>> ^deedub81:
"Deedub, the US was really friendly with Saddam. Think about all those nasty weapons he got. Who sold them to him?"
I know this. I never said we weren't friendly. What I meant to say was, why didn't we remain friendly?
Mentality stated that the US only does what's in the United States own best interest. I say, it was in our best interest to remain friendly.
If both those statements are true, then we should have stayed out of Iraq.
Mentality said this: It was always about WE wanted. It doesn't matter if US backed regiemes were tyrants that murdered their own citizens, it's cool as long as they're American-friendly.
Multiple comments directed towards me state that we WERE friendly with Iraq years ago, as if I didn't already know this.
Well, then why did we go there if we were and could be friendly with them and we didn't care that Saddam was murdering his people? Because he didn't remain friendly to us. He stopped obeying mandates made by the U.N.
Look, I already said this before. I was against the Iraq invasion then, and I'm against it now. Period.


okey dokey, deedub81, you made your point. you were against the war then, you're against the war now. still, seems to me like you're trying to convince yourself that the whole occupation is somehow justified, though. i think it's not. the way i see it your country has been hijacked by a bunch of greedy thugs who wanted to exploit US military might to their own advantage and to the wishes of big business interests that fuel their zeal. the people in power didn't decide to bomb iraq back to stoneage because Saddam was a bad boy but simply because they could. they set a dangerous precedent with that decision that only made things worse and the whole world is less stable and secure now because of it. if it's any help, i'm sorry for directing some of the anger i feel towards these scumbags on to you

I don't agree with the stipulation that news should react to demand based incentives based off commercial interests, the news should not be a commercial enterprise.

Freedom of information and its spread through the populace is the basis of democracy. When you have news dictated by business interests then its easy for private interests to not report certain items to the populace, think of way private business does not report any thing that runs counter the the administration, its not acting as a news organization, it simply acts as a regurgitates for the administration. The word torture was avoided by news organizations because saying the US tortures would imply the US president was lying. Which he was. Thus you have 'enhanced interrogation methods'.

For me a news organization must report on what is going on, within a contextual time frame, this is key, there is news you don't know you wanted to know until someone reports it to you. Notice how any big large story once reported echo chambers through the rest of the networks once it breaks. Because no one risks it now, and when someone does imitation sets it.

Yes most people derive their news from the Internet now, but that is also problematic, because one must want to get the news to start digging for it online to get the full story.

As George Orwell said "To see in front of ones nose requires a constant struggle", its especially true now.

Whether you're right about L. Ron Hubbard's motives or not is irrelevant. Considering most religions are equally absurd, I find no special reason to force Scientology to pay taxes while exempting other religions.

I happen to be against tax exempt status for religions, as most of the major ones continue to dabble heavily in politics with contributions to politicians and business interests.

I've worked at a few places where people would routinely burn the popcorn by forgetting that they put a bag of popcorn in the nuker (with the timer set too high it seems). You all know that smell, and the smoke that permeated every inch of that sector of the building. Compounded also with people activating various pollutant "air fresheners" and/or perfume. I would usually take an "extended" break when this would occur and I could never understand how others quietly tolerated it. ugh!!!!
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qruel stated: "fuck people when profits are involved. This is one of the main reasons I CAN"T vote for Ron Paul. He puts business interests over concern for peoples health."

First off your talking about a doctor that sincerely cares about life and health. Second, just how do you think he would be putting big business over the health of Americans?

fuck people when profits are involved. This is one of the main reasons I CAN"T vote for Ron Paul. He puts business interests over concern for peoples health.

Adults didn't make these laws to protect themselves though, they were lied into it. Politicians and business interests made them to serve themselves. The one doctor from the AMA who testified before committee said they didn't agree, committee lied to the full Congress when asked about it. It's in the records.

Refer madness, addicts in the streets, and so on. Turned out little of it was true, but they were sold the lie. Try offering them honest education and a real choice and you've got a point. Do it based on hysteria and lies and you don't.

We knew it was lies, New York Mayor's Committee on Marihuana established that. Same mayor as the airport is named after, widely seen as a hero of the era. He was against alcohol prohibition then when the Hearst and other newspapers started printing horror stories about pot some included New York. He looks around and can't find what they claim, it seemed invented, so asked for his own study. Years later we got the following. We've always known, we just pretended we didn't.

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/lag/lagmenu.htm

I posted this for you once before, I'll post it again and you can read it or not as your wish.

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/whiteb1.htm

That's a history which covers from pre-prohibition until fairly recently, written by a professor of law and delivered to the annual judges conference.

Here's some of the details they used to "convince" us of it since, a collection of some of the junk science which has been tried on us over the years. The playboy one I especially though was amusing, but all were interesting.

http://www.jackherer.com/chapter15.html

A quick example. They forced Rhesus monkeys into gas masks and fed massive quantities of smoke to them in a very short time then did it again, and again, and again, and when they were done they assumed all damage was pot and ignored things like a need for oxygen. It took a freedom of information act request to even get the Government to share the methodology behind their "proof", and when they did the world laughed. Oxygen deprivation and carbon monoxide poisoning, not pot did the damage.

Does that make pot harmless? Nope. Smoke all the time and you do suffer learning impairment, the cancer scare turns out to have had little to it but it can cause bronchitis with abuse and has some other drawbacks too. Some do seem prone to mental problems being aggravated even if not caused due to it, but that's some. Not all. Too many think it's harmless though, and we know why. With all the lies they have been fed about pot they tend to assume any warning is a lie, so much else has been.

That in a nutshell is the problem with the drug war. Use went up here through the 50's-70's in spite of laws that in places could and did could offer a sentence as heavy as life for a joint. Use went up some in the Netherlands with coffee shops. Use went up worldwide in that time period. Now look at who has problems with it, and who doesn't. With them use today is half of what it is here and the kids don't seem hung up on it so much as recognize it as recreation to be had in its place and time rather than all the time. Kind of like that glass of wine, beer, or whatever else we have with meals or in front of a game rather than all the time. It isn't safe either with abuse, but it isn't a problem with casual use at home.

Today we treat all drugs the same, pot is classed with heroin and we try to convince the kids they are somehow similar. So when we manage to convince them of half of it, that they are similar, then they find we've lied about pot, what do we expect them to think about the harder drugs? They don't believe us because of the lies. It's our own damned fault.

Real facts, real regulation that separates dangerous from mild risk. Not because no harm can come from drugs, but because so much can and it's got worse without them. What I expect is not free use, it's regulated and probably as tightly as we can. We need to allow users enough access to get rid of the street dealers, but not an inch more than we have to. Trial study and science, not scare tactics and moral requirements. At this point neither I nor anyone else knows what it'll look like when we're done if we let the results lead the way, we can just guess. We need to do the work and make sure. If it's a bad idea, it never gets out of trial study, small scale use in a limited area. If good, maybe we've got a way out of some of this damage. We'll never know until we look.

Edited to clarify the carbon monoxide poisoning point on pot.

Ahem.

Let me break it down for you in ways you can understand. This goverment and this administration supports free market economies that support the free movement of labor. This is the administrations stance and it's the stance of both the Federal Reserve and Wall Street. This means that NO deportation of illegal immigrants will occur any time soon. Sorry, but American business interests outweigh the dissent voices of xenophobic people like you. Conservatives have noticed that new citizens even those who were previously considered illegal usually have conservative views in politics. So they are not willing to attack the issue vehemently. Bush fought to capture the immigrant vote.

Professor of Law Francine Lipman writes in a 2006 paper in the peer-reviewed journal Tax Lawyer of the American Bar Association Section of Taxation that the belief that undocumented migrants are exploiting the US economy and that they cost more in services than they contribute to the economy is "undeniably false". Lipman asserts that "undocumented immigrants actually contribute more to public coffers in taxes than they cost in social services" and "contribute to the U.S. economy through their investments and consumption of goods and services; filling of millions of essential worker positions resulting in subsidiary job creation, increased productivity and lower costs of goods and services; and unrequited contributions to Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance programs."

Furthermore regarding your issue with zee evil terrorists invading our shores via Mexico, it's best to know that:

Vice Chair Lee Hamilton and Commissioner Slade Gorton of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States has stated that of the nineteen hijackers of the September 11, 2001 attacks, "Two hijackers could have been denied admission at the port on entry based on violations of immigration rules governing terms of admission. Three hijackers violated the immigration laws after entry, one by failing to enroll in school as declared, and two by overstays of their terms of admission." Six months after the attack, their flight schools received posthumous visa approval letters from the INS for two of the hijackers, which made it clear that actual approval of the visas took place before the September 11 attacks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_to_the_United_States#Impact

But don't delude yourself thinking that is something its not.