court to explain itself and the Florida court ignored the question and did not answer them.

Of course the media likes to ignore that vote.

Bottom line to me at this moment in time....

We have troops deployed overseas in a battle for our country.

By a margin of 73 to 21..in the only poll that has included them.... they want George Bush as their commander in Chief.

This election needs to be more about them, than about which candidate would be better for our business.

We have our military personal in harms way... and by a huge margin they want Bush. That's all I need to know.

I have a plan to cure every problem and headache you have with your job...... I can solve every problem you have ever faced.... even your divorce......

Vote for me... and MAYBE then I will reveal it...

I don't have enough information now... so my plan is not yet planned.... but I do have one.... and trust me... even though I don'lt know what it is... it will work.......

How stupid does the guy think we are????


LMAO

Warren,

I ALREADY voted, so you won't/can't change my mind. I am looking at this post from a different point of view, and really just want to stir the pot here...

WHERE does this information come from? Because I HEARD it, but I haven't SEEN it on paper?

Conversly, I've ALSO heard, but not SEEN on paper, that we have many, MANY troops refusing orders, dreading re-deployment, and hedging for Kerry....

so WHERE are ANY of these facts...

I for one think this election is one of the BIGGEST jokes (and ironically most important at the same time) in our country's history!

We have the GOP and/or their media writing books like, 'Unfit for Command,' we have the Libs and/or their media writing books/articles/etc...like Farhenheit 9/11, and the Memoirs of an AWOL and/or misplaced and/or not really sure where he was reservist.....

We have one faction of media saying we've lost more jobs under this pres than any in history...another can rebut it with facts EXACTLY the opposite!

we have one blowhard druggie (Rush Limbaugh) spewing conservative (drug addict conservative) bullshit absolutely as fast as another liberal neophyte (Al Franken) can be spoonfed all the beliefs in Hollywood...half of which (have you SEEN the house's in Hollywood???) have to be hypocritical as hell...because even though they are for for the enviroment, ozone, blah de frickin blah...they'll knock over as many damn trees on their yards as needed for the 4th guest cabana!

I have (as a former law enforcement officer) MANY friends in, returning, or heading to Iraq, right now.

I can tell you, from an unbiased, and uncaring point of view, that even THEY are split about 50/50...

sorry for the rant but...

bottom line?

they are both COMPLETELY FULL OF SHIT...

It is, for quite possibly the first time in a long time...

A decision between the lesser of two evils!

I completely agree however, that very few if ANY presidents, IN HISTORY, have ever CHANGED our economy as a whole.

In the short term, once the election happens, we will ALL see a bump in consumer activity. Why?

Because OUR clients have LOTS in the stock market, in one way or another...and the market hates uncertainty!

Get one or the other of these dipshits in...and for 2 of the next four years...we'll see a boost!

THEN...whoever gets in...will start to take heat because NEITHER can accomplish a DAMN thing they're promising in a four year period, and we'll be having this discussion again when Hillary Clinton runs Against Jeb Bush in 2008!

EITHER way...there WILL be some certainty by January 10th (it'll take that long to litigate yet more bullshit) and the market will turn, FOR US, for a little while!!

Happy Voting all...

Thanks. I debated a long time on whether or not to do it, but I've enjoyed reading all of the opinions!

Hence the 21%

I'm leaning towards Kerry and Edwards. They had the scariest Halloween masks this year! :)