"As Abraham Lincoln said - Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither."

It was actually Benjamin Franklin who originated this quote. Of course, who said it matters not to its relevance.

Funny ya mentioned that...a very evocative number with a simple melody, ripe for parody:

When you're alone and you are getting a boner,
You can always go, downtown
A pocket of Franklins', tap the buffet like Homer
Seems to help I know, downtown

Strollin' down the sikewalk with a forty and a fatty,
Hand-job on the subway from a teenager named Patty,
How can you lose? The skirts, are much higher there,
You can forget what her name is, maybe tug on some hair, when you're

Downtown, things will be great when you're
Downtown, ten-minute dates, when you're
Downtown, every thing's waiting for you....

Don't hang around and let your problems surround you
There are nudie shows, downtown
Maybe you know some little places to go
where you don't need clothes, downtown

Listen to her moaning, on your silent Motorola,
Motion to her horny friends, before the night is over, happy again...
The lights are so dim in there,
You can diddle for hours, and nobody cares

So go
Downtown, where all the sprites, delight
Downtown, maybe you'll start a fight
Downtown, where did you park your car now.....?

Downtown

And you may find somebody kind to help and understand you,
Someone who is rough like you who forcefully commands you,
To take off her thong, so maybe I'll see you there
We can forget all our morals, and get all the stares

So go
Downtown, things will be great when you're
Downtown, in a neighboring state, you go
Downtown, you've already burned your town down
Downtown, downtown, downtown, downtown

Downtown REDUX, Choggie Kendall, ©2013

>> ^shinyblurry:

>> ^RFlagg:
Problem is, they say the reason we were doing better was because we had God in schools, then we took him out of the schools and everything else... everything comes to how god was involved back then and less so now therefore we are paying the punishment of not having god in our lives... never mind how well many of the more atheist countries are doing (they think atheist countries are more like the old USSR)...
>> ^Fairbs:
Something most Republicans can't grasp is our country is better off when the rich are taxed more. 40 years ago, taxes on capital gains were 80%, but now Romney feels he's taxed too much at 15.


The argument isn't really about countries that are more atheist versus countries that aren't. It's that the United States has uniquely been a Christian nation since its founding. We are one nation, under God. Most people don't understand what that means; they think it is archaic when it is really the most important founding principle we have. The rapid decline in civil society has to do with the fact that, for the first time generations of Americans are growing up without the judeo-christian ethic being instilled in them from society, especially from their schools. And what we've seen since 1963 is a dramatic increase in the rate of violent crimes, teen pregnancy, STDs, the divorce rate, broken families, drug use, etc..the list goes on. There are the top 7 problems we had in our schools according to government records in 1940 vs 1990:
1940
1. Talking out of turn
2. Chewing Gum
3. Making noise
4. Running in the Halls
5. Cutting in Line
6. Dress-code violations
7. Littering
1990
1. Drug abuse
2. Alcohol abuse
3. Pregnancy
4. Suicide
5. Rape
6. Robbery
7. Assault
So, the argument is really that, we as a society have collectively turned our back on God, and therefore God has also turned His back on us. The principle is, you reap what you sow, and that's exactly what is going on right now. That's why this nation is facing calamity after calamity, because we have lost our way and we refuse to repent and turn back to our Creator.


You are picking and choosing your details man. I think you are also getting your 'facts' about the 40's and 50's from tv shows and movies and using them to spin your idea of 'how golden and free of crime America was before we turned out back on God.' And what about the decades before the 50's, certainly we hadn't 'turned away from god', so how do you explain the debauchery of the 20's, the turn of the century 'robber barons' that lived in luxury while their sweat-shops were worked by the masses of poor and children. The herione gangs and the waves of violence around 1910, 15.

It is really funny how some people (mostly white, older and male) see the 40's and 50's as this shining era of godly love, no crime and family harmony. It was all like 'leave it to beaver'. Dad made the big bucks, mom stayed at home and the most the kids ever got into trouble was when they broke a neighbors window. Yes, generally crime rates were low in the 40's and 50's but you cant attribute that to people 'having the fear of god' back then but skip over times that had just as much, if not even more religious fervor but also plenty of social upheaval and crime. Point of fact crime rates right now in most states are at historical lows, nearly to the levels of the 50's, but you still see murders every day. The information age has changed these things. In the 50's the only news you had was local. You might never have heard about some crime rave in another state.

Other things can attribute to the lower crime rates of those years. How many young men were serving in WWII during the 40's, that certainly would account for a drop in crime rates. And as to the 50's, the threat of nuclear war was constant. 'In God We Trust' wasn't added to money in the mid 50's because it was a particularly religious era, but rather because if the threat of communism. The term used to denote a healthy and proper family in the 50's wasn't coined the 'nuclear' family for nothing.

Last I'd like to point out that the US was 'never' designed as a Christian Nation and has only receive that monicker in the last number of years. I know bible-thumpers and hard-right politicians would have you think, hell have even changed school books, to wipe out ideas like the simple fact that many of the founding fathers wanted nothing to do with religion, though certainly not all. You can twist the words of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson all you want, but they above all abhorred the idea of religion influencing politics. This is not to say that they were all anti-religion, many advocated religion as a personal foundation of morality, but to hear modern republicans suggest they wanted Christianity to be the basis of the constitution and this country, they would be rolling over in their graves.

The question right now is whether incumbency will continue to be an advantage. In November, President Obama will run against a tower made of Benjamin Franklin portraits, and we'll get the answer.

Americans Elect is Shady

-They refuse to disclose most of their funding.
-The funding that has been disclosed comes mostly from Arno Consulting, a far right organization that has been involved in 5 different voter fraud cases.
-Chairman Peter Ackerman is an investment banker with connections to Koch Industries and the Cato Institute. (http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/relationship.asp?personId=662219) (http://sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Cato_Institute)
-There is no oversight or transparency to their process.
-The way the site is run could easily push the results in the direction that the secret funders want it to go.


Arno Political Consultants Controversies (from wiki).

-In 2004, APC hired JSM who hired YPM who is accused of tricking people into registering to vote as a Republican.[2]
-In 2004, APC is accused of forging signatures on a petition to legalize slot machines in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.[5]
-In 2005, APC has come under fire for allegedly fraudulent ballot petitioning strategies, particularly pertaining to a Massachusetts anti-gay marriage proposal as put forth by the Massachusetts Family Institute.[6][7]
-In 2007, APC hired JSM, Inc. who hired independent contractors who gave snacks and food to homeless people in exchange for signing petitions and registering to vote.[8]
-In 2009, proponents of a payday loan veto referendum sued APC in Franklin County for breach of contract and negligence. 13,000 signatures were thrown out because the Form 15's had not been appropriately filled out. They were seeking $438,000. [9] Both parties reached an undisclosed settlement agreement on July 29th, 2009.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arno_Political_Consultants

Just some history of the 2 parties......Setting aside the fact the the KKK was formed by the all inclusive tent of the Democrats...to scare the southern brother who remained Republican up until the 60s.



The Democratic Party was formed in 1792, when supporters of Thomas Jefferson began using the name Republicans, or Jeffersonian Republicans, to emphasize its anti-aristocratic policies. It adopted its present name during the Presidency of Andrew Jackson in the 1830s. In the 1840s and '50s, the party was in conflict over extending slavery to the Western territories. Southern Democrats insisted on protecting slavery in all the territories while many Northern Democrats resisted. The party split over the slavery issue in 1860 at its Presidential convention in Charleston, South Carolina.

Northern Democrats nominated Stephen Douglas as their candidate, and Southern Democrats adopted a pro-slavery platform and nominated John C. Breckinridge in an election campaign that would be won by Abraham Lincoln and the newly formed Republican Party. After the Civil War, most white Southerners opposed Radical Reconstruction and the Republican Party's support of black civil and political rights.
The Democratic Party identified itself as the "white man's party" and demonized the Republican Party as being "Negro dominated," even though whites were in control. Determined to re-capture the South, Southern Democrats "redeemed" state after state -- sometimes peacefully, other times by fraud and violence. By 1877, when Reconstruction was officially over, the Democratic Party controlled every Southern state.

The South remained a one-party region until the Civil Rights movement began in the 1960s. Northern Democrats, most of whom had prejudicial attitudes towards blacks, offered no challenge to the discriminatory policies of the Southern Democrats.
One of the consequences of the Democratic victories in the South was that many Southern Congressmen and Senators were almost automatically re-elected every election. Due to the importance of seniority in the U.S. Congress, Southerners were able to control most of the committees in both houses of Congress and kill any civil rights legislation. Even though Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a Democrat, and a relatively liberal president during the 1930s and '40s, he rarely challenged the powerfully entrenched Southern bloc. When the House passed a federal anti-lynching bill several times in the 1930s, Southern senators filibustered it to death.

Link

>> ^VoodooV:

proof that conservatives will put aside their supposed morality at the drop of a hat just to oppose a black man



So who is opposing the Black Man? Which party enslaves the Black Man today? Democrats use the welfare system which keeps many enslaved into poverty. Republicans want to help those get out and become free men and women to make free choices for themselves.

If you give a man a fish you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime. Democrats want to feed the poor fish-sticks. Republicans want to teach how to fish.

>> ^liverpoolfc:

You claim Police stopping people for random breath testing will lead to all that paranoid crap i'm not going to bother repeating.
If you think police performing random traffic stops to catch drunk-drivers is a dangerous thing I feel sorry for you and the state America is in.
I'm not British but i'd put money on you being a Republican. I'm not afraid of my Government or police force - clearly you are.

You're desperate to paint me as illogical but to me it just looks like you have poor reading comprehension. I don't claim random stops will lead to those other things. I claim that if the government felt they could get away with it, they would do those things.

EDIT: Some people don't understand what liberty and freedom is. I'm not anti-cop or even anti-government. Again, not any more than Ben Franklin or anyone else who gives it a LOT of thought. Randomly stopping people who are just going about their lives to assert your authority by shining flashlights in their eyes and interrogating them, which puts some people into weeks long spirals of panic and paranoia completely unrelated to any actual criminal culpability, is not harmless or purely protective.

You don't have to be Republican to be afraid of the police force. The police have brought on this assholery by, if not directly abusing people's rights, harboring the members who do behind the blue wall.>> ^liverpoolfc:

You claim Police stopping people for random breath testing will lead to all that paranoid crap i'm not going to bother repeating.
If you think police performing random traffic stops to catch drunk-drivers is a dangerous thing I feel sorry for you and the state America is in.
I'm not British but i'd put money on you being a Republican. I'm not afraid of my Government or police force - clearly you are.
>> ^budzos:
It's not a strawman.. nowhere did I say that those things were equilvalent. In fact I was illustrating a vector of unreasonable search and seizure, from one plateau of disreason to another. I see from your handle that you could possibly be British, which would explain your comfort with the government's head up your arse.
Who's to say a drunk driver hasn't killed one, or more, of my friends at various times? Being against random stops is not being pro drunk driving.
>> ^liverpoolfc:
Bahahah nice straw men. Why not just eliminate the police force entirely, speed limits, laws etc. No one has any business telling you what you can or can't do right???
Wonder if you'd feel the same way if a drink driver killed your mother, father, brother, sister, husband, wife, son or daughter.
>> ^budzos:
I didn't watch the clip but I do not agree with random road-checks for any reason. I don't care if the premise is that you're making the roads safer... I think Benjamin Franklin has a quote about that.
If the government thought they could get away with it, they'd institute random house searches. Why wouldn't you want your house searched unless you have something to hide!?
What about forced screenings/vaccinations for various diseases? I'm sure that's in the public/economic interest?
Let's just give our whole bodies and souls over to the government daddy to tell us where we can go and what we can consume at all times. It's good for the economy.

You claim Police stopping people for random breath testing will lead to all that paranoid crap i'm not going to bother repeating.

If you think police performing random traffic stops to catch drunk-drivers is a dangerous thing I feel sorry for you and the state America is in.

I'm not British but i'd put money on you being a Republican. I'm not afraid of my Government or police force - clearly you are.

>> ^budzos:

It's not a strawman.. nowhere did I say that those things were equilvalent. In fact I was illustrating a vector of unreasonable search and seizure, from one plateau of disreason to another. I see from your handle that you could possibly be British, which would explain your comfort with the government's head up your arse.
Who's to say a drunk driver hasn't killed one, or more, of my friends at various times? Being against random stops is not being pro drunk driving.
>> ^liverpoolfc:
Bahahah nice straw men. Why not just eliminate the police force entirely, speed limits, laws etc. No one has any business telling you what you can or can't do right???
Wonder if you'd feel the same way if a drink driver killed your mother, father, brother, sister, husband, wife, son or daughter.
>> ^budzos:
I didn't watch the clip but I do not agree with random road-checks for any reason. I don't care if the premise is that you're making the roads safer... I think Benjamin Franklin has a quote about that.
If the government thought they could get away with it, they'd institute random house searches. Why wouldn't you want your house searched unless you have something to hide!?
What about forced screenings/vaccinations for various diseases? I'm sure that's in the public/economic interest?
Let's just give our whole bodies and souls over to the government daddy to tell us where we can go and what we can consume at all times. It's good for the economy.

It's not a strawman.. nowhere did I say that those things were equilvalent. In fact I was illustrating a vector of unreasonable search and seizure, from one plateau of disreason to another. I see from your handle that you could possibly be British, which would explain your comfort with the government's head up your arse.

Who's to say a drunk driver hasn't killed one, or more, of my friends at various times? Being against random stops is not being pro drunk driving.

>> ^liverpoolfc:

Bahahah nice straw men. Why not just eliminate the police force entirely, speed limits, laws etc. No one has any business telling you what you can or can't do right???
Wonder if you'd feel the same way if a drink driver killed your mother, father, brother, sister, husband, wife, son or daughter.
>> ^budzos:
I didn't watch the clip but I do not agree with random road-checks for any reason. I don't care if the premise is that you're making the roads safer... I think Benjamin Franklin has a quote about that.
If the government thought they could get away with it, they'd institute random house searches. Why wouldn't you want your house searched unless you have something to hide!?
What about forced screenings/vaccinations for various diseases? I'm sure that's in the public/economic interest?
Let's just give our whole bodies and souls over to the government daddy to tell us where we can go and what we can consume at all times. It's good for the economy.

Bahahah nice straw men. Why not just eliminate the police force entirely, speed limits, laws etc. No one has any business telling you what you can or can't do right??? Yep I can get just as ridiculous as you.

Wonder if you'd feel the same way if a drink driver killed your mother, father, brother, sister, husband, wife, son or daughter.

In Australia it is an offence to refuse a breath analysis when directed to do so by police and operating a motor vehicle. Strangely enough we don't have random house searches over here or forced vaccinations...
>> ^budzos:

I didn't watch the clip but I do not agree with random road-checks for any reason. I don't care if the premise is that you're making the roads safer... I think Benjamin Franklin has a quote about that.
If the government thought they could get away with it, they'd institute random house searches. Why wouldn't you want your house searched unless you have something to hide!?
What about forced screenings/vaccinations for various diseases? I'm sure that's in the public/economic interest?
Let's just give our whole bodies and souls over to the government daddy to tell us where we can go and what we can consume at all times. It's good for the economy.

I didn't watch the clip but I do not agree with random road-checks for any reason. I don't care if the premise is that you're making the roads safer... I think Benjamin Franklin has a quote about that.

If the government thought they could get away with it, they'd institute random house searches. Why wouldn't you want your house searched unless you have something to hide!?

What about forced screenings/vaccinations for various diseases? I'm sure that's in the public/economic interest?

Let's just give our whole bodies and souls over to the government daddy to tell us where we can go and what we can consume at all times. It's good for the economy.

"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong … somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. … I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. … And an enormous debt to boot." --Henry Morgenthau, Jr., U.S. Secretary of the Treasury during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt

The myth of FDR is the edifice on which the modern welfare state wobbles.




>> ^Yogi:

>> ^quantumushroom:
So what did FDR do, exactly? If big biz (that old reliable satan of the left) really "controlled" government then all FDR did was make government bigger and more tyrannical, and to this day the left claims big biz still runs it.
FDR's antics extended the Depression. "High tariffs and government-sponsored deflation followed by enormous taxation and unthinkable government expenditures turned a stock market stumble into a decade-long nightmare."
Obama's cut from the same fictive cloth, a dragon pretending to be dragonslayer.

These statements are from a reputable historian or economist I take it?

Yea, I hate to say it, but the left really seems to have no idea how convoluted and potentially dangerous legislating this issue is. Diogenes is on the right track, and even (gasp) GeeSussFreeK gets it. We aren't concerned with whether or not a corporation can hand over billions of dollars to a campaign. That seems relatively straightforward. At issue is whether a corporation can buy a billion dollars worth of advertisements perceived to be supporting a particular candidate or position. Once you put it like that, it seems much dicier. Who decides whether an ad is political if it isn't expressly stated that way? How could we even effectively limit that sort of activity without risking limitations on legitimate political speech? I mean, do we want to tell the Audubon Society they can't run advocacy campaigns in an election year? Or do we just want to tell people they can't donate to the Audubon Society in an election year? See the problem?

The fact is money has always been a factor in amplifying speech. It's one of the reasons Ben Franklin was so powerful (via his control of the presses). However the first amendment was enshrined anyway. Now, I still sympathize with the notion that something is wrong with our political process, and it looks to be something like green paper with president's faces on it. However, a means to effectively fixing it without severe (potentially worse) unintended consequences is still a mystery to me.

Shady

-They refuse to disclose most of their funding.
-The funding that has been disclosed comes mostly from Arno Consulting, a far right organization that has been involved in 5 different voter fraud cases.
-Chairman Peter Ackerman is an investment banker with connections to Koch Industries and the Cato Institute. (http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/relationship.asp?personId=662219) (http://sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Cato_Institute)
-There is no oversight or transparency to their process.
-The way the site is run could easily push the results in the direction that the secret funders want it to go.


Arno Political Consultants Controversies (from wiki).

-In 2004, APC hired JSM who hired YPM who is accused of tricking people into registering to vote as a Republican.[2]
-In 2004, APC is accused of forging signatures on a petition to legalize slot machines in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.[5]
-In 2005, APC has come under fire for allegedly fraudulent ballot petitioning strategies, particularly pertaining to a Massachusetts anti-gay marriage proposal as put forth by the Massachusetts Family Institute.[6][7]
-In 2007, APC hired JSM, Inc. who hired independent contractors who gave snacks and food to homeless people in exchange for signing petitions and registering to vote.[8]
-In 2009, proponents of a payday loan veto referendum sued APC in Franklin County for breach of contract and negligence. 13,000 signatures were thrown out because the Form 15's had not been appropriately filled out. They were seeking $438,000. [9] Both parties reached an undisclosed settlement agreement on July 29th, 2009.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arno_Political_Consultants