But what if I hate them both for being fat, lazy, unrepresenting you-know-whats. I don't like EITHER party - the two party system is gonna kill America. The lesser of two sucks still sucks.

Back to traffic...
I hate how when I try to merge, the oncoming cars speed up trying to prevent anyone from being in front of them. The other day on my way home I was merging with a 45mph speed zone. I was merging at a speed of 60mph and nearly got plowed over...and then the guy had the nerve to pass me and slow down.

vote the one in office out and if the new one doesn't do what you like next time vote him out


and if possible vote for the third party person

I know exactly what you mean. That is why I never vote. There are never any good choices. They're all either bought or loons. It really would be nice if the party system hadn't taken over democracy. That way there would've been room for more than three main candidates, and maybe someone along the way would legislated runoff votes.

by not voting you vote for the one who wins

If we didn't have political parties, then the only people with enough money to run for office (since it costs quite a lot of money to campaign for any posistion beyond the PTA board, especially so in large cities) would be the wealthy. Parties allow funds for low to middle class people to be involved in the political process.

And let us not forget national officies. If we had multiple candidates running for office it would be nearly impossible to be elected to office with 50%+1 of the vote, which means the majority rule wouldn't happen. Now, we could switch to an electoral system similar to France's to solve that problem, except that it would require an amending of our Constituion (which likely won't happen), howeer since France's governmental structures over the last 200 years has been somewhat "fluid" (i.e. prone to collapse) we should probably be careful of changing our curretn stable system for something that may or may not work.

As for the issue of voting, not voting becuase you don't likethe choices shows all the maturity, wisdom, and reasoning ability of the four year old who refuses to eat dinner because they only want to eat cake and ice cream. Mooching off of the hard work and efforts of others, and then complaining about the results is no way to go through life.

Further, by not voting you allow a minority of people (those who do vote) to decide the laws of society for you. You are in effect activley supporting a ruling aristocracy. If you are so concerned about the quality of candidates then run for office yourself.

And I suppose the wealthy aren't the only ones running for office now? The difficulty in getting more than 50% would be solved by run off votes. Calling it immature and foolish to not vote because one dislikes the choices is a cop out. I am not saying I don't think my candidate can win, I am saying I don't like any of the choices. When they offer a "None of the above, dissatisfied with all" choice, then not voting can be considered immature or lacking in wisdom. Currently abstaining is the only way to say that without a large investment of time and other personal resources, and frankly most people are too busy trying to earn enough money be secure and enjoy what little time they have left after working.

Oh, and the statement "If you are so concerned about the quality of candidates then run for office yourself" assumes too much. It assumes that I think I would make a good candidate, which I may or may not depending on the office ("God" would be nice); and it assumes I have confidence in the people to make the correct choice when voting, which I do not. In fact, that reminds me of something George Carling (I think) once said. "Think of the intelligence of the average person. Now realize that half the people are dumber than them."

I have an uncle who told me at quite a young age the following...

"If you do not vote, you do not have a voice. If you do not have a voice, you can not come into my house and discuss politics."

My entire family follows the very same guideline.

As a young angry man I did not really understand what he was trying to convey. As an older more mature man, I understand exactly.

In their eyes, and in mine personally, if you do nothing, you do not have the right.

Just my opinion.

but on the other hand half of the people are smarter than them

Spoken like someone who has someone (or at least a party) they feel is worth voting for. A lot of those people just tow the party line anyway.




Unfortunately, that isn't really saying much.

Let me explain why I dont like the mindset where not voting is bad.

You have a ballot with two selections.

Joe Dude (D) Pro gay rights, Pro gun control, anti-war, pro-choice.
Bob Everyman (R) Anti gay rights, anti gun control, pro-war, anti-choice.


Then you have myself - I am pro gay rights, anti gun control, pro war, pro choice.

The only reasonable option for me is to not vote at all - better that than throw support behind someone who runs a platform vehemently against things I believe in wholeheartedly (giving equal rights to homosexuals and kicking the butt of other nations when they talk smack to us).

Voting out the idiots doesn't work because the length of a senate term is SIX YEARS. That's far too long to leave any one idiot in charge.

I vote for the candidate which best fits me morally, be it Democrat, Republican or other. By the way, just in case you did not know, there are others.



Maybe the way I view it is wrong but me personally, I would prioritize the above standings and vote for the person who best completes my views. It is true that you will not be able to please all the people all the time, so why should politicians try?

Guns to kill people, more wars to kill people, don't care whether an embryo lives or dies... more killing.. and support gay rights, none of which can procreate.

Just call it Anti life and be done with it.

( The above is just a joke people... Wanted to try to inject a little humor into the conversation. I have a few of the above views myself. )

(haha, it's okay. I've got some pretty out there views and it's ripe for humor.)

Traffic... I could complain about traffic too. I HATE jerk drivers. If you need to go 90 so badly that you pull up behind me on a two line highway (trailer taking up the other lane) and flash your brights and honk to get me to go faster, you need to wake up earlier or leave the house earlier, plain and simple.

in cases like this i slow down

Regardless of how they got the soldiers, the fact is that they have them in custody. Now apart from suspected terrorists, i know of no foreign soldiers jailed by the west for being in the wrong place at the wrong time? Detained yes, jailed, no... which means the Iranians are arssholes regardless of weather they arrested the soldiers justly or not.

here is my biggest rant

the purposeful killing of children for personal, politcal, military, or religous reasons

as far as i care anyone who does this or backs up the people that do this are COWARDS.

now the devs can ban me if they want to but i had to say that after watching pans labrinth

Just curious.

What is your definition of detained?

The U.S. has a bunch of detainees at Guantanamo. Not sure if I would rather be detained thank you very much.

As far as a rant. How about prescription and over the counter drugs? If you have a headache take this, its side affects are stomach problems... so you take something else to relieve the stomach and there is another side affect. When all is said and done you are taking 23 different drugs just to get rid of the headache and have no side affects. Also, they decided to put warning labels on medications that are supposed to help those that are depressed. It reads something like..... Warning, this drug could amplify your depression! What the heck is that? Just give me a gun would ya!

Lastly back to traffic... has anyone else noticed that on these 3 or 4 lane super highways, that when traffic begins to back up, the slow lane goes the fastest and the fast lane goes the slowest? What is that all about? I know the slow lane has the exits but it also has the on ramps! The fast lane has a bunch of people who want to keep going straight... so why do they go so slow? In most cases in northern VA it is because of the freaking rubber neckers. I mean if you are that interested, just pull over and get out and gawk, take a few pictures, break out the picnic basket, just don't slow down my commute!

the reason is becouse the idiots in the fast lane are now trying to get off at the next exit you know the one that is ten feet away

I thought that might be the case as well but with further reasoning, logic would dictate that the other two or three lanes would suffer as well and go even slower from all the merging traffic coming from both the left of them and the right of them.

I think it is just one of those freak things of nature you know?

What bothers me are individuals that hurt children... especially in cases of mental illness. Last year here in australia some retarded man slit the throat of a 9 month old baby - oh dear what a terrible tradgedy, lets all feel sorry for the retarded man too. Bulldust! Anyone that hurts children has my wrath and the mental illness excuse just makes me angrier. This is my philosophy - hurting children= zero tollerance, no excuse, no reason possible to justify it full stop.



Although the Guantanamo issue is an offrunt to personal justice, i'm talking about somthing different... military personell that were captured while on duty! Because in that situation, the country they worked for would be responsible for them and would have an obligation to get them back. This is an obvious thing that the Iranians are increadibly arrogant or stupid to dissregard.



YES! Here in Australia we drive on the left side of the road and our majour highways will have no more than 3 lanes. There is a rule that you must keep left when not overtaking. So the left lane is for trucks, slow vehicles and anyone else not overtaking.

So of course i will often find myself zooming down the left lane overtaking everyone else in the right lanes.

The reason that this happens is because most everyone in the fast lanes want to go fast and are waiting for the slow vehicle in front to f--k off. The slow vehicle is in the fast lane because the driver simply dousn't give a damb and couldn't care less about his fellow man, That is why.

speaking of slow drivers in the fast lane.... one time i was zooming down the freeway in the right lane (fast lane) untill i was blocked by a stupid woman. This woman was driving slowly in the fast lane next to another vehicle driving slowly in the middle lane. I moved to the left lane (the slow lane) to pass when i noticed two cop cars comming in my rear view mirror. They were in a hurry to get to an emergency somewhare and were zooming down the fast lane (right lane) with motorists in front pulling left to get out of their way.

When the police cars caught up to the stupid woman i would have thought she would have finally decided to move out of the fast lane but to my suprise, no!

She just continued on merrily blocking the fast lane with the two police cars trapped behind her. I was still in the left lane at this point and i had backed off to leave room for the police cars to pass to the left of the stupid woman and her freind in the middle lane. The police stayed in the fast lane and began displaying a message on their message board thing - "keep left unless overtaking". They were flashing this message but the woman just ignored them.

Next the police staeted tooting their horn and i could see the stupid woman turning her head and swerving the car. She was clearly paniking and had no idea what to do! but still she continued blocking the fast lane!! I mean how stupid can you be??

At this point i was laughing my guts out, i had never before seen somthing so amusing on the roads, anyway, the stupid woman decided to very slowly creep forward from her just as stupid freind in the middle lane until she had enough room to move left - the whole excercise took about 10 minutes and just illustrates how some people have such a single minded determination to drive slowly in the fast lane.

I do not know anything about the case you mentioned so I may be completely out of line here.

Just out of curiosity, did the "mentally challenged" man make a statement to the press, police, judge, attorneys, or even his parents or cell mate, saying that he did it because he was "challenged"? Odds are he did not. Odds are everyone else is giving this excuse for him.

In my life time I have personally witnessed the effects of such diseases as dementia and Alzheimer's as well as what has become known as Gulf war syndrome. Even a concussion can do weird things to a person.

My grandfather had known me all my life. Had a stroke and was stricken with Alzheimer's. In a matter of just a couple months, he had no idea who I was. Did not even know his own wife of 40 years. You think before he died he knew the difference between right and wrong? My Grandmother has dementia... she uses a black permanent magic marker to write notes to herself. On the house walls she used to keep so pristine.

The mind is a very dangerous thing. There are those who never fully understand the difference between right and wrong, and there are those that have no morals what so ever. Some are born this way, some are raised this way, and some just choose to be this way.

I do not condone what was done, but if the man was truly "challenged" then he should have been supervised, and it should fall on those that failed him.

I would agree with this point however that does not mean any mental diagnosis is perfect and would provide the appropriate advice on supervision?

Despite everything you say, these people are all adults and as such cannot be put ahead of children. At the end of the day children must come first and i have no sympathy for those that would harm them.

I agree with you here.



I do not agree with you here. Is it age that defines us as adults? or is it maturity? Some mentally challenged people have the maturity level of a 6 or 8 year old. Are they children or adults because they are 50 years old?



I do agree. Our children are our future.