Free Republic

Lefties don’t want serial killers to be given lethal injection because they say it’s inhumane. They say that water-boarding a terrorist who has either already killed innocent people or was caught trying to, is inhumane. Abortion however, and setting murderers, child molesters, and terrorists loose on innocent society is not inhumane. Those are good values to them. My only consolation is that there will be a judgement day after this life on earth.

“RINO = Big government, blue blood, country club Republican who would rather stick it to the Conservatives then stick it to the ‘Rats....How’s that?”

And they don’t really give a rat’s ass about social issues. The only thing that motivates them is the thickness of their wallet. Nothing else. They’d sell out their country and countrymen in a second for a few more pieces of silver. Prime example... their love for cheap labor illegals. Chickens coming home to roost now. Today’s new cheap labor=tomorrow’s redistributionists voters.

“Define RINO. My problem is way to many people here have a to broad defination to RINO and a to narrow defination of Conservative.”

Well, this is my definition of a conservative. True conservatives do not believe that govt can guarantee outcomes. They want people to get rich so they can hire the rest of us as long as those that get rich, do so ethically. They want an honest economy based on the true value of goods and services and don’t want the laws broken. They believe the govt should not overstep its Constitutional bounds and believe in free market principles and the spirit of competition. That does not mean anything goes if someone can get away with it and it does not mean that exploitation, collution, etc are acceptable. For example, if someone has enough money and resources and wants to start their own oil business, they should be able to buy some land, drilling equipment, etc and compete without govt interference as long as they aren’t breaking any laws. That’s not a good example because the oil industry is so hard to break into though.

True conservatives believe in defending innocent life, the second amendment rights, first amendment rights, are pro law enforcement and are strong on crime and punishment issues such as the death penalty for murderers. They believe in a strong national defense and believe in projecting our military power punitively rather than through nation building strategies that are unnecessarily costly to our country both economically and in our own lives.

I’m probably forgetting some principles but this is my definition of a conservative because it describes me and my family and we consider ourselves conservative.

“Time for OPEN SEASON on RINOs....NO bag limit... I DON”T GIVE A CRAP IF A ‘RAT WILL WIN.....I’M NOT VOTING FOR ANOTHER RINO....Purge these turncoat scum from the party....or I’ll find another party. This is what we get when we have SINLESS RINOs running amok...”

Totally agree!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“The majority of people in the U.S. want to be taken care of by their govt’. They want socialized medicine, they want to take the “evil” wealthy down,”

I think what the majority of people in the U.S. want is fairness. People that get rich should do so ethically, legally, and in a fair way that does not exploit others or harm our overall economy in the process. What speculators did to the price of oil is just one example. Even the most democratic, black people I know, are pretty socially conservative.

Furthermore, I know of many who usually vote Republican that did not vote for Pres in this election to include both my husband and I and my parents. The line had to be drawn somewhere. Even as a former fighter pilot and active duty military that has been deployed in this war, my husband could not vote McCain and he’s the most conservative person I’ve ever known. More so than I am even. We have to hit rock bottom in this country the same way it hurts to let someone you love that is an alcohol hit bottom.

Pres. Reagan never wavered from his principles and he was popular among even those that didn’t agree with him. This game of trying to out liberal a democrat in the hopes to steal so called moderates is a game the Republicans have been had in. I’ve been trying to warn people of this since the primaries and I’ve been called every name in the book for it. The Republican party was played this time.

“You can go away now ... I’m tired of you.”

Until I get banned here for expressing views that go against the group-think crowd, I’ll come here whenever I darned well please. In the same way that I’ll donate money to FR whenever I darned well please just as I gave 4 donations last quarter and none this quarter because every time I’ve come here this quarter, I’ve ran into far too many people like you. I refuse to give one dime to a place infested with RINOS.

No true conservative would be a wimp in regard to our great country being publicly humiliated in front of the world by a little, backasswards muslim country like Iraq. Especially not one that we’ve sacrificed so many good men and women for trying to help. Would just a little bit of gratitude and support be too much to ask for from the very people we are fighting for? If so, then what does that say about them if their leaders have to save face and prevent uprisings by condemning us?

“Oh, my. You can’t be bothered with facts, apparently, and you clearly can’t be bothered to behave like an adult.”

You don’t use facts. It takes a special kind of willful blindness to rationalize Iraq’s public ondemnation of us after all the good people we have lost trying to help them make something decent out of their God forsaken hellhole. It takes a special kind of willful ignorance to rationalize them siding with Syria when we could have simply used our military power to do what militaries are intended for and just punish them over and over again until they meet our demands. we have lost a lot of good men. Many of them have left behind children. There is an untold amount of pain and suffering that has been inflicted for our nation building efforts for that country.

You are no patriot if you can rationalize this and I don’t care who you say you are on this anonymous board. Anybody that can rationalize this in the face of all the good Americans we have lost in this war is nothing more than a pure partisan out for the power that comes along with their political party winning. You put those muslims ahead of your own fellow Americans who have given their lives for that sickening country and all for partisan politics.

“Nation-building is working there.”

At what benefit to us and at what cost? Has it been worth it really? Wait until the day that we have to strike Iran or some other country in the region and Iraq denies us their airspace. The day will come, I have no doubt. Wait until Iraq is as Anti-American as Iran and Syria are and are voting against us in the UN. This may take 20 years or so to come to fruition but it will. Mark my word....it will. I refuse to engage in such willful blindness. I have recently been very encouraged by the dramatic decrease in attacks in Iraq, but that country being a long term, strong ally of ours in the event of a conflict in the region between us and another muslim nation I will believe when pigs fly.

You’re so full of Sh*t and you’re the perfect example of why the Republican party is as pathetic as it is right now. Now that I have voted for NONE OF THE ABOVE for President, I am changing my affiliation to independent until the Republican party can reform itself and weed out people exactly like you. Until it does, the party will continue to get spanked in election after election and be the party with no power at all. Have fun knowing that you and your ilk ruined it to its core and it is now rotting and stinking to high heaven.

The best thing to happen to an alcoholic is to hit rock bottom. Republican party.....hope you enjoy rock bottom. It’s going to hurt! It’s going to leave a mark! Hopefully, there won’t be too many undeserving casualties taken down in the process.

The muslim world cannot be compared to the Japanese and Germans. The latter, as bad as they were, were industrious, productive, and resourceful people who after they were defeated, saw a benefit to working with those that defeated them in order to forge a better future for their countries. They were motivated by extreme nationalism and actually cared about the prosperity of their people. Even Hitler did, as evil as he was. The Germans and Japanese were never third world people unless you go back so far that we all were. There is a reason that some societies are advanced and some are not. It is for the same reasons that some people are strong and successful and others are not.

We all WANT the same things. We all do not have the willingness or desire to do what it takes to get those things. We all want to be rich, but we don’t all have the willingness or desire to do what it takes to be rich. We all want to be healthy, yet some still smoke, drink, take drugs, etc. Societies do not spring up and become the way they are randomly. There are reasons that the muslim world is the what it is and there is nothing we can do to change it. The best we can do is defend ourselves against them.

“Nope — it’s just the difference between what a diplomat (or his spokesman) says, and what he really means.”

Maybe they should start saying what they mean, meaning what they say, and backing up what they say with action. It would take doing that about ONE time to send the message loud and clear that we’re taking a strong stand and will not back down. That has to be better than being pushed around forever and hated by the world anyways. Look at France and how 1% of the French want McCain for U.S. President. Could we get any wimpier at this point and yet still be any more unpopular in terms of world opinion? Nobody respects weakness and weak is how we look when we take this kind of shit from some Muslim country that we’ve lost 4,000 lives defending at the pricetag of almost 1 trillion dollars. It’s obscene. Every time my opinion of the muslim world improves a bit and I have a shred of hope in their willingness to forge a better future for themselves, I get a dose of reality like this news story.

“The screwed up, false and fuedalistic politics of Islam and the Mid-East force them to issue a blanket condemnation of US raids, even though these Gov’ts themselves were probably involved.”

If the leaders of Muslim countries are condemning U.S military actions at every turn, in spite of those actions being to defend the very countries condemning us, how are the hearts and minds of the average muslims going to be turned to our favor? They believe what their leaders tell them about us. When are we going to expect muslim countries to start acting like their countries are full of a bunch of adults rather than confused and disabled children? The level of denial around here is mind-blowing.

“Someone please explain to me again why we didn’t get the hell out of there after we toppled and captured Saddam.”

It’s called nation building and is the result of our foreign policy makers and politicians setting non-military objectives for our military to achieve under the pretense that our military will be denied victory if they fail to achieve the non-military objectives set for them. The coalition forces achieved victory within the realm of what foreign militaries can realistically do for another country the day Baghdad was conquered.

There is a lot of agreement between your position and mine in regard to the upside of a free market. Where I disagree is with the idea that there should be NO regulation. That is because there are too many examples of abuses of power by those at the top. I do believe that SOME industries need a labor union but one that is not allowed to become abusive itself. I think there needs to be a balance of power between business and labor and that there needs to be enforcement of the fair labor laws. Yes, govt can be every bit as abusive as the free market can be and when either one is, the economy as a whole suffers. That is why I believe that there needs to be the right balance struck between the two powers to keep each other in check as much as possible.

As a nurse, I cannot count the number of times my supervisors have ignored the fair labor laws when it has come to things like taking away my over-time pay for working over 40 hours, vacation days, etc. What would you say to a nurse that has only the fair labor laws, regulated by govt, when it comes to abusive working conditions? I’ve seen how my floor has went without desperately needed equipment for our patients while the executives that run our network of hospitals are multi-millionaires. What would you suggest employees do when they are having to work in unsafe conditions and are not being compensated for how much wealth they are helping to create for their employers? For instance, on an average day, I probably admit 4 patients just on my own. My patient workload around 7-8 patients. If you add up the amount of money the hospital is making per hour per patient, It far exceeds my hourly wage.

The answer to these types of questions are usually that in the free market, employees can go work somewhere else and abusive businesses will lose their good employees, will suffer a shortage, and be forced to raise salaries, benefits, etc. That’s great in theory. It’s just not how it works out in the real world. In the real world, there is very little difference between wages, benefits, working conditions, etc between various jobs on the same level of education, skill, conditions, etc. The advances in communication technology has increased the amount of collusion that goes on among employers. Collusion is illegal but even with the laws against it, it happens because of how unenforceable it is. Also, our workforce has become more educated and specialized over time which makes it even harder to just change jobs if you don’t like what is going on. I can’t just go be a teacher, or lawyer, etc. I have already invested too much time and money into my education and career. It takes too long and is too expensive to just start over in a new field.

I, like many people, am sick of working like a slave just to have a few peanuts thrown at me when I know that I am producing far more wealth than what I am getting back in return. The forces of supply and demand are only one aspect of the equation. Another important aspect that seems to get overlooked by the pure free market people is how the wealth that a specific market creates, gets distributed among those creating it. For example, if a CEO is producing about 10% of his companies wealth, but giving himself 50% in return for his output, then there is something very wrong with the equation. What is wrong is that it is those at the top levels of management that are making the decisions about who is worth what. So, do you think they might have an exaggerated sense of their own worth?

Socialism is not the answer and certainly wealth distribution through taxation is not the answer. The free market is the best answer but with the right amount of regulation to minimize the abuses that will naturally occur. We can have the argument all day long over the question of whether or not there is currently too much or too little regulation, but the idea that there should be none is one I will never be convinced of because regardless of what some economic theories say, there is still the real world out here and I’ve lived and worked in it for too long to be pissed on and be told that it’s raining. In any economic system, it will be people that manage it so there will always be corruption whether we’re talking about those in govt or a free enterprise. If either one becomes too abusive, the overall economy suffers.

Good grief....I have never suggested that a more powerful central govt run our entire economy. When asking the question, Do we have too little or too much govt regulation in America today when it comes to regulating business, I would say that the answer is industry dependent. In some industries, there is too much govt intervention. In others there is too little. Obviously, on wall street, there has been too little in some areas and the wrong kind in others.

We need to have an honest economy and a balance of power. Excesses and abuses do occur when there is an unbridled free market. Just look at the standard of living and environmental conditions in countries where companies can do whatever they want with no regulations enforced at all. Or look how it was in America prior to the American labor movement. Sorry, we’re not going back to living in tenement houses and living in squalor so a small minority of unscrupulous people can live like kings. We don’t do that here in America which is why we have the strongest middle class in the history of the world. We won’t be exploited the way third worlders will and the fact that they allow themselves to be, is why they have the standard of living that they do.

Furthermore, tax payers bailing out free enterprises is not a free market. You seem to want it both ways for some reason and assign an extremist position to me so you can argue that rather than my true position. I understand that is probably what you need to do to feel you have won the argument though.

“Few ever admit they are wrong here. Apologize? You have to be kidding. Hockey moms will be cheering their kids on in Hades before that happens.”

Well, I have to admit something I was wrong about but I’ve never been more happy to be wrong. I’ve said all along that I hope I am wrong. My pessimism regarding the long term peace in Iraq was wrong. I had no doubt that a surge would bring about short term stability in the same way that putting a bunch of cops on a block in a gang infested neighborhood would result in less violence until the cops are removed.

My pessimism stemmed from a couple different things. One, I had no faith in a people and culture that believes so strongly in an ideology that rivals nazism for one of the most hateful ideologies ever, that they are willing to send their kids out to die for it. Second, I am very much against the philosophy of nation building. I believe we can force a regime REMOVAl in another country, but not regime CHANGE because I believe only the people from that country can bring about lasting regime change. I also believe in projecting our military power punitively only, not through nation building because no country has ever benefited from prolonged war. I think this sets a precedent that might be a detriment to us in the future. Already, officer leadership programs in the military are focusing on nation building strategies for the future as opposed to conventional war strategies.

That all said, I have been wrong regarding this issue because Iraq is having sustained peace even after our troops have handed over entire provinces. I sure hope this continues because it’s great for our military morale and for peace in the region. It also sends a huge blow to terrorists networks. I’ve never been so happy to be wrong and I have more respect for McCain’s leadership qualities as a result.

“Man... if WE Republicans can only muster this kind of candidate for president and he looses to a guy that is SO incredibly un-fit for the presidency then we deserve to loose.”

I would love nothing more than to vote for ANYBODY running against the A**hole Obama that said our military was “air raiding villages and killing civilians” in Afghanistan. Then, I have to remind myself that McCain has grandstanded on the issue of water-boarding, telling the world that our military has “tortured” people. That he would close Guatanamo his first day in office because it has become an international symbol of human right’s abuses. Yeah, we deserve to lose this time around.

Anybody who believes we can win the GWOT by NOT doing things to our enemies as mild as water-boarding deserves whatever happens to them. That’s harsh but that is what I have become at this point.

“To each according to need, from each according to ability”....Karl Marx.

Income redistribution through taxation I am completely against because it is based on the socialistic ideology above.

At the same time, nobody has ever gotten rich on their own and those who have gotten rich, should give back fairly TO THOSE who helped them get there. Meaning their employees. How fairly the free market ensures this is definitely debatable and a question I have struggled with for years and still am unsure of.

“The U.S. economy is not plummeting”

The stock market is and that is why the price of gas is falling. If you don’t understand even that, then any further discussion on this is a total waste of my time.

LOL.......it’s not me that hates capitalism. Taxpayers bailing out free enterprises is not a free market. What I want is an honest economy based on real supply and demand and the real value of goods and services, not one based on the govt protecting those that took huge risks and played with the money. So many of the variables of the stock market are no longer about the real value of companies, but are based on these huge bubbles caused by speculation.

Capitalism is also based on the spirit of competition and there is little competition in many industries now. There is nothing to prevent executives from making bad decisions because they know there is no real penalties to themselves for running their company into the ground. They pick their own incompetent boards that are supposed to oversee them. That is not capitalism, it is a corruption of the true spirit of capitalism and you know it.