OT - Politics doesn't make sense to me

[WayOutWest]

Wow! When you completely and conveniently ingore the incalculable human suffering (and millions of lost lives) out of those pivotal events of American history, the last 8 years really does feel pretty crappy.

Wow! I guess America should have just continued to live under British rule, allowed slavery to continue and thus split this country in two and let the Axis powers take over the world (who needs the Jews and Chineese anyway?). 

Stupid JoMal! 

[jemagee]

So anyone else lend credence to these rumors regarding palins most recent 'birth'?

[Ted]

Wow! I guess America should have just continued to live under British rule, allowed slavery to continue and thus split this country in two and let the Axis powers take over the world (who needs the Jews and Chineese anyway?). 

Stupid JoMal! 

Oh brother! That's the dumbest thing you've said in a long, long time. First jump school, then this?  

Of course great things can come from suffering. Should that lessen the value or memory of that suffering?

Pull your head out and try to imagine what it was like to actually live through those times. When you're actually worried about your survival, or your loved ones' survival on a daily basis. When you're not sure you can feed your kids because there is no economy. When you're not sure whether your neighbor will try to kill you because you support one government and he supports another. I can't believe I even have to post this!

Yes, our economy and our political standing in the world is really messed up. I'm long past the point of defending the last 8 years. You don't have to argue with me. You've already won that. You were right about Bush when I was wrong.

But don't tell me that I haven't still got it good. A helluva lot better than a 33-year-old man trying feed a family of 5 in the Great Depression; or than the same guy being drafted into the army prior to the invasion of Europe. I have a job. I have a healthy, pretty darn safe family. I own property. I am for the most part free. I live in a country with (correct me if I'm wrong) the lowest unemployment rate in the world, the best (although deeply imperfect) form of government in the world; the same country which gives more foreign humanitarian aid than any other in the world.

Yes, I know we invaded a country we have no business invading and have caused all kinds of human suffering that we must and will pay for. Let's hope we're not so quick to forget it. We're now mired in the worst conflict since Vietnam. The dollar is as weak as it's ever been. Yes the sky is going to fall. We'll be back in a precious metal bartering economy any day. Our political system is on the verge of collapse. And George W. Bush is the anti-Christ.

Maybe in ten years, Obama will have turned all of this around and we'll enter a new age of peace and prosperity, and JoMal can look back and ignore all of the suffering of these times, because well, something good came of it dammit! Get a grip.

By the way, you are absolutely right, we should definitely add the American Indian genocide to the list of historical events worse than what is happening today. Let's see, what was the good that came of that? Well . . . I suppose the winning side didn't mind getting a bunch of free land. As long as something good came of it . . . IT'S NOT WORTH REMEMBERING AS WRONG!

[ziggy]

So anyone else lend credence to these rumors regarding Palin's most recent 'birth'?

Is there any credible evidence to suggest otherwise?

[Ted]

So anyone else lend credence to these rumors regarding palins most recent 'birth'?

I read something about those rumors that I agreed with. Here it is:


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26501011/


By Brian Alexander
MSNBC contributor
updated 9:11 a.m. MT, Tues., Sept. 2, 2008
 
The 17-year-old daughter of Alaska governor Sarah Palin is pregnant. If not for the fact that Senator John McCain has chosen Palin to be his running mate, would we care? I doubt it.

Until last week, few people in the "lower 48" could even identify Palin. Since then, though, there has been an awful lot of discussion on blogs and even some mainstream news sites about Palin and sex. Now we learn that   Bristol Palin is pregnant, that she'll keep the baby, and that she and the father will marry.

Predictably, sadly so, partisans on both sides are showing their worst instincts. The sexual hypocrisy is so thick you can't see through the fog.

Some social conservatives who would use this sort of information to crucify a Democrat whose child became pregnant without benefit of marriage are defending the Palins for "doing the right thing." Bristol is not getting an abortion, they say. She is getting married. She is living the family credo.

Some social liberals are downright gleeful, arguing that this incident "proves" Sarah Palin can't control her own family, or that her own conservative sexual beliefs are bankrupt, or most scurrilous of all, that she was covering for an earlier Bristol pregnancy by claiming her new-born son as her own.

In reaction to the story, many comments on Newsvine were so vile I won't repeat them here.

War in Iraq, economy imploding, energy transformation finally on America's agenda, income disparity threatening the social order, cynicism infecting every corner of American life, a tectonic shift to a multi-polar world, a collapsing educational system, and you want to make the pregnancy of a 17-year-old a political issue?

Stop it. Unmarried 17-year-old girls get pregnant every day in this country (too many of them) and they come from strong, healthy families, and broken, dysfunctional families, and conservative families and liberal families. Bristol's pregnancy says nothing about Sarah Palin's suitability to be the next vice-president just as Obama's youthful cocaine use, or his middle name, says nothing about his suitability to be the next president.

But this country is stuck in junior high when it comes to sex. We either want to condemn it and say it shouldn't be discussed in any realistic way, or we want to drench ourselves in it.

So we hear all about Palin's hotness quotient or her local beauty queen victory, all of which is about as relevant as the fact that she has hunted moose. (I've spent some time in Alaska, fell in love with my wife in Alaska, and hung out with a lot of Alaskans and can tell you that hunting moose is to Alaskans what lunching at Barney's wine bar is to New Yorkers. No big deal.)

If we want to talk about sex and politics, how about talking about whether or not the candidates defend comprehensive sex education, or favor abstinence-only sex education? Data has debunked the abstinence-only approach as wishful thinking. Texas, for example, which strongly endorses abstinence-only, and demands parental consent before teenagers can get contraception, leads the nation in its rate of teen pregnancies, dropping only by 19 percent from 1991 to 2004 while the rest of country dropped by over 30 percent.

Meanwhile in California, where comprehensive sex-education is mandatory in public schools, the teen pregnancy rate dropped by 47 percent.

That's what matters. It is none of my business that Bristol Palin is pregnant or what sexual prescriptions Sarah Palin chooses in her own household. It is my business what prescriptions McCain-Palin and Obama-Biden want to give me.

We have to stop this juvenile sexual innuendo. Bill Clinton has 1,000 mistresses. McCain is a serial babe stalker.

I don't care. I don't think any of us should care how a politician lives his or her private sexual life as long as that life is consensual and legal. Otherwise, we're just asking for continued hypocrisy, continued degradation of the civic discussion in this country, continued show-trials-by-media of people who engage in the very same acts many of us engage in every day.

Recent history has proven that if we don't stop, we will wind up with exactly the leaders we deserve.

Brian Alexander is the author of the new book "America Unzipped: In Search of Sex and Satisfaction."

[jemagee]

Sorry, that's not the rumor i'm talking about...i'm referring to the rumors regarding the baby palin herself supposed had recently

[Ted]

Read the article again genius. 5th paragraph. That's 1, 2, 3, 4 . . . and 5.

[westkoast]

I am VERY far from a McCain/Palin supporter.  I am about as blue as a LA Dodger hat.  However the whole "Her daughter had a kid out of wedlock!" means nothing to me.  It happens.  In fact i'd even go as far to say that it makes her (Palin) look more like a normal person with a normal family.

Now why the hell the pregnancy is getting more attention then the fact they are formally investigating her for abusing her power I have no clue.  Her daughter has pre-marital sex, a daily occurrence in this country, and people go nuts.  Yet Palin has been accused of using her position to get back at her brother in law for divorcing/battling for custody of children from a loved on.  Hmmm.....what sounds like it is more important?

[Lurker]

Sorry, that's not the rumor i'm talking about...i'm referring to the rumors regarding the baby palin herself supposed had recently

And what rumor is that?

This article addressed the only ones I have heard.

[Lurker]

Her daughter has pre-marital sex, a daily occurrence in this country, and people go nuts. 

The difference is that she is a darling of the moral majority...who now conveniently approve of sex outside of marriage?  All you have to do is say you will get married.  Seems like a major shift in morality...

The issue of abusing power is just politics as usual and of course no one will blink an eye.

[jemagee]

Sorry, that's not the rumor i'm talking about...i'm referring to the rumors regarding the baby palin herself supposed had recently

And what rumor is that?

This article addressed the only ones I have heard.

That the Palins baby came out of nowhere but that her daughter had been pulled out of school 8 months previously to go stay with family and then returned shortly after the baby was born.  Palin was back on the 'campaign' almost the day after the baby was born.

[westkoast]

Her daughter has pre-marital sex, a daily occurrence in this country, and people go nuts. 

The difference is that she is a darling of the moral majority...who now conveniently approve of sex outside of marriage?  All you have to do is say you will get married.  Seems like a major shift in morality...

The issue of abusing power is just politics as usual and of course no one will blink an eye.

Yea I totally understand the utter bs that comes out of their mouth to rally the religious in this country to vote republican.  This obviously doesn't help that.  However neither does having a republican outted every other week for having homosexual affairs in DC or trying to turn a public restroom into a full service hang out for the same people they denounce as being 'unmoral'  Yet for some reason those stories get ignored after a while.

But Lurker...she hunts Moose!  She is a hunter!  Doesn't that outweigh anything negative?  For christ sakes what if Al-Queda was to starting to use Moose costumes as a disguise to bring bombs across the US/Canada border?  Don't you want Republicans, who are always TOUGH on terrorism to be in the white house, especially one that HUNTS MOOSE!

[Ted]

The difference is that she is a darling of the moral majority...who now conveniently approve of sex outside of marriage?  All you have to do is say you will get married.  Seems like a major shift in morality...

Dang. I thought I was a member of the moral majority. I didn't get the memo that we were altering the premarital sex rules. So, they announced that it's okay to get pregnant underage as long as you get married? I gotta get back on the mailing list I guess.

The whole point of the article is that there are ASSES on each side trying to make political hay of this. The conservatives who try to play it up as "doing the right thing" are royal ASSES. And the liberals who giggle at the failure of Palin's "morality" and propogate rumors about her newborn child are royal ASSES, too.

I'm with koast. This makes her look more like a pretty normal person with pretty normal problems. And I'm more concerned about her politics and the abuse of power story.

[JoMal]

Yeah, I would say seeing the actual collapse of what was once the greatest country the world has ever known due to internal stupidity qualifies as the absolute worse time in the country's history.

Wow! When you completely and conveniently ingore the incalculable human suffering (and millions of lost lives) out of those pivotal events of American history, the last 8 years really does feel pretty crappy.

Nice of you to completely ignore the sacrifice of those millions of lives that brought about changes that never would have taken place had they not.

Ted, it is not that I do not understand the human suffering that occurred. It is just that I cannot ignore the even greater human suffering that would have happened had they not. That is the legacy of the human race and how it sometimes costs us dearly to make things better as a result. The consequences of NOT acting - if you can address that one in terms of LESS cost in each of those examples you brought up, I would love to hear it.

But I know what you are doing. The number of Americans who have died this decade over the current events that have happened during the current administration is insignificant compared to those historical events - up to now.

But those events you have mentioned all achieved needed changes that improved the balance of lives in the post eras, and as shown, the costs were mighty. But now we are not going to enjoy any advancements in our well-being from invading Iraq - quite the opposite. We have not endeared ourselves to other nations by threatening them with, "You are either with us, or against us", rhetoric. We are not enhancing our everyday lives with off-shore drilling as opposed to developing alternative energy sources so we would not need to invade Iraq to ensure a steady oil supply back to us - at great, great costs. We have not shown the world we can take care of catastrophes at home so we can help the helpless elsewhere.

American once had a reputation of a world power that could provide aid where needed or stop depots when called upon. What I am referring to is that this country has peaked - reached its apex sometime in the last twenty years and is now going the way of the Roman Empire.

The barbarians are at the door and we are discussing family values, abortion issues, BJ's in the White House, and how New Orleans brought God's wrath down upon itself instead of how we are watching this country achieve mediocrity as the world works us down to their playing field.    

[JoMal]

As for the issue regarding Palin, I rest my case.

What I found fascinating was the idiot on FoxNews who actually said (and MEANT it!!), that no one can question Palin's on international affairs knowledge because there she is up there in Alaska right next to Russia, so she "knows" all about it.

You know, Lurker, I don't think you have to worry about bringing in additional policical parties to the system - neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are the same parties from my youth, but just shells of themselves.

The most notable alternative political parties we now have are the cable news shows. They tell people how to think and what to find important, so how to vote.