alright you blind Israeli loving folk, come defend this if you can. had about as much as i can take from those Israeli excuse making warmongering assholes.

What? $7.8 billion in earmarks?

That's about, what? Two weeks in Iraq?

Only we're spending the money on projects in America instead of giving it to warmongering cocksuckers like Cheney and Haliburton and the rest of the war machine?

Glenn Beck is a fuckwad's dream come true.

Limbaugh appeals to the conservative bigots, and Beck makes the stupid cons feel smart.

Wikipedia's definition does not exactly do justice to the etymology of the word "mongering". While in its usual, and chiefly British, sense it simply means "a dealer of a specific commodity" (e.g. fishmonger), its derogatory sense conveys pettiness and undesirability (e.g. warmonger). Thus "fear mongering" is not just "the use of fear in order to influence opinions and actions towards a specific end", but its use towards a petty or undesirable end. The use of fear is itself petty and sometimes undesirable/unnecessary, but the end can nevertheless be grand, as it is in this instance. But the use of fear, though acceptable in this case, cannot be generalized, as it not only desensitizes people to fear in general but makes them even more complacent towards real danger.

The Daisy Girl commercial from the Lyndon Johnson campaign in 1964 is the best example of fear mongering. Instead of using fear to pass a message of general public interest, the ad aims to sully the reputation of a political adversary while making oneself look good. It is equivalent to taking your constituents hostage while disguised as your opponent and then playing the hero by "rescuing" them.

All world giant leaders eventually collapse to give rise to a new leader. It happened to the Sumerians, the ancient Chinese, Egyptians, Romans, Ottomans... the list goes on and on.. it will happen someday. The question is ... when and how.

In all likelihood the USA's demise will come about by it's own actions. Whether through mass financial greed and mismanagement (as we see today), or running itself to bankruptcy trying to police and domineer the planet.

I am not anti-USA. I want it to prosper. I want everyone to reach for the American Dream, however.... I am a realist. The US government doesn't work for the good of the people. They are fallible people with great power. As the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility. Unfortunately the responsibility factor has been thrown completely to the wind. The turds fly in our faces, the mere citizenry, not theirs.

Mass corporate/financial deregulation, warmongering, a brinksmanship political stance with anyone posing a slight threat to military (nuclear) superiority, and most of all.. pure and simple as greed and hunger for individual power.

We the citizens are in for a heck of a roller-coaster ride. Put your seat belt on and hold onto your hat. When you come out the other side all of your remaining pocket change will have fallen out, your clothes will be ragged, your teeth broken.. and you will be shaking in fear and bewilderment.

I hope I am wrong. I really do.

Just an observation: Apparently you're either a Republican or a Democrat. There can be no middle ground if I were to believe some of the posts here.

My feeling is that people need to be responsible for their actions. If you purchased a house you can't afford, why should I bail you out? I hate the sense of entitlement I see going on. People aren't entitled to a damn thing other than what the constitution spells out. You aren't entitled to a $20+/hr job. You aren't entitled to a house. These are things that must be earned via providing a service that someone needs and is willing to pay for. You might classify that as Republican thinking.

Yet, I also think the tax cuts aren't the way out of this mess. I agree with the notion that if we are going to spend hundreds of billions on a stimulus, we should have something to show for it, like new roads, an updated power grid that doesn't knock out a third of the country's power when someone flips the wrong switch, and maybe some alternate energy to boot. Woah, now I'm a bleeding heart liberal Democrat! How'd that happen?

The war in Iraq is a catastrofuck by any reasonable measure. I thought it was a bad idea from day one (you know, back when opposition to that war made you anti-American or pro-terrorist), and I stand vindicated today (though this is a point I would have been glad to be wrong on given the human losses).

So my point is you can't just bin people into the extremes of the two camps. Being a Democrat doesn't automagically make you a hardcore socialist, and believing in personal and financial responsibility doesn't make you a money grubbing warmonger.

In any case, I'm glad to see Obama found his voice. Being bipartisan is great, but when the other side is proven wrong, it's time to press on without them.

It was big government that caused these crises and more big government meddling won't fix anything. If you want to damage the economy, keep letting these dickheads in DC take more and more power from the people.

It's not a partisan thing because a government agency consisting of all Republicans will be equally inept, bureaucrats accountable to no one are the real ones running DC. The best you can hope for is to keep the power out of the hands of bureaucrats.

Liberals believe the Iraq War was all a scheme for Bush to enrich his cronies in warmongering corporations, yet Obama is judged by the media as a saint with pure motives who only wants to "help" the poor. Even if that's his real agenda, he's doing it in the worst possible way.

For all of those who think the feds failed to respond to Katrina fast enough, do you really think these incompetent thieving dopes are racing to 'save' you any faster?

I was against the Bush bailouts and his acting like a socialist. If you think socialism/big gummint saves anything, look at bankrupt California, run by another RINO.

Obama's War on Prosperity is more of the same, only amplified and on steroids.

Wait... people are leaving?

Why?

I value both Irishman's and MINK's contributions. Hell, I'm even keen on CP420 and QM, even though I disagree with them and call them bloodthirsty warmongers.

Hell, I even deleted my YouTube account just today, since VS gives me all the video happiness I require, without the "UR A FAGGS" shit.


But, if people want to leave here, just fucking do it.

Thanks QM.. we won't need luck, though. You might.

Looks like the troops will be staying in Iraq through 2011. Where's that liberal whining about warmongering NOW? ha ha ha ha! What a difference a media-created "presidency" makes!

>> ^zensunnione:
The Hitler argument is just a logical fallacy. It's called affirming the consequent.
This is the logic:
Hitler was atheist and was bad. Therefore atheists are bad.

Actually, it's a hasty generalization. Affirming the Consequent would be more like this:

All atheists are bad.

Hitler was bad.

Therefore, Hitler was an atheist.


However, speaking of the fallacy of hasty generalization, I'm starting to get very tired of people saying that all religion leads to these horrible consequences. This is not true. If you look at history, you will find it is a specific type of religion that leads to warmongering and intolerance: monotheism.

I will repeat that. It is MONOTHEISM that causes all these problems, NOT religion as a whole.

iran also has a thriving business in illegal cable hookups.

and one of the most popular shows, is Sex & The City.

surely as infuriating to islamic fundamentalists there, as it is to the warmongering xenophobes here in the states. suck on that.

^Here, here. The Obama camp has largely become pushy chest-thumpers, in my opinion. The debates are nothing more than a smattering of party-bashing and sound bytes. We're in a growing economic crisis and the best the two candidates can come up with to solve it is buying toxic loans or cutting taxes for the middle class. And party zombies eat that shit up like it was the gospel, all the while vehemently labeling the other party's candidate as the muslim anti-christ terrorist or the old warmongering bushie.

This is why I'm voting third party.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html?page=4#steel

Truthers take comfort in the belief that 9-11 was an inside job, I think, because it's reassuring to believe evil intent remains solely in the sphere of wealthy, civilized Caucasian cabals and that an insane Islamic menace is just a glib fabrication of warmongers.

As for Oklahoma, I guess Tim McVeigh went quietly to his execution because the conspirators threatened to kill him if he exposed them.

There can be no compromise on these subjects.

Usually, I side with the police, but this is simply unacceptable. The black dude wasn't causing any harm, and was not threatening in the least, but still got tazed? These cops were out of control warmongers. They should be kicked off the force and thrown in jail for police brutality and assault.

That said, history will remember Saddam for the good he did as well as the bad. Infrastructure, child literacy, secularisation, women's rights, healthcare and economic growth.

This is a guy who was essentially a warlord, but an incredibly progressive one.


I'm sorry, but no. You attribute secularisation to Saddam's credit, but I don't think many call brutal repression of religious freedoms a positive. Listing child literacy and women's rights just astounds me. I needn't point out the wonderful benefits that were enjoyed by women and children unfortunate enough to be Kurds. If Infrastructure and economic improvements are enough to redeem a monster, then Hitler did them even better than Saddam.

Saddam wasn't a progressive warlord. He was a cruel, warmongering dictator progressively becoming worse and worse. The number of reining dictators in the world who can be said to have used chemical weapons on their own people to commit genocide, and who had sufficient military strength to successfully annex a sovereign UN member is a short one. Saddam era Iraq was described by Iraqis as "a mass concentration camp above ground and a mass grave beneath".

To say Saddam was 'a really bad man, but' is to completely misunderstand the situation. The context of calling his actions brutal is not that he would have those opposing him executed. It isn't even forcing their loved ones to watch. It is forcing them to not only watch, but applaud the execution of their loved ones that dared oppose him. It's with extremely good reason that Hitchen's strong anti-war stance was radically altered by his visits to Iraq to actually speak with the people there.

>> ^blankfist:
If this kid was kicked out of school for an anti-McCain shirt, everyone in here would be in an uproar.


I think you're right, people would -- with the same people defending the school, and the same people defending the kid's unfettered right to freedom of speech.

There probably wouldn't be as many people accusing the parent of child abuse, but then, I doubt I could find a t-shirt with John McCain dressed in Muslim garb giving Osama bin Laden a bear hug, either.

Part of why I like my party is that our idea of an insult is to call him a rich old white man with no new ideas. Or when we're particularly feisty, a confused, angry, warmongering liar.

On the Republican side he's a Muslim marxist terrorist n***er who wants to rape your underage daughters on top of a bed stuffed with shredded American flags.

The real question is, would anyone have found a McCain = Bush, or even "No more blood for oil" t-shirt offensive or disrupting? Has anyone seen an anti-McCain t-shirt that your 2nd grade teacher would be aghast about?