I'm pretty pro-gun. I grew up in Kansas in a home with a .22 rifle, and had many friends that had a much more extensive arsenal in their homes. One "gun nut" friend had somewhere around 10 high-powered rifles, roughly the same number of shotguns, 3-4 pistols, and even an AR-15 (civilian version of M-16) with extensive clips, flash suppressors, etc. purchased before the "assault weapons ban". That family was very responsible with their guns -- all locked in gun cabinets, fully unloaded, separate from ammo whenever not in use, sons all trained to use them responsibly, etc. I think a family/individual should have the right to do all that stuff. For defense, for hunting, as a farm "tool" (a firearm can be invaluable for protecting livestock, eliminating varmints and pests, etc.), for "home defense" (the least practical/intelligent use of firearms by a civilian IMHO), or even just for entertainment / target shooting -- whatever your reasons I think you should be able to legally purchase just about any kind of firearm.

That being said, the NRA goes completely off the deep end with some of the things it opposes. The Brady Bill, waiting periods, background checks, etc.? I'm fine with those "limitations", and I think that the NRA loses legitimacy putting up a fight against very reasonable measures like those. I understand the threat of slippery-slope issues, but waiting periods and background checks aren't going to bring the whole system down and definitely would do more good than harm.

All that being said, while I somewhat disagree with Jim Carrey's message in the "Cold Dead Hands" video, I liked it and could appreciate it as a good piece of satire expressing his point of view. The Fox News blowhards need to "Lighten up, Francis".

Is this the one where they develop it in Kansas?? -How many hundreds of rolls have I shot of Ektachrome 64 and 200....they discontinued all slide film December 2012- DC, you still have a Kodiak Carousel Slide projector??? I got two of those one-slide-atta-time gigs, too!

If anyone wants to read more about Stephen and LGBTQIA youth, here is the NYT article.

The New York Time's

Generation LGBTQIA

By MICHAEL SCHULMAN

Published: January 10, 2013

STEPHEN IRA, a junior at Sarah Lawrence College, uploaded a video last March on We Happy Trans, a site that shares "positive perspectives" on being transgender.

In the breakneck six-and-a-half-minute monologue - hair tousled, sitting in a wood-paneled dorm room - Stephen exuberantly declared himself "a queer, a nerd fighter, a writer, an artist and a guy who needs a haircut," and held forth on everything from his style icons (Truman Capote and "any male-identified person who wears thigh-highs or garters") to his toy zebra.

Because Stephen, who was born Kathlyn, is the 21-year-old child of Warren Beatty and Annette Bening, the video went viral, garnering nearly half a million views. But that was not the only reason for its appeal. With its adrenalized, freewheeling eloquence, the video seemed like a battle cry for a new generation of post-gay gender activists, for whom Stephen represents a rare public face.

Armed with the millennial generation's defining traits - Web savvy, boundless confidence and social networks that extend online and off - Stephen and his peers are forging a political identity all their own, often at odds with mainstream gay culture.

If the gay-rights movement today seems to revolve around same-sex marriage, this generation is seeking something more radical: an upending of gender roles beyond the binary of male/female. The core question isn't whom they love, but who they are - that is, identity as distinct from sexual orientation.

But what to call this movement? Whereas "gay and lesbian" was once used to lump together various sexual minorities - and more recently "L.G.B.T." to include bisexual and transgender - the new vanguard wants a broader, more inclusive abbreviation. "Youth today do not define themselves on the spectrum of L.G.B.T.," said Shane Windmeyer, a founder of Campus Pride, a national student advocacy group based in Charlotte, N.C.

Part of the solution has been to add more letters, and in recent years the post-post-post-gay-rights banner has gotten significantly longer, some might say unwieldy. The emerging rubric is "L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.," which stands for different things, depending on whom you ask.

"Q" can mean "questioning" or "queer," an umbrella term itself, formerly derogatory before it was appropriated by gay activists in the 1990s. "I" is for "intersex," someone whose anatomy is not exclusively male or female. And "A" stands for "ally" (a friend of the cause) or "asexual," characterized by the absence of sexual attraction.

It may be a mouthful, but it's catching on, especially on liberal-arts campuses.

The University of Missouri, Kansas City, for example, has an L.G.B.T.Q.I.A. Resource Center that, among other things, helps student locate "gender-neutral" restrooms on campus. Vassar College offers an L.G.B.T.Q.I.A. Discussion Group on Thursday afternoons. Lehigh University will be hosting its second annual L.G.B.T.Q.I.A. Intercollegiate Conference next month, followed by a Queer Prom. Amherst College even has an L.G.B.T.Q.Q.I.A.A. center, where every group gets its own letter.

The term is also gaining traction on social media sites like Twitter and Tumblr, where posts tagged with "lgbtqia" suggest a younger, more progressive outlook than posts that are merely labeled "lgbt."

"There's a very different generation of people coming of age, with completely different conceptions of gender and sexuality," said Jack Halberstam (formerly Judith), a transgender professor at the University of Southern California and the author, most recently, of "Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal."

"When you see terms like L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.," Professor Halberstam added, "it's because people are seeing all the things that fall out of the binary, and demanding that a name come into being."

And with a plethora of ever-expanding categories like "genderqueer" and "androgyne" to choose from, each with an online subculture, piecing together a gender identity can be as D.I.Y. as making a Pinterest board.

BUT sometimes L.G.B.T.Q.I.A. is not enough. At the University of Pennsylvania last fall, eight freshmen united in the frustration that no campus group represented them.

Sure, Penn already had some two dozen gay student groups, including Queer People of Color, Lambda Alliance and J-Bagel, which bills itself as the university's "Jewish L.G.B.T.Q.I.A. Community." But none focused on gender identity (the closest, Trans Penn, mostly catered to faculty members and graduate students).

Richard Parsons, an 18-year-old transgender male, discovered that when he attended a student mixer called the Gay Affair, sponsored by Penn's L.G.B.T. Center. "I left thoroughly disappointed," said Richard, a garrulous freshman with close-cropped hair, wire-framed glasses and preppy clothes, who added, "This is the L.G.B.T. Center, and it's all gay guys."

Through Facebook, Richard and others started a group called Penn Non-Cis, which is short for "non-cisgender." For those not fluent in gender-studies speak, "cis" means "on the same side as" and "cisgender" denotes someone whose gender identity matches his or her biology, which describes most of the student body. The group seeks to represent everyone else. "This is a freshman uprising," Richard said.

On a brisk Tuesday night in November, about 40 students crowded into the L.G.B.T. Center, a converted 19th-century carriage house, for the group's inaugural open mike. The organizers had lured students by handing out fliers on campus while barking: "Free condoms! Free ChapStick!"

"There's a really vibrant L.G.B.T. scene," Kate Campbell, one of the M.C.'s, began. "However, that mostly encompasses the L.G.B. and not too much of the T. So we're aiming to change that."

Students read poems and diary entries, and sang guitar ballads. Then Britt Gilbert - a punky-looking freshman with a blond bob, chunky glasses and a rock band T-shirt - took the stage. She wanted to talk about the concept of "bi-gender."

"Does anyone want to share what they think it is?"

Silence.

She explained that being bi-gender is like manifesting both masculine and feminine personas, almost as if one had a "detachable penis." "Some days I wake up and think, 'Why am I in this body?' " she said. "Most days I wake up and think, 'What was I thinking yesterday?' 

"Britt's grunginess belies a warm matter-of-factness, at least when describing her journey. As she elaborated afterward, she first heard the term "bi-gender" from Kate, who found it on Tumblr. The two met at freshman orientation and bonded. In high school, Kate identified as "agender" and used the singular pronoun "they"; she now sees her gender as an "amorphous blob."

By contrast, Britt's evolution was more linear. She grew up in suburban Pennsylvania and never took to gender norms. As a child, she worshiped Cher and thought boy bands were icky. Playing video games, she dreaded having to choose male or female avatars.

In middle school, she started calling herself bisexual and dated boys. By 10th grade, she had come out as a lesbian. Her parents thought it was a phase - until she brought home a girlfriend, Ash. But she still wasn't settled.

"While I definitely knew that I liked girls, I didn't know that I was one," Britt said. Sometimes she would leave the house in a dress and feel uncomfortable, as if she were wearing a Halloween costume. Other days, she felt fine. She wasn't "trapped in the wrong body," as the cliché has it - she just didn't know which body she wanted.

When Kate told her about the term "bi-gender," it clicked instantly. "I knew what it was, before I knew what it was," Britt said, adding that it is more fluid than "transgender" but less vague than "genderqueer" - a catchall term for nontraditional gender identities.

At first, the only person she told was Ash, who responded, "It took you this long to figure it out?" For others, the concept was not so easy to grasp. Coming out as a lesbian had been relatively simple, Britt said, "since people know what that is." But when she got to Penn, she was relieved to find a small community of freshmen who had gone through similar awakenings.

Among them was Richard Parsons, the group's most politically lucid member. Raised female, Richard grew up in Orlando, Fla., and realized he was transgender in high school. One summer, he wanted to room with a transgender friend at camp, but his mother objected. "She's like, 'Well, if you say that he's a guy, then I don't want you rooming with a guy,' " he recalled. "We were in a car and I basically blurted out, 'I think I might be a guy, too!' "

After much door-slamming and tears, Richard and his mother reconciled. But when she asked what to call him, he had no idea. He chose "Richard" on a whim, and later added a middle name, Matthew, because it means "gift of God."

By the time he got to Penn, he had been binding his breasts for more than two years and had developed back pain. At the open mike, he told a harrowing story about visiting the university health center for numbness and having a panic attack when he was escorted into a women's changing room.

Nevertheless, he praised the university for offering gender-neutral housing. The college's medical program also covers sexual reassignment surgery, which, he added, "has heavily influenced my decision to probably go under the Penn insurance plan next year."

PENN has not always been so forward-thinking; a decade ago, the L.G.B.T. Center (nestled amid fraternity houses) was barely used. But in 2010, the university began reaching out to applicants whose essays raised gay themes. Last year, the gay newsmagazine The Advocate ranked Penn among the top 10 trans-friendly universities, alongside liberal standbys like New York University.

More and more colleges, mostly in the Northeast, are catering to gender-nonconforming students. According to a survey by Campus Pride, at least 203 campuses now allow transgender students to room with their preferred gender; 49 have a process to change one's name and gender in university records; and 57 cover hormone therapy. In December, the University of Iowa became the first to add a "transgender" checkbox to its college application.

"I wrote about an experience I had with a drag queen as my application essay for all the Ivy Leagues I applied to," said Santiago Cortes, one of the Penn students. "And I got into a few of the Ivy Leagues - Dartmouth, Columbia and Penn. Strangely not Brown.

"But even these measures cannot keep pace with the demands of incoming students, who are challenging the curriculum much as gay activists did in the '80s and '90s. Rather than protest the lack of gay studies classes, they are critiquing existing ones for being too narrow.

Several members of Penn Non-Cis had been complaining among themselves about a writing seminar they were taking called "Beyond 'Will & Grace,' " which examined gay characters on shows like "Ellen," "Glee" and "Modern Family." The professor, Gail Shister, who is a lesbian, had criticized several students for using "L.G.B.T.Q." in their essays, saying it was clunky, and proposed using "queer" instead. Some students found the suggestion offensive, including Britt Gilbert, who described Ms. Shister as "unaccepting of things that she doesn't understand."

Ms. Shister, reached by phone, said the criticism was strictly grammatical. "I am all about economy of expression," she said. "L.G.B.T.Q. doesn't exactly flow off the tongue. So I tell the students, 'Don't put in an acronym with five or six letters.' "

One thing is clear. Ms. Shister, who is 60 and in 1979 became The Philadelphia Inquirer's first female sportswriter, is of a different generation, a fact she acknowledges freely, even gratefully. "Frankly, I'm both proud and envious that these young people are growing up in an age where they're free to love who they want," she said.

If history is any guide, the age gap won't be so easy to overcome. As liberated gay men in the 1970s once baffled their pre-Stonewall forebears, the new gender outlaws, to borrow a phrase from the transgender writer Kate Bornstein, may soon be running ideological circles around their elders.

Still, the alphabet soup of L.G.B.T.Q.I.A. may be difficult to sustain. "In the next 10 or 20 years, the various categories heaped under the umbrella of L.G.B.T. will become quite quotidian," Professor Halberstam said.

Even at the open mike, as students picked at potato chips and pineapple slices, the bounds of identity politics were spilling over and becoming blurry.

At one point, Santiago, a curly-haired freshman from Colombia, stood before the crowd. He and a friend had been pondering the limits of what he calls "L.G.B.T.Q. plus."

"Why do only certain letters get to be in the full acronym?" he asked.

Then he rattled off a list of gender identities, many culled from Wikipedia. "We have our lesbians, our gays," he said, before adding, "bisexual, transsexual, queer, homosexual, asexual." He took a breath and continued. "Pansexual. Omnisexual. Trisexual. Agender. Bi-gender. Third gender. Transgender. Transvestite. Intersexual. Two-spirit. Hijra. Polyamorous."

By now, the list had turned into free verse. He ended: "Undecided. Questioning. Other. Human."

The room burst into applause.

Correction: January 10, 2013, Thursday

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: An earlier version of this article and a picture caption referred incorrectly to a Sarah Lawrence College student who uploaded a video online about being transgender. He says he is Stephen Ira, not Stephen Ira Beatty.

Source NYT

Fair Use

We're not in Kansas anymore...

>> ^SpaceOddity:

>> ^Yogi:
You know, the reason these people feel that they are invincible is that no one has bothered to murder any of them yet. People say that's not the way to deal with them, but I can guarantee if they worried about their safety they wouldn't protest as much at all. The heads of that church are just barely keeping those people enthrall, if you make their adventures personally too costly, they will no longer protest and we will be free of them. Take one of these guys into an alley, and blow their brains out of the back of their head, and you will see a dramatic change in behavior.

Yogi, I am a Marine Corps Iraq veteran who happened to instruct other Marines in marksmanship.
I am also a native of Kansas who thinks the WBC (along with our education board, but that's another matter...) is an embarrassment to all Kansans.
My girlfriend is from Topeka and lived not far from their compound.
I won't deny the temptation to use my skills and the intelligence she could provide to conduct a midnight raid and rid the world of these hatemongers.
But when I think through the moral implications of this, taking another's life for their extreme utilization of the freedom of speech which I hold dear just doesn't sit right.
It's easy to be cynical and support the murder of strangers from your armchair.
It's not so simple when you are in the position to do it.


As the son and grandson of Marines I understand where you are coming from. Here's what I'm suggesting though, we are American citizens responsible for a lot of blood on our hands. Right now Israel is bombing the living shit out of Gaza killing civilians as well as children. They are only able to do this with our funding and selling them arms. I'm just saying if we're responsible for all these horrific deaths around the world, why not just a few more here at home? What I'm saying is we don't have the morality to say that it's not right because we do it so often, lets use it as a strength. We know where they are, lets get rid of them...it's only fair.

>> ^Yogi:

You know, the reason these people feel that they are invincible is that no one has bothered to murder any of them yet. People say that's not the way to deal with them, but I can guarantee if they worried about their safety they wouldn't protest as much at all. The heads of that church are just barely keeping those people enthrall, if you make their adventures personally too costly, they will no longer protest and we will be free of them. Take one of these guys into an alley, and blow their brains out of the back of their head, and you will see a dramatic change in behavior.


Yogi, I am a Marine Corps Iraq veteran who happened to instruct other Marines in marksmanship.
I am also a native of Kansas who thinks the WBC (along with our education board, but that's another matter...) is an embarrassment to all Kansans.
My girlfriend is from Topeka and lived not far from their compound.
I won't deny the temptation to use my skills and the intelligence she could provide to conduct a midnight raid and rid the world of these hatemongers.

But when I think through the moral implications of this, taking another's life for their extreme utilization of the freedom of speech which I hold dear just doesn't sit right.

It's easy to be cynical and support the murder of strangers from your armchair.
It's not so simple when you are in the position to do it.

@KnivesOut

@shinyblurry "I think he is polarizing because he actively works to divide people across political, economic and racial lines." Citation needed.

Here is Obama demagoging the wealthy in a speech he made in Kansas in late 2011:

"The free market has never been a license to take whatever you can from whomever you can,” and “Their philosophy is simple. We are better off when everybody is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules"

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/11/opinion/la-oe-mcmanus-column-obama-kansas-speech-20111211

Here is Obama saying republicans don't care about their neighbors or communities:



Here is Joe Biden telling people that Mitt Romney was going to put them back in chains:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/joe-biden-supporters-mitt-romney-put-back-chains-195904387.html

Don't you think the Republicans would do exactly the same thing in the same situation? Three branches of government, voted into control of all three branches... Jeopardy theme song... Seriously?

I have no doubt that the republicans would do the same thing. It isn't a question of what the republicans would do though, it is a question of the personal integrity of President Obama. It was President Obama who made it a major theme of his campaign that he wouldn't act unilaterally, but rather he would reach across the aisle and heal the bitter partisan divide in Washington. You seem to think it's okay that President Obama got elected under false pretenses, by misleading the American people about the type of president he would be. Because you hate the republicans, you don't seem to mind that he broke that promise; apparently in your eyes it is justified. Perhaps you view it as a necessary evil, something a candidate has to say to get elected. But this goes back to your original commentary, that it's amusing to you that someone would call President Obama on his promises. I think a man should live up this word; perhaps you feel differently.

I think he's more than slightly better for more than just the poorest. But he's not "good", so much as just less bad. Romney would be utter disaster...although that might be better in the long run. Let everything crash now, and maybe the damage would be less than pushing it off for another couple decades.

I'm definitely up for more Occupys and democracy. But I have a fear that it's too little, too late.
>> ^Yogi:

>> ^Stormsinger:
>> ^RFlagg:
I think way too many liberals think the election is a lock for Obama. I think there is a vary dangerous chance that Mitt will win and with a Republican controlled congress will erase most of the minor progress Obama managed to do and send us far backwards, especially with the Supreme Court by moving it from mildly to the right to the far right for generations to come...

I don't think that it's that so many liberals think Obama has a lock on teh election, as that many many liberals are highly ambivalent about his actions. And it's hard to drum up a lot of enthusiasm for voting for the lesser of two evils.
Then too, there's the fact that in most states, one vote, or a hundred votes, or a thousand votes, won't have the slightest effect. Your vote only matters if the state is closely divided. Kansas, for instance, wouldn't go for Obama if my vote counted for 10,000 votes. Our electoral system is as badly fucked up as our legislative system is...quite possibly not by coincidence.

Some Rats? This is how the system is designed, with the people on the outside not able to effect meaningful change. It doesn't matter whether we have Obama or Romney they're still not going to do what we want them. You could make the argument that Obama is slightly better for the poorest in America going forward but really, that's the best we can do? He won't get my vote with that, fuck him we need more Occupys and more democracy.

>> ^Stormsinger:

>> ^RFlagg:
I think way too many liberals think the election is a lock for Obama. I think there is a vary dangerous chance that Mitt will win and with a Republican controlled congress will erase most of the minor progress Obama managed to do and send us far backwards, especially with the Supreme Court by moving it from mildly to the right to the far right for generations to come...

I don't think that it's that so many liberals think Obama has a lock on teh election, as that many many liberals are highly ambivalent about his actions. And it's hard to drum up a lot of enthusiasm for voting for the lesser of two evils.
Then too, there's the fact that in most states, one vote, or a hundred votes, or a thousand votes, won't have the slightest effect. Your vote only matters if the state is closely divided. Kansas, for instance, wouldn't go for Obama if my vote counted for 10,000 votes. Our electoral system is as badly fucked up as our legislative system is...quite possibly not by coincidence.


Some Rats? This is how the system is designed, with the people on the outside not able to effect meaningful change. It doesn't matter whether we have Obama or Romney they're still not going to do what we want them. You could make the argument that Obama is slightly better for the poorest in America going forward but really, that's the best we can do? He won't get my vote with that, fuck him we need more Occupys and more democracy.

Yogi, you're quite smart but you've really got to drop the "obama hasn't kept any of his promises" schtick. It's so wrong it's embarassing:

here's a list of 200 accomplishments during his first term, with citations. I'm going to follow you around the internet and paste this every time you spout the schtick, until you finally read it.

http://pleasecutthecrap.typepad.com/main/what-has-obama-done-since-january-20-2009.html
>> ^Yogi:

>> ^Stormsinger:
>> ^RFlagg:
I think way too many liberals think the election is a lock for Obama. I think there is a vary dangerous chance that Mitt will win and with a Republican controlled congress will erase most of the minor progress Obama managed to do and send us far backwards, especially with the Supreme Court by moving it from mildly to the right to the far right for generations to come...

I don't think that it's that so many liberals think Obama has a lock on teh election, as that many many liberals are highly ambivalent about his actions. And it's hard to drum up a lot of enthusiasm for voting for the lesser of two evils.
Then too, there's the fact that in most states, one vote, or a hundred votes, or a thousand votes, won't have the slightest effect. Your vote only matters if the state is closely divided. Kansas, for instance, wouldn't go for Obama if my vote counted for 10,000 votes. Our electoral system is as badly fucked up as our legislative system is...quite possibly not by coincidence.

THIS! We don't care, if you're a progressive you have no illusions about Obama, you shouldn't have before the election, and if you did you definitely don't now. I know it's stupid but I want Romney to win, maybe that'll teach them they can't Fuck Around with promising shit and not delivering.

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^Stormsinger:
>> ^RFlagg:
I think way too many liberals think the election is a lock for Obama. I think there is a vary dangerous chance that Mitt will win and with a Republican controlled congress will erase most of the minor progress Obama managed to do and send us far backwards, especially with the Supreme Court by moving it from mildly to the right to the far right for generations to come...

I don't think that it's that so many liberals think Obama has a lock on teh election, as that many many liberals are highly ambivalent about his actions. And it's hard to drum up a lot of enthusiasm for voting for the lesser of two evils.
Then too, there's the fact that in most states, one vote, or a hundred votes, or a thousand votes, won't have the slightest effect. Your vote only matters if the state is closely divided. Kansas, for instance, wouldn't go for Obama if my vote counted for 10,000 votes. Our electoral system is as badly fucked up as our legislative system is...quite possibly not by coincidence.

THIS! We don't care, if you're a progressive you have no illusions about Obama, you shouldn't have before the election, and if you did you definitely don't now. I know it's stupid but I want Romney to win, maybe that'll teach them they can't Fuck Around with promising shit and not delivering.


Well, not so much. I'm not yet willing to burn down the barn just because it has some rats. Romney would be a disaster...for everyone who makes less than several hundred thousand a year. I rather suspect that a Romney administration would lead to the class warfare turning violent, as he appears to be so utterly one-sided.

>> ^Stormsinger:

>> ^RFlagg:
I think way too many liberals think the election is a lock for Obama. I think there is a vary dangerous chance that Mitt will win and with a Republican controlled congress will erase most of the minor progress Obama managed to do and send us far backwards, especially with the Supreme Court by moving it from mildly to the right to the far right for generations to come...

I don't think that it's that so many liberals think Obama has a lock on teh election, as that many many liberals are highly ambivalent about his actions. And it's hard to drum up a lot of enthusiasm for voting for the lesser of two evils.
Then too, there's the fact that in most states, one vote, or a hundred votes, or a thousand votes, won't have the slightest effect. Your vote only matters if the state is closely divided. Kansas, for instance, wouldn't go for Obama if my vote counted for 10,000 votes. Our electoral system is as badly fucked up as our legislative system is...quite possibly not by coincidence.


THIS! We don't care, if you're a progressive you have no illusions about Obama, you shouldn't have before the election, and if you did you definitely don't now. I know it's stupid but I want Romney to win, maybe that'll teach them they can't Fuck Around with promising shit and not delivering.

>> ^RFlagg:

I think way too many liberals think the election is a lock for Obama. I think there is a vary dangerous chance that Mitt will win and with a Republican controlled congress will erase most of the minor progress Obama managed to do and send us far backwards, especially with the Supreme Court by moving it from mildly to the right to the far right for generations to come...


I don't think that it's that so many liberals think Obama has a lock on teh election, as that many many liberals are highly ambivalent about his actions. And it's hard to drum up a lot of enthusiasm for voting for the lesser of two evils.

Then too, there's the fact that in most states, one vote, or a hundred votes, or a thousand votes, won't have the slightest effect. Your vote only matters if the state is closely divided. Kansas, for instance, wouldn't go for Obama if my vote counted for 10,000 votes. Our electoral system is as badly fucked up as our legislative system is...quite possibly not by coincidence.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

It's important to be rooted in idealism, but without pragmatism (and all of the qualities that go with it - cooperation, negotiation and compromise) there is no way reconcile your own idealism with the conflicting idealism of other factions.
If you want to create a healthcare system in a political climate dominated by business, you are going to have to make a few caveats to business. It's a foot in the door. Then, a few miles down the road you can renegotiate for something better. Same goes for foreign policy. While the use of new drone technology is troubling, it is an improvement over ground invasions, deploying troops and building bases in places they are unwelcome.
Democracy is a balancing act.

I understand what you're saying, and for the most part I'm forced to agree. But, saying the healthcare reform had a few caveats to business is like saying, "Lizzy Borden had a few issues with her parents."

The things that bother me most about Obama are the way his civil rights promises have been mostly ignored. He made no visible attempt to block the amnesty for telecom companies, indeed he voted for it. No investigation of torture and who ordered it. Increased use of the state secrets defense. In most ways as far as civil rights goes, he took the Bush line and doubled down.

I'm thankful (in some sad way) that it truly doesn't matter if I vote in this election...Kansas won't go for a Democrat for at least another 20 years or more (we'll need at least one more generation to die off, and maybe two or three). They sure aren't going to go for a somewhat-right-of-center black man.

>> ^lantern53:

"In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died -- an entire town destroyed." --on a Kansas tornado that killed 12 people

This is just one from a whole page listing stupid things obama said, per good ole google


*clap* *clap* *clap*
So for the first time, there's an actual defense for one of the stupid things Romney says; that it was just a joke, but instead your first instinct is "attack the other guy!". Well done. You should be on Fox News