[Deepblue]

Lol.
The right wing has the radio, the left wing has the tv.

[Liberator]

And you wonder why the world leans left?

BTW, Hannity has become too shrill for me most of the time and Savage is just being honest when no one else will, when he mentions "limited nuclear strikes" he means "block buster" class strikes in the less than one KT range, it's clean and very dramatic.  They(the Islamo-Fascists) will fall in line only if we use undeniable force.  They are the only people on Earth who count teenagers in a Discotek fair targets and send their own children out to fight, while the men stay and hide behind the women.

[Deepblue]

Politics are stupid, idiotic, and distasteful. And unfortunately, very neccesary.

[PeachE]

Originally posted by karajorma
Seriously if the guy who is ordering the troops into Iraq and going on about bravery etc is actually a coward who joined the national guard deliberately so as to not be sent to Vietnam...

i'm not a bush supporter (i'm not an anyone supporter), but with all seriousness, who gives a ****? how does joining the Guard make him a coward? so he didn't want to fight in Vietnam - big deal - most didn't. and for quite good reason. we had no business being there, as Kerry was so very eager to point out when he got back.

i personally don't care what they did 30 something years ago. i know people who did serve and most of them don't really care either. for some reason, before we decide not to vote this year, we'd just like to hear some policy for once. but that's just me. i'm just silly.

and there's something quite wrong with the fact that the liberals, who were vehemently and violently against vietnam and spit on soldiers and cursed them and called them baby-killers, are now touting service as some kind of prerequisite for honor. it would be laughable if it wasn't so ****ing sad.

Originally posted by Rictor
Does anyone doubt that Bush was (is) the spoiled child of a politically influent figure? Normal rules don't apply to him - daddy can take care of everything.

normal rules don't apply to any of the candidates. if it's not daddy, it's the corporations backing them or the personal fortures or the family fortunes. they're all so out of touch, it's not even funny anymore.

[Liberator]

Personally, I think the qualifications for president should be the following:

Have served in the military long enough to rise at least 2 ranks, not pay grades.  Example: Ensign(lowest naval officer rank) to Lieutenant(guarantees character)

Have a personal wealth of no less than $100,000 and no more than $1,000,000.(guarantees ability to understand money without having been corrupted by it)

with the following restrictions:

All public office holders(including federal, state and local judges) shall be limited to no more than 4 total terms in office for the length of their lives.

All term lengths will be of reasonable length, 6-8 year maximum.

The penalty for accepting bribes and other forms of corruption shall be immediate imprisonment at labor for not less than 10 years with no chance of parole or early release.

The minimum age for public service will be 30 years, the maximum 65 years.

[Bobboau]

you've got sort of a narrow window there, especaly in the income range, I'd say ignore how much they make, and raise the sudgested term limits to about 150%. I don't think personal weath should make that big of a diference in getting elected, neither should be the personal wealth of people who 'suport' you, rather it should be the issues, the changes that a candidate is going to instate, I think a good way to do this would be to just outright ban private campaneing, it's just too coruptable, each candidate will be given the same funding to do with what they will, only candidates that can prove that they have suport of 5% of the population would be elageable, this means that there could be 20 potental candidates and all would be given equal time. another radical change I'd make is in the voteing system, the electoral colage is bull, it's a remnent of the days when we didn't actualy have our vote count directly, and if that's got you worried I'd also change they very fundemental method of voteing, no longer will it be 'one person one vote' I's instate either a equal or graduated multi-vote system were you cast multable votes for multable candidates (each person gets the same number obviusly) and each vote would eaither be worth the same or you list the top, lets say five, in the order you'd want them. what I want is more options.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by PeachE
i'm not a bush supporter (i'm not an anyone supporter), but with all seriousness, who gives a ****? how does joining the Guard make him a coward?

Cart before horse. He isn't a coward because he joined the national guard. He is a coward and that's why he joined the national guard.

The reason I give a **** is what if the soldiers who are about to be sent to Iraq all decided to take 17 months off? Surely if the president can do it and get away with it they should be able to do so to?

Lastly it speaks about character to me. A man who swears an oath to do a certain amount of military service and then turns his back and runs away when the going gets tough is not a man who is tough enough to do a high stress job like president.

[Liberator]

Bob, you're forgetting the actual purpose of the Electoral College.
Observe this map of the 2000 election counted out by county(You'll like this):


The election was so close because the population centers(NY, the left coast, ect) went with Gore(blue), while the overwhelming majority of the rest of the country went with Bush(red).

The purpose of the electoral college is to equallize the value of each state and force the candidates to campaign there.  Otherwise, they'd spend 99% of their time in NY, LA, and other metro areas and ignore most of the nation.

Also, I would be in favor of some kind of arrangment so that political candidates recieved equal, but limited, amounts of free air time and space in print and that they not be allowed to make paid ads.  That way the money is removed without impinging on the purpose.

[Bobboau]

Originally posted by Liberator

The purpose of the electoral college is to equallize the value of each state and force the candidates to campaign there.  Otherwise, they'd spend 99% of their time in NY, LA, and other metro areas and ignore most of the nation.

yeah, becase they don't do that already /:rolleyes:

I hate maps like that, they are misleading, most of the red space has a population dencity 1/100th of the blue, all it shows is that republicans' base is in the rural areas.

wow, you can see the appalachian mountans on that thing!

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Bobboau
I hate maps like that, they are misleading

Which is why republicans love them. They seem to show that most of America likes the republicans when the truth is closer to a 50:50 split.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Liberator
Have served in the military long enough to rise at least 2 ranks, not pay grades.  Example: Ensign(lowest naval officer rank) to Lieutenant(guarantees character)

Bollocks.  Some of the greatest leaders in history never went near the army.   All the army guarentees is an ability to follow orders and kill people.

[PeachE]

Originally posted by karajorma


Cart before horse. He isn't a coward because he joined the national guard. He is a coward and that's why he joined the national guard.

i agree that the 17 months of AWOL is an issue that needs to be paid attention to.

but if you're saying that it isn't joining that national guard that makes him a coward, why is he a coward? AWOL just makes him completely irresponsible. because he didn't want to go to Vietnam? again, so what. it was a terrible mistake of a war. and if you didn't believe in it, the national guard was a good way to get out of it without dodging the draft. joining the National Guard simply says that you're willing to serve your country. you just don't happen to want to die for a cause you don't believe in. imo, that's not cowardice.

for example, if i could have, i would have joined up for the war in Afghanistan. gladly. willing to serve. but if i had been around for Vietnam and been drafted, there's no ****ing way i would have gone.

[Deepblue]

Uhm, he asked to go to Vietnam when serving, but was denied due to his lack of experiance.

[Ghostavo]

Who won in Alasca BTW?

[Deepblue]

Bush. Gore got Hawaii.

[PeachE]

Originally posted by Liberator
Have served in the military long enough to rise at least 2 ranks, not pay grades.  Example: Ensign(lowest naval officer rank) to Lieutenant(guarantees character)

so a 20 year veteran drill seargeant would be out of the question? and you understand that with this rule out JFK, Bush 41, FDR, Bill Clinton, Woodrow Wilson and Thomas Jefferson? i agree with aldo here. military service does not make you a great leader, rising two ranks is no guarantee of character (Nixon made it to Lt Commander), and lack of service is no proof that someone has neither character or leadrship ability.

Have a personal wealth of no less than $100,000 and no more than $1,000,000.(guarantees ability to understand money without having been corrupted by it)

bah, as high as the expenses are of running a campaign, noone with less than a 100,000 could probably afford to run anyway. and if they were able to pull together enough money for a full-on campaign, i think that would say something for their understanding of money.

All public office holders(including federal, state and local judges) shall be limited to no more than 4 total terms in office for the length of their lives... All term lengths will be of reasonable length, 6-8 year maximum.

don't agree with judges. there's a good reason that's lifetime. so they can be just without having to worry about their jobs.

but definitely agree otherwise. the congressmen who have been sitting up there for 30 years need to go.

The penalty for accepting bribes and other forms of corruption shall be immediate imprisonment at labor for not less than 10 years with no chance of parole or early release.

tru.

and i would go one step farther and eliminate the PAC loophole in federal campaign laws. and on a related note, i would also take a way corporate legal status as "persons".

The minimum age for public service will be 30 years, the maximum 65 years.

meh, the only cases where these age restrictions would be necessary would sort themselves out during a campaign.

[aldo_14]

NB: I think you'd actually want to encourage the super-rich to run for President... the way the current system works, candidates (and the incumbent) are basically indebted to campaign financiers - and thus repay them if they take office.  The more someone is able to self-finance, the more free they can be from this.

[.::Tin Can::.]

Yeah, I heard about the forged documents thing, and when that guy who made them came onto the show to say "Yes, I know they are fake!" even though expert after expert TOLD HIM they are fake, that show got the lowest ratings possible.

They are fake, no doubt about it, and since Bush's unit was never federalized, he couldnt have gone AWOL. Also, Bush wasnt in the National Guard to be a cook or a janitor. He was in it to be a FIGHTER PILOT. He was pretty far up there in his class in terms of learning how to fly (Near top 10% IIRC). Kerry hocks a grenade into a rice patty field and hurts himself. What a hero.

"Awwww, gawd daaaamn mah lehg!"

[aldo_14]

Woo.... the Texas militia air force.  Bush was grounded, IIRC, for failure to attned a regulation medical.   (incidentally, this was in '72, the same year the military introduced drugs & alcohol checks).

 Also, apparently missing enough drills meant that (somewhat perversely) the soldier / pilot would be called up to serve in the military proper.

 As the USAF had complete air dominance over 'nam, and that Bush was trainded to fly and F-102 interceptor, this meant he wasn't 'needed' and meant he would basically get  a get out of jail free card.

EDIT; or maybe not even qualified to do that http://www.abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20040910_551.html
Or at least not bothering his arse to turn up
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4481112,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4475804,00.html

[Ulala]

Originally posted by karajorma

Lastly it speaks about character to me.

What about Kerry's character? Shouldn't he have been fighting the Vietnam war instead of getting himself on video? Then again, I know jack about politics...