>> ^Edgeman2112:

You'll have change if it's profitable.


And not a second before.

>> ^Boise_Lib:

John Edwards said the right things, but then so did Obama.


John Edwards also got caught getting his mistress pregnant while his dying wife underwent cancer treatment, and got caught up in some nasty election fraud allegations/shenanigans during his run for nomination back in 'oh-eight. Unfortunately his mess-ups will overshadow him being right about change being necessary in government.

John Edwards said the right things, but then so did Obama.

Okay, so I had wrote out a response and saved it in MS Word--and it got deleted somehow on my comp before I posted it. Then I gave up...because that took a long time to write out thoughtfully.... But now that have the free time, I will attempt it again. Plus, I have OCD...

So;

1-Haven't we all? And even if he hasn't, I certainly am not the man to judge.
2-I do assume he would be neutral on race. The problem is his convictions, right or wrong, ere on the side of a dogma-like belief system. His ideals of "liberty" (Whatever that means) above all else is neutral; unfortunately America is not neutral and would turn those ideas into racial superiority somehow. (I.e., he is to stupid and would advocate "freedom" that would open the door for employers to be racist and oppressive, I thinks...)
3-I think John Edward's cheating on his cancer-afflicted wife is far worse than manipulating for power. Nearly every single politician has in some manner stoked the race fires--but not all have betrayed those who loved them personally. Look at the Zimmerman bs and the stoking of that fire pit. America is one big stoke factory whether we like it or not...
4-You don't need to forgive me for being racist, and you don't need to forgive Paul if isn't any longer a racist. In fact, in my case where open and malicious racism was instilled in me early--you should thank me for figuring out a better way. I don't need pitied with forgiveness...and I wish America would stop putting so much emphasis on forgiveness and just move on...
5-Nope... Read 5...
6-Its because its one thing to betray the public--its another to betray those who have loved you. In certain countries or the military Edwards would have been punished with severe prison time or even death. Why? Because such a barbaric betrayal is hard to forgive. A different kind of animal. One is psychotic, the other is opportunistic asshole-ism.

And then

1-When you find yourself smiling at your friend who you have hung out with for over a year, thinking to yourself how much lower he is than you because of his skin, then regretting those thoughts--I attribute it to racism. When you think that his pride in his Hispanic background is nasty--racism... When you try but can't care about his plights of racial injustice, when they stir nothing in your heart--racism.

I am trying to work on it, but that's all I can do. Try. That and be the damned nicest guy I can be, and treat him fairly as a human being should be treated...guess that's all I can do.

2-People can change and they change all the time. I used to hate gays, as I have noted, but now I do not. However, that is not saying I am capable of any change. For example, I doubt I will ever be gay. But who knows--it just isn't happening any time soon. I am more Buddhist in my ways of thinking---it will either change or it will not, and we will either live with it or will not. But try to be the best person you can with what you have and make it the best you can.

>> ^NetRunner:

@Lawdeedaw I think there are several problems with that rant:

1. It assumes Ron Paul has changed
   
2. It assumes Ron Paul would be "neutral" on race
   
3. It assumes John Edwards cheating on his wife is worse than stoking racial animosity for personal gain
   
4. It expects us to forgive Ron Paul's sins, when Paul still denies having made them in the first place
   
5. It expects us to forgive Ron Paul's sins, when Paul hasn't really acted as though this sort of thing is something you need to apologize for and be contrite about
   
6. It expects us to have not forgiven John Edwards, even though he's publicly confessed, and been both contrite and repentant
   

>> ^brycewi19:

I think there's way more drama in this than there actually was.


You're right. Read the book. I was far more surprised by what he had to say about the things Hillary Clinton did than Sarah Palin. John Edwards too. But Palin is the one everyone's interested in so that seems to be the focus of the movie.

As much as people bemoan Reverend Wright, I never really got the controversy.

Can you please give me a direct quote where the pastor denigrates white people? Or says that black people are superior? While he talks about about race, complains about racial issues, and blasts the government, what racist thing did he say? 'Cause I can pull out reams of quotes from those Ron Paul newletters that denigrate blacks and push white supremacy.

You do know that that church recorded years of its Sunday services? That's how journalists could find a few choice quotes in years of sermons. But even with all that material to sift through, they found alot of nothing.

Where's the video where Reverend Wright stands in front of a black power flag and spouts off revisionist history to a the black version of neo-confederates?

I think its a shame that Obama had to ditch that church because some of his white supporters don't realize that black americans still complain loudly about racism in America.>> ^quantumushroom:

@NetRunner and others, I question your collective "concern" over this non-issue, which is comical considering Dr. Paul has no chance of wining the nomination (or does he)?
I don't know if you voted for Chicago Jesus, but if the facts that he spent 20 years in the Church of Hate Whitey under the tutelage of the deranged Jeremiah Wright, got married in said church and also gave it 20Gs doesn't bother you, then your problem with Dr. Paul isn't "racism", it's libertarianism.
As soon as his loyal Democrat mainstream media lackeys warned him, Obama abandoned the church he "loved" like a true politician. If that satisfied you enough to consider him electable, than a few ragged newsletters no one has seen isn't going to throw off Dr. Paul's base.
I don't know who among you voted for The One way back in 2008, but even if you did not, if you lost no sleep over Obama's questionable past (the parts the loyal MSM lackeys didn't or couldn't hide) then your arguments against Dr. Paul's past are moot.


>> ^NetRunner:
@Lawdeedaw I think there are several problems with that rant:

1. It assumes Ron Paul has changed
   
2. It assumes Ron Paul would be "neutral" on race
   
3. It assumes John Edwards cheating on his wife is worse than stoking racial animosity for personal gain
   
4. It expects us to forgive Ron Paul's sins, when Paul still denies having made them in the first place
   
5. It expects us to forgive Ron Paul's sins, when Paul hasn't really acted as though this sort of thing is something you need to apologize for and be contrite about
   
6. It expects us to have not forgiven John Edwards, even though he's publicly confessed, and been both contrite and repentant
   

@NetRunner and others, I question your collective "concern" over this non-issue, which is comical considering Dr. Paul has no chance of wining the nomination (or does he)?

I don't know if you voted for Chicago Jesus, but if the facts that he spent 20 years in the Church of Hate Whitey under the tutelage of the deranged Jeremiah Wright, got married in said church and also gave it 20Gs doesn't bother you, then your problem with Dr. Paul isn't "racism", it's libertarianism.

As soon as his loyal Democrat mainstream media lackeys warned him, Obama abandoned the church he "loved" like a true politician. If that satisfied you enough to consider him electable, than a few ragged newsletters no one has seen isn't going to throw off Dr. Paul's base.

I don't know who among you voted for The One way back in 2008, but even if you did not, if you lost no sleep over Obama's questionable past (the parts the loyal MSM lackeys didn't or couldn't hide) then your arguments against Dr. Paul's past are moot.




>> ^NetRunner:

@Lawdeedaw I think there are several problems with that rant:

1. It assumes Ron Paul has changed
   
2. It assumes Ron Paul would be "neutral" on race
   
3. It assumes John Edwards cheating on his wife is worse than stoking racial animosity for personal gain
   
4. It expects us to forgive Ron Paul's sins, when Paul still denies having made them in the first place
   
5. It expects us to forgive Ron Paul's sins, when Paul hasn't really acted as though this sort of thing is something you need to apologize for and be contrite about
   
6. It expects us to have not forgiven John Edwards, even though he's publicly confessed, and been both contrite and repentant
   

@Lawdeedaw I think there are several problems with that rant:

1. It assumes Ron Paul has changed
   
2. It assumes Ron Paul would be "neutral" on race
   
3. It assumes John Edwards cheating on his wife is worse than stoking racial animosity for personal gain
   
4. It expects us to forgive Ron Paul's sins, when Paul still denies having made them in the first place
   
5. It expects us to forgive Ron Paul's sins, when Paul hasn't really acted as though this sort of thing is something you need to apologize for and be contrite about
   
6. It expects us to have not forgiven John Edwards, even though he's publicly confessed, and been both contrite and repentant
   

1. I don't presume to know you better than you know yourself, but I don't think you're a racist...
   
2. And if I take what you said at face value, it implies that people don't change (i.e. you don't like being racist, but can't help it), and that people can't just purge that from their system and become pure as the driven snow in a short span of time.
   

I posted this once before, so I am simply reposting this. What do you make of it? Am I a lesser person because of my views? Is the amoral world of politics shadier because it uses race everyday to achieve its agendas, both for and against minorities?

If you wish to be elected, and pander to racists, but then use your power to remain neutral or even help the cause, what then? And if you were racist 20 years ago, but never again benefited from it, does it really matter?

I am all about forgiving though--all people, even the worst of the worst (Just remember that too.)


"You know I am racist right? I don't like it--but that is how life has formed me... A group treats me with hate, I treat them back in kind motherfucker... The same reason I hate redneck country bumpkins... much like the hate spewed against Cops, Conservatives and the religious on this site, now that I think of it. (Oh, and it's also the reason I am fine with African Americans. For the most part I have had great experiences with most.)

Now, there are limits. I don't allow it to affect the way I treat people--all are equal. I don't teach it to my children. And I don't preach it.

But to blame Paul for writing (Perhaps he did or did not, I don't care) a paper years ago is utterly ridiculous. People change, who knows. You certainly don't. All I know is he hasn't wrote new hate since then, or at least it isn't widely known.

And, I might add, politicians have done far worse... Like John Edwards."

It certainly did in John Edwards' case, and it didn't even have to be brought up in a debate. So it goes with both sides of the aisle.

>> ^dag:

I think it's both cool and important. Speaks to character. I like to think I would feel the same way if it was a Dem. I hope so.>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
Still don't think it is cool to bring up in a debate (as it isn't debatable among all the candidates), but I'm upvoting because hes swine.

The Big Lie About The Great Depression

Ben Shapiro

In her vital and fascinating new book, "The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression," Amity Shlaes tells a story about national icon President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Shortly after FDR took office, Shlaes explains, he began arbitrarily tinkering with the price of gold. "One day he would move the price up several cents; another, a few more," writes Shlaes.

One particular morning, Shlaes relates, FDR informed his "brain trust" that he was considering raising the price of gold by 21 cents. His advisers asked why 21 cents was the appropriate figure. "It's a lucky number," stated Roosevelt, "because it's three times seven." Henry Morgenthau, a member of the "brain trust," later wrote: "If anybody knew how we really set the gold price through a combination of lucky numbers, etc., I think they would be frightened."

Ignorance of basic economics — and the concurrent attempt to obfuscate that ignorance by employing class-conscious demagoguery — remains the staple of the Democratic Party. For over 60 years, Democrats and their allies in the media and public school system have taught that the Great Depression was an inevitable result of laissez-faire economic policies, and that only the Keynesian policies of the FDR government allowed America to emerge from the ashes. The Great Depression, for the left, provides conclusive proof that when it comes to economics, government works better than business.

This point of view has a sterling reputation. That reputation, unsurprisingly, was created by FDR himself. FDR turned the Great Depression into a morality play — a morality play in which those in favor of individual initiative were the sinners, while those who relied on government were the saints. "We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals," Roosevelt intoned in 1937. "We know now that it is bad economics."

This, as Shlaes convincingly shows, is hogwash. The Depression lasted nearly a decade longer than it should have, due almost entirely to governmental meddling under both Herbert Hoover and FDR. High tariffs and government-sponsored deflation followed by enormous taxation and unthinkable government expenditures turned a stock market stumble into a decade-long nightmare. Only the devastation of World War II lifted America out of the mire, solving the drastic unemployment problem and providing a legitimate medium for FDR's pre-war wartime policies.

Nonetheless, the myth of a grinning FDR leading America forth from the soup kitchens remains potent.
And today's Democrats rely desperately on that fading falsehood, hoping to bolster their bad economics with worse history. Hillary Clinton routinely hijacks Rooseveltian language, most recently disparaging the "on your own society" in favor of a "we're all in it together society." John Edwards' "two Americas" nonsense drips of FDR's class warfare. Never mind that Keynesian economics does not work. Never mind that it promotes unemployment, discourages investment and quashes entrepreneurship. For Democrats, the image of government-as-friend is more important than a government that actually protects the rights that breed prosperity.

"The impression of recovery — the impression that a President was bending the old rules and, drawing upon his own courage and flamboyance in adversity and illness, stirring things up on behalf of the down-and-out — mattered more than any miscalculations in the moot mathematics of economics," novelist-cum-economist John Updike recently wrote, defending FDR from Shlaes' critique. "Business, of which Shlaes is so solicitous, is basically merciless, geared to maximize profit. Government is ultimately a human transaction, and Roosevelt put a cheerful, defiant, caring face on government at a time when faith in democracy was ebbing throughout the Western world. For this inspirational feat he is the twentieth century's greatest President, to rank with Lincoln and Washington as symbolic figures for a nation to live by."

For Updike and his allies, image trumps reality. The supposed harshness of the business world matters more for Updike than the fact that profit incentives promote economic growth, efficiency and creativity. The "caring face" of government is more important for Updike than creating a framework that produces jobs and affordable commodities. Updike's sporadically employed father liked FDR because FDR made him feel "less alone." No doubt Updike's father would have felt less alone if he had been steadily employed by a private enterprise — the kind of enterprise stifled by Roosevelt.

"We are beginning to wipe out the line that divides the practical from the ideal," FDR announced in 1937, as unemployment stood at 15 percent, "and in so doing we are fashioning an instrument of unimagined power for the establishment of a morally better world." Today's Democrats continue to embrace the vision, even at the cost of a prosperous reality.

@VoodooV
Really? Bribery? They're ALL politicians, that's all they do. How do you think they got there. Some get bribed by breaking the law and some get bribed and change the laws.

But while we are throwing stones you forgot John Edwards.

>> ^Mcboinkens:

How did he guess specific names though? Is he given a list?


Amazingly, events like this usually have the audience fill out a questionare prior to going to the set. I know John Edward's show does this.

Since this was the one thing he knew for both people, I'm guessing a "Who would you hope to contact today" type question was on that form.

>> ^frosty:

Tea Party Reasoning? Typical sleazy political tactic -- take the behavior of a nut on the fringe of a movement and project that behavior on the movement at large. You know, every Democrat is an adulterer just like John Edwards.


The Tea Party is a fringe movement.

And the man's reasoning is, probably, 90% in keeping with that of its membership, except he's a little more gung-ho and hostile about expressing it.

What did he say that the average Tea Party member would disagree with?

Even the so called "reasonable" tea partiers are pretty whacked out man. I have yet to see one anywhere who even resembles a rational human being. Who would you point to as a mainstream/non lunatic fringe TPer?

>> ^frosty:

Tea Party Reasoning? Typical sleazy political tactic -- take the behavior of a nut on the fringe of a movement and project that behavior on the movement at large. You know, every Democrat is an adulterer just like John Edwards.