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Post by Rob G on Apr 11, 2005 18:22:39 GMT -5
So I have recently heard so crazy shit that outraged me and wanted to know if this outraged others.
Apparently in recent events the Judicial branch of Government has not performed to the liking of the Congress. Most recently in concerns to the Chivalo case. In response the Congress has made certain remarks. Notably the representatives of Texas in both the house and the senate.
House Majority Leader Tom Delay (Rep-Tex) Speaks on the “arrogant, out of control, unaccountable judiciary.” He says, “The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior.”
Then in seperate remarks in the Senate
Senator John Cornyn (Rep-Tex) “We have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country, and I wonder whether there may be some connection between judges making political decisions, yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up to the point where people engage in violence. No one, including those judges, including the judges in the U.S. Supreme Court, should be surprised if one of us stands up and objects.”
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME. Cornyn is validaing the recent attacks made against Judges which in both cases the judge was killed. And the dudes doing the killing were't freedom fighter or activists. They were scumbag Madmen who did not want to go to jail forever. This fucking rediculous. The scary thing is that congress can impeach any Judge including the Supreme court judges. Will they start doing this if they dont get what they want. This is not a partisan issue. This is a balance of power issue. Unbelievable.
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Post by Ken on Apr 13, 2005 14:09:51 GMT -5
The Shiavo case really polarized the Congress and the Judiciary. The Judiciary saw the Shiavo case and heard the case like 100 times (exaggeration) and made ruling after ruling on it. Finally, the Judiciary made a decision to remove the feeding tube.
Then, the Conservative Republicans came in and decided that they had to put pressure on the Judiciary b/c they couldn't just let someone die (never mind that Terry Shiavo really died the day of her massive heart attack). I'm sure the Judiciary didn't appreciate this. After all, who likes to be told how to do their job from outside sources? So after the Congress passed some law that allowed the case to be heard by federal judges, the Judiciary then basically said, "Fuck off Congress," and upheld the decision to remove the feeding tube.
So after all of Congress's hoopla and law-passing, the Judiciary basically threw all their efforts in their faces. So now, Congress has to make some lame threats towards the Judiciary branch. Basically, I think it's all bullshit posturing and sour grapes by the Religious Right Conservative Republicans.
I'm really breaking with my party on this one, and frankly, am outraged that anybody kept fighting to keep that poor woman alive. She was a fuckin' vegetable, with a liquified brain. I think her parents were selfish and borderline zealots.
I actually know a little bit about this b/c I was a psych major in college for a semester and had to take a course on brain anatomy. My professor was a brilliant guy, big into research and has been published like 100 times (exaggeration). The only thing left of her brain was the top of the brain stem which only respondes to the most basic of stimuli, thus, Terri following the balloon when it was only inches from her face. She had no thought, nothing. She was dead, she just didn't know it yet.
Anyway, the I think the Judicial branch has some real problems, most notably the Ninth District Court in Liberal San Fransisco. These guys rule outrageously, and unfortunately, are so high profile that the rest of the Judicial gets a bad rap. They politic from the bench and attempt to set new policy with their rulings. These guys are bad apples. I guess every batch has some.
Personally, I think that judges have extremely hard decisions to make every day, and I sympathize with them. Cornyn is dead wrong though and should never, EVER rationalize away the deaths of two public servants. I guess he's just another bad apple in the bunch.
Wait a minute, we're talking politicians here, aren't they all bad apples?
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Post by Ken on Apr 13, 2005 14:22:38 GMT -5
On a different, but politically related topic, did anyone see the season finale of West Wing the other night? It was great! I can't wait till next season. This season was great. It was so complicated and so faceted in terms of characters changing. I loved it.
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Post by abisai on Apr 14, 2005 9:57:16 GMT -5
Schiavo case was sick. Mostly because all Americans want decisions like that left to Americans and at worst decided by a court of law. This is one of thousands of cases like this a year, this just happened to be well promoted by people willing to make their personal drama a political issue. No one outside the legislative branch has any right to offer any opinions about these cases because they are well documented in the courts and repeatedly resolved time and time again. There is an entire body of cases to rely upon and a system in place. That can change with times and cultural shifts, but any Congressional outroar is as Ken best states sour grapes and posturing.
And for the record, if I have a beating heart, don't pull my plug. My ass is there, feed me. It is deplorable not that they pulled the feeding tube, but that it took a 13 day starvation to kill off the lady. We have the means and ability to chemically and smoothly kill people. There are numerous ways to do this, all much more humane that starvation. If any nation did this to a prisoner on death row it would be an international crime against humanity. And the ruling power would be convicted for that crime. We should at least be held to a respectable standard instead of starving people to death, whatever that standard is.
And I missed West Wing. I did get cable turned on a couple of weeks ago.. but this is baseball season ;D
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Post by Ken on Apr 14, 2005 13:15:29 GMT -5
What is/are everyone's feelings on immigration? I just recently discovered that since the border between Mexico and the U.S. is so poorly guarded, there is now a PRIVATE group that is patroling the border made up of PRIVATE citizens. Thay all have binoculars and walkie-talkies and phones. They hunt for illegal crossings and then call up the immigration service and border patrol guards to come and arrest the illegals. Interesting huh? What do you think about putting the military and/or the National Guard on the borders? Fencing? Walls? Using mexicans as civilian target practice? Dehumanizing mexican women in free-for-all pay-per-view gang rapes?
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Post by Rob G on Apr 14, 2005 16:04:12 GMT -5
wow,
Alot of different things getting discussed here. What thread is this.
Shivalo: I consider my opinion on this worthless and unwarranted but here it is. I think she should have been left to die. Or actually killed to avoid the whole starvation thing. But either way i think the spouse can speak with authority to teh victims intentions in all cases. He said she would want to die. But if he said she wanted to live i would have endorsed that. In general though everyone should be content to die when they can no longer feed themselves. Asking anyone to spend time, money, or resources on your gimp ass is selfish. And especially if you are religious you should be eager to reach Paradise. As far as us trying to interpete gods will i consider that a massive waste of time. It appears to me that gods will if nothing else is that we all have free will even as it effects the lives he created. God deals in souls, we deal in lives. Its up to us. You just better make the right decisin cause big daddy is watching. Redardless people should always be considered first before god. As far as the christian perspective i just dont know. Cause was it right to keep her alive in the first place. Were we intervening in gods plan from the get go. This might be such a bog deal that perhaps people should be made to fill out a living will as an attahcment to their drivers license application. Yes that is my solution.
Immigration: This is tough. Ofcourse i think it is bad. How bad. I dont know. But it should be stopped. But it seems the deal is it is almost impossible to stop so teh question is how much money and resources we should use to stop it. I really dont have any strong feelings on this at all. This is one of those situations i would much prefer to defer to people way smarter then me. I have strained my brain to no avail. i can say i have yet to hear a good idea and have none of my own. Sorry
West Wing: Yes, I am a west wing head and hwile it may not be the best the show on television it is absolutely the highest quality of writing/acting/directing and choise of topics. Great fucking show that everyone should throw a bone to. The season finale was insane. If it was not already complicated they go and through Al Bundy in there. That was awesome. I was truly explected Hoines to win as for me he is the highest quality actor/character to win. I just dont see JImmy Smits being strong enough to be president on the show. But even the way the episode ended by switching to the other guys perspective. I dont think the democrats are gonna win. I think the show is gonna go with the republican president Alan Alda. Hes the bomb. And I think a massive change in perspective is just what the show needs. No matter what i cant see Jimmy Smits being president. If the democrats do win then Jimmy will get shot and Leo will be president.
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Post by abisai on Apr 29, 2005 9:50:47 GMT -5
I believe immigration is the largest problem facing this nation.
Not just because it allows for cover for people entering the nation to commit crimes, like drug dealing, kidnapping, and potential terrorist activities.
Not just because the dwindling of the English language in usage, to the point that the economy wastes millions on duplicating everything in multiple languages.
Largely because this is a labor issue and economically unsound.
The nation faces persistant recessionary fears. Wealth is being created here because of the stock markets gains and ownership of international operations by American enterprises. But jobs are not being created very much. There is always a flux, with monthly data. But the larger picture of a broad spectrum of the past couple years is very bleak. We are all witness to examples of this played out. Every argument that we need these workers is one that should result is the questioning of the sanity of the person making the argument. Their presence serves to keep the wage rates down with the larger labor pool and help those who have wealth from having to increase their sharing of it thru wages.
Even worse, the money paid to these workers is often not taxed, hurting the national debt more. Plus the money is often siphoned away to foreign nations. This takes money that should be reinvested into our economy and placing that reinvestment into other economies. Anyone thinking this is a good thing is not a citizen of this country. Ever more perverse, the availability of dollars increasing abroad will decrease the relative expense of American goods to those nations. This makes our exports there increase but also increases the costs of goods from those countries for us. The benefit would go to the businesses mass producing and likely hiring these foreign workers (agriculture and factories) and hurt the American middle and lower classes.
Immigration is the elephant in the room that no one in DC has the balls to address. On either side. The Republicans get to claim big business and free market enterprise. The Democrats get to claim minority rights and cite the role of immigrants in our national history. The result is an inevitable mass suffering for the middle and lower classes. This will even include the immigrants themselves who may not be benefitting from the protection of labor laws and who will live in poverty so long as they accept the lower wages.
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Post by abisai on May 5, 2005 13:42:07 GMT -5
My solution to immigration.
It is not biased towards regions, race, religion, hair color, ro anything like that, it is biased on personal wealth. Simply put, rich people moving to this nation employ Americans. Poor people moving to this nation directly increase unemployment of Americans and also keep wages down for lower classes. So we need to have more rich immigrants and fewer poor immigrants.
My solution: combine a zero tolerance policy for the illegals and make the legal immigration paperwork cost the individual $25,000 which would go directly towards paying down the American debt. People pay almost as much as this much to be illegally imported through nefarious connections. Let's get them to pay Uncle Sam instead of Wild E. Coyote and get everything above board. Maybe half of the money can go towards employing more people to watch the borders and legal costs of kicking out the ones that snuck in without paying.
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Post by Ringleader1 on May 6, 2005 7:42:17 GMT -5
Economics, as you know I went to New Paltz a generally liberal college. Most of my teachers originally came from different countries. The head of the department is a Turkish woman, boy is she a hardass. At least half of the people in my classes were foriegners sometimes more. Economics is considered a social science and is full of law and formulas.....I know that politicians and the media pick and choose what they like and use it to thee own ends to sway us one way or another. I can only repeat what I was taught. The United States economy and imagration is tied to the rest economic health of the world. As countries strive toward a comparitive advantage (what they do best economicly) the progress up the ladder agro-industrial-tech-service.... Every country should do what it does best. Let China for instants use their advatage of low cost labor to produce low-med tech products. While we produce high tech and provide the world with services and low cost foodstuff. Everybody wins and get what they need. We don't go to war with each other because we need each other. In some Star-trex type of way. Same with Mexico, hell, if we help make it livable they will stay there. (Nafta..freetrade) Of course coruption, lies and general human nature always mess it up plus the misinformation from those who have radical views whoever they are that produces misconceptions. Do you really think any American wants that $6 an hour job that the illeagal has washing dishes. I don't mind him having the job but I personally mind him sending the money back to Mexico. As Rob said it does take away from are economy. Unless the American products in Mexico which who know some day they might. Some brief generalities and anymore would feel like work. I hope everyone is doing ok. I have not seen one of you eccept Freddy in months and that only cause I live upstairs. Bye the way I am moving to a new apartment the 15th of this month. A small step forwad.
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Post by Ringleader1 on May 6, 2005 7:47:54 GMT -5
I should have read that before posting it..I am a lazy non spelling f*cker..though I do well at scrabble Hum....
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Post by abisai on May 6, 2005 10:52:47 GMT -5
Do you really think any American wants that $6 an hour job that the illeagal has washing dishes. People use this argument all the time and it is wrong. Sure the answer to this is no, Americans would not take $6, but they would do the job if it paid better. If there was not an illegal immigrant population, there would not be the ability to keep that wage rate at $6. If that job paid $30k I guarantee you an American would be happy to do it with a big smile on his face. Instead it has been like 20 years that businesses have been able to pay wages at $6 because people are coming into the country willing to take those wages. Before those people moved here, Americans were just as happy to take the wages of lawnmower operators, factory workers, and dishwashers, because the pay was more reasonable. The purchasing power of the income was far greater in past years. Sure you can get more cheap crap from India and China now, but you cannot pay the rent or buy a house on the income of an entry level position. This is because the wages are not increasing in proportion with the growth of the economy, at least for the lower classes. The problem with the economic model you outline is that other nations are rapidly assuming our ability to produce high tech goods or services. Americans are great at these businesses, but outsourcing customer service and IT departments to India is cheaper and poof go the jobs for those Americans. Technology is spread faster than ever before with the Internet and businesses are international and not at all locally based. Nothing is wrong with any of that, but in order to maintain a high standard of living in this nation we need to secure our wealth and investment in the middle and lower classes here. Failing to do so would jeopardize the consumer juggernaut we have here and also place strains on the welfare systems. Other nations used to defer to our consumer market and not care about developing their own. However, regional trading blocs and general devotion to capitalism abroad has increased the purchasing powers across the board and there are budding consumer markets all over. This could make other countries not decrease their costs for exports to the US if they could export to other nations or even within their own. Our dominance is fading, which is fine, but I think that some order needs to be restored to our economy. Creating wealth without creating jobs cannot help us sustain our wealth. Especially the more those good jobs go overseas and the bad jobs here go to immigrants. I don't view this otucome as a potential, I view that as a probability.
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Post by abisai on May 6, 2005 10:55:13 GMT -5
PS Welcome back Ringo Hope your new place is nice and all that. NC is still the place to be. ;D
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Post by Ringleader1 on May 6, 2005 14:41:20 GMT -5
Thanks Buck. Your way to well read for me and my meager memory. I'll talk alittle as the subject is alittle dry for my small world. The job is only worth $6 and it wouldn't be cost effiecient to pay more unless you charge more to costomers. This system is designed to be fair. If they do it cheaper and better it should go there. I know this sounds crazy but hey we invented the system and we can't get all mad when we made people eat it and now thier using it against us. We are getting lazy and thier hungrey. We need to be more competitive if we want this to last. To be honest we live good here and if we give a little to other countries it is not going to kill us. We are the inovators the best of the best. If you want it you can have it. If not its not yours anymore; you can't be on top forever....now was'nt that some bull shit.
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Post by Rob G on May 7, 2005 0:19:23 GMT -5
Ringo,
great to see you back on the board. We have missed yoru contribution to the vast mulititude of unique perspectives which makes the is fine board what it is.
Where are you moving???
Ring said something I thought was very accurate.
"We are lazy and they are hungry" Thats the god damn truth. We live in fucking wonderland land and they live in shit. Nothing motivates like living in shit. We are without a doubt the Eiloi and they are the morlocks. Now they threaten our perfect existence. Regardless the circumstances we are within or rights to protect ourselves though.
It seems to me like the catalyst of WW2 sent out nation into industrial overdrive. With the cotinuing threat of communism providing the continued motivation over teh next 50 years. So we essentially got a big jump on the whole world. But sooner or later they were gonna start catching up. And its always easier to catch up then to pioneer.
So now as teh rest of the world starts stepping up, most notable the econmies of Greater Europe and China we feel like we are being overtaken. Maybe we just need to except a less tenable position of dominance. This leads into Nuclear proliferation. I dont understand how we can tell other nations they cant develope weapons for their defense. The same weapons we developed which made us invincible. I believe it is every nations soveriegn right to make nuclear weapons and ICBMs.
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Post by Ringleader1 on May 7, 2005 4:42:37 GMT -5
Afganistan,Iran and Syria with I.C.B.M.s scary. We still have the best military. I'll jump in a tank and shoot me some sand monkies. ye haa...
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