Hear hear.

I am full of thought, even awe, what a nice way to be,

Thank you,

Marcus

Or you can have just one of those qualities, and then share it with people who have the others qualities and compliment each other!

Well the President of Iran has almost no power, so that just shows you don't understand Iran and watch too much horrible media in the US. Iran has for all I can see, been pretty moderate and is just loooking out for its own interests. Just liek the US does, except we have at least 100times more power...

Putin and Bush easily have to be the most dangerous, if only because neither appears 100% stable and they both control huge nuumbers of nuclear weapons. Bush also has expressed a willingness to sue them, which may or may not have been bluster, but is certainly not acceptable.

I don't see Chavez or Israel as being that dangerous honestly, nither of them is likely to cause huge amounts of damage. I don't know much about India-Pakistan politics, but any political firebrands/hawks in those two countries would be pretty dangerous.

The Iran guy Mahmoud Ahmadinejad isnt scary on his own, he's acary cause he provokes dubya into more stupid acts

I promote bush to No 1., he's arming the Sunni insergants, the guys that are planting terrorist bombs , killing American and British troops.
WHY?
Well as long as they "promise" to stop bombing us, then hell. have some more bombs.

what a genius.

Lets ask al qaeda if they'll promise not to hate America and we'll let them fly planes full of explosives over America and Britain

Flip me, Bush has our interests at heart.

Bush is a traitor. arming the terrorists that kill our troops is treason.

You think?

Can i spell it out more clearly, An American is giving arms in a war situation to an enemy that uses those arms to kill his counrtymen. Traitor.

Where do you get this stuff from?

At least you didn't say, "9-11 was an inside job!!" Always strikes me as funny how the President's detractors want us to at once believe that he's a complete idiot as well as a criminal mastermind.

Try doing a search.

1, President bush is the greatest diplomatic genius that ever spread peace on this earth.
2, Bush is a total moron and nothing said about him is beyond belief

I go with 2

Marcus

PS anyone who even listens to Bush is a complete fool and should be sent to Iraq and made to walk around with a "I love Dubya" mortar board.

Just to prove, once and for all, that the republicans are correct and its all fine and dandy there.

I don't listen to Bush it makes my brain shrink, but I do like to listen to the conservative (they wouldn't know real conservatism if it bit them in the ass) right wing news shows, I like to try to understand the way my enemies think. There are so many misconceptions today in Us politics its sickening. Liberalism vrs Conservatism? Why can't I want a smaller government that makes less changes and still want everyone to be able to do what they like? How come if I am against discrimination of gays I am liberal and if I am for making more stupid laws defining things like marriage with my tax dollars I am conservative? Something there seems assbackwards.
I think the worst mistake they have made in all this is not fixing Afghanistan. We should have never been in Iraq, we should have cleaned up Afghanistan and made Russia help us pay for it since the US and Russia helped make it the hole it is today. Bush is a terrible foreign policy president, the first time he was elected (or was he?) purely on domestic concerns and the second time he was elected because people where afraid to change leaders in the middle of a war (read fear). Iran plays a huge part in everything going on in the middle east with us right now and I really don't think any of those dips in Washington understand that. Also its the Ayotolla (sp?) in Iran to worry about not the president there. It is a theocracy and the president is basically a mouthpiece.

Why should I do a search when you say its ok to make stuff up to make someone look bad. If you got a REASON post it.

Katrina, 9/11, Social Security, where is Bin Laden?, Afghaniwho?, economy, Kyoto but I am late for work so my list has to stop there for now. P.S I am not saying he is the cause of any of this but imo it is his job to be a solution not just the Decider.

this was in regards to Post #354 earthfaze. None of the above shows Bush to be a TRAITOR. You can call him a moron if you will but "traitor" should not be used lightly... on either side of the aisle

I would have to replace Bush with Dick Cheney. Cheney is bent on usurping as many of our constitutional rights as he possibly can.

Agreed. I am not sure exactly what enemy Bush supplied weapons to and was actually just replying to what I quoted. I would say however that many presidents and even leaders of foreign governments are notorious for supplying weapons to the lesser of two evils in the past and end up fighting that same ally of convenience in the future. The Taliban and Iraq are good examples of this sort of thing but hindsight is 20/20 and if it was at the time in the interest of the government (whether their interests are the same as the peoples is another question) than I think it does not constitute treason.

On a side note it is strange being raised to think of your country as a democracy and then figuring out long after that it is really just a democratic republic. I wish I could have voted for the wars my country fights but all I could do was vote for people I thought might make the right decision for me.

not exactly. he's a complete idiot, but he friends are criminal masterminds.



you, my friend, may be a libertarian. they're basically liberal with civil rights and conservative with economic and administrative issues.

and on gay marriage, i've got a slightly different view than most (especially being a gay rights activist). i don't believe the government should be involved with marriage at all. it's a religious ceremony at its core. churches should have the right to refuse offering gay marriages just as much as gays should have the right to find churches that do offer them. government should administer civil unions to any couple (Or more?) of people, regardless of sex or anything else, who are committed to living together, maintaining a household, and/or raising children. the rights and tax benefits that come as a result of marriage should rightly come as a result of living together for a common goal, and marriage should be something that resides between you, your lover, and your church/religious institution.

yep but some times you have to fight with the weapons you have at hand... its one reason to to share to much with your allies. I like the Greek proverb, "After the war make alliances."



I find Democratic republics are better. In a true democracy demagoguing becomes much more damaging. I prefer a form of government that has a better chance for calmer heads to prevail.

I agree with you Dystopic, at least as far as civil unions go. Though I would be a bit squimish on alowing fully homosexual relationships to adopt children. Though with a caveat for those who die and want to leave their kids to a relative who is (maybe somebody else too) or the kids who are termally ill and would have no one else. But who knows maybe I am wrong.

i'm not sure what your reasons for worrying about gay parents might be, and i'm not going to presume any one thing. since the issue has been raised, i'll instead dispel a common myth.

before i do that, i just want to say from my point of view, there are way too many orphans, and since we gays can't procreate (with each other), i think we're much more likely to adopt.

also, the wellbeing and health of gay families has been established by dozens of professional organizations, including but hardly limited to: The Canadian Psychological Association, The American Medical Association, The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, The American Academy of Family Physicians, The American Academy of Pediatrics, The American Anthropological Association, The American Bar Association, The American Medical Association, The American Psychiatric Association, The American Psychoanalytic Association, The American Psychological Association, The Child Welfare League of America, The National Association of Social Workers, and The North American Council on Adoptable Children.

there's no valid reason to believe children with a male and a female parent do better than children with two parents of the same sex (though children do indeed fare better when they have two parents instead of one).

in 2001 a study was done across the U.S. of gay couples raising children. it found that, at the very least, gay parents were as good as hetero ones, possibly better. people might be surprised by some of the statistical facts about gay parents:

-(owing to my previous statement) 85% of gay men who have children adopt them, but among lesbians artificial insemination is the more common method (at about the same rate, 88%);

-70% of gay parents reported some religious affiliation;

-less than 15% of gay parents use physical disciplinary measures, compared to over 60% in the general population;

-more than half of gay families are started as gay families (families started by gay couples), rather than being gay stepfamilies (in which one parents comes out of the closet after getting married and having kids);

-almost half of all gay parents in the U.S. have graduate-level degrees (masters or higher), and only 2% have no college education whatsoever.

having known several young adults raised partly or wholely by gay parents, plus my mom's own boyfriend, i can say that my experience of these children is that they're better off than the norm. granted, it's only based on 3 cases, but those 3 people all seem very accepting of others, very grounded even in their early 20s, and very loving, affectionate and tender with their partners.

i think we should remember a few things. exclusively homosexual men and women don't have kids by accident; we only have kids when we want kids. why would our motivations be different than heterosexual people who want to have kids? our families are fully planned from start to finish, which makes it easier to provide economic advantages to our kids. we also make more money and receive more education on average, and i think we'd be likely to pass on those values. the best argument i can imagine against the right for gays to raise children is that our children would have better advantages over the norm. i'm not even sure most gays want kids; i'm still pretty ambivalent on the question myself. if i do decide to have kids, that will be a decision separate from marriage. if anyone else is going to be a parent to my potential children, i would evaluate that person as a co-parent separately from any evaluation of that person as a lover. personally, i see myself much more likely to start a family with a good platonic friend than with a boyfriend, but that's just me.

okay, i've said my piece.

Mostly it has to do with a possiblity to needing a bunch of people in a hurry. Yeah I know how you feel and thats cool. But I feel diffrently.

I agree with or accept everything you posted but:



Thats just a diffrence of opinion on which is better. While I don t want to spank my kids I will if I feel it is warrented.

Don't say that in public, or some [censored] person will use it as an excuse to take your kids away.

Privately, I don't feel that anyone I've met should be allowed to have children, period. Children are special Human beings, and they don't deserve to get caught up in any special-interest groups machinations, no matter how well intended they may be. I'd be quite happy to hear that God decided to stop all Humans on the planet from conceiving, just to stop the abuse children are subjected to FROM ALL SIDES. Human children are not meant to be pets. Get a cat, instead.

If gay people can't adopt then abortions need to be easier to get. People who don't want kids make terrible parents. People who can't take care of their children don't need to have them. I also agree with you dystopic about how marriage is a religious thing and the government needs to stay out of it.
I am not sure what that means. needing a bunch of people in a hurry?




He didn't say it was good or bad He might have implied it by listing it but he didn't say it hehe. I personally like to duck tape my children to the wall when they get wild. Just kidding. I have found that if you are going to use spanking as a form of discipline though you cannot be lazy or angry with it. You never spank when you are mad. You never spank because its the easiest thing to do. If you can make your point by talking to them or making them sit in the corner then do that. If you are so mad you just want to beat their ass then you need to sit them in the corner and go calm down. Fear is a tricky tool in parenting. If they are afraid you will hit them now, when they finally get to the point that that doesn't work you will have one crazed child on your hands and there will be nothing you can do about it. On the other hand if you can get them to obey what you say out of trust and love and not wanting to disapoint you or cause you shame or grief then you will find they turn out better in the long run. I was raised with many a swat on the butt myself but when it came time for me to grow up I was a good person out of love and respect for the way my parents raised me and not out of fear. In fact I think I was a little to fearless sometimes and did a lot of rebellious things I shouldn't have because I thought my parents where too closed minded to be right about what they taught me sometimes.

...because 6.5 billion isn't enough? if i'm understanding you correctly, it's in case the U.S. needs a bunch of people in a hurry, like if China invades or something?

...i'm not even going to get into that. IF (big if) banning gay marriage has had some positive effect on population growth in the past, and IF (another big if) we decide to interfere with human sexual relations in order to control our population growth and have more people, such a law makes NO sense in this day and age. if we needed more people that desperately, and were willing to go into people's homes and bodies to insure it, i think we'd probably see women required to be constantly preganant and a eugenic/bene geserrit policy where mating was a medical act lacking pleasure and carried out to optimize the health and genetic diversity of the next generation. can you say Handmaiden's Tale?

now i'm trying to imagine which is worse: a nazi-type society totally oppresive of gays, or a eugenic society where i'd be required to provide sperm samples as a matter of civic duty. 1984 or Brave New World?

i mean, i can vaguely understand your point about laws to ensure survival of a the species (and even to a lesser extent, of the society). however, we don't live in a situation that requires us to breed ad nauseum, and so why should we live by laws of such circumstance? sometimes i wish we weren't so caught up on enacting universal laws that transcend time and individuality. i mean, i do believe in equality before the law. but i don't believe in any eternal Law (i wish they'd written a clause into the second amendment that would have nullified it once we didn't need a well-armed militia, but i supposed we can't plan for every eventuality).

indeed, i didn't say it was for better or worse, but you're correct, i do believe it's better not to hit children to discipline them -- in a perfect world. and i think your outlook is the best one. in fact, i think you should never punish a child when angry at all. children have their own arsenal of manipulation, and just as often getting the people around them upset is intentional. i'd say the form of discipline (within reason) is a lot less important than the demeanor of the person administering it. my mom child-cared for under-3-year-olds until i was 16, and my best friend works in special ed for kids with emotional problems.

based on my mom's and friend's observations and just about all the psychological literature there is, the best forms of behavior correction are not punishment, but positive reinforcement.

I don t know if this is to much or not enough really but you can t really say another "Dark" age will come and I am thinking more along the lines of the greek "Dark" age not the the so called dark age of Europe. Not that it will happen but I don t believe in taking anything off the table to do whatever it takes.



Its cool you are an internationalist but I am not. Anyway I am not suggesting we live that way for now. I just don t want to end the taboo completely.

As a friend of mine says, "an armed society is a polite society". So I ll keep my right to bare arms thank you. Its not all about the militia it is also about being able to fight back even against the government. Its alot easier to take away rights from unarmed folk than armed ones.

While I see your point and even agree with it somewhat you don't really think we could effectively fight our government with guns do you? The National Guard can easily supress and entire state in one day if it decided to raise an armed rebellion. That is not even counting the other branches of military and I would say it would take less than a day if they decided carpet bombing was necessary. I think in light of all the child fire-arm deaths in the US people with guns should have their children taken away Ok I am not serious but while we are restricting the right to have children based on lifestyle why not throw anything we want out there?