cheers Peter

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Samual Hunter Sr.

KC5ZSL
 

In that lets not talk about politics on these forums anymore and refrain from any remarks about our leaders past or present.

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Samual Hunter Sr.

KC5ZSL

Sam: I don't know that I would agree with your assessment. I think each generation thinks that the next one is going down the tubes. Also your re your comment about taxes. I hate paying taxes as much as you do and wish I could pay less. But I note that we pay less than most if not all of the western industrialized nations. I think that while there is a lot of waste and graft and thousand dollar toilet seats, even if you got rid of those things completely (something that can never be done totally) your taxes would only drop a few percentage points. So then the question becomes one of what do you want to cut. Many things are simply naturally the perview of government. The military, building roads, etc. They "paid" for the last tax cut by some accounting chicanery that counted social security collections as part of general revenue--and that aint right. I don't want to cut back on the help we give the old and indigent and I don't want to cut military spending at this time either (quite the opposite). I still want the roads fixed and the mass transit subsidized (given that it offers a greater bang for the buck for the taxpayer as compared to building more commuter expressways in large cities), I like my library to be up to date, poor kids to be immunized, and yes, I don't mind a few drops of the federal trough to go to Amtrak. At some level you do get what you pay for and I don't want to give up any of these things. So I will bitch and moan and try to find loopholes but in the end I get out my checkbook. If someone wants to cut taxes they should first explain exactly what they will cut to pay for it. That's not a partisan argument; it's just common sense.

Oh and one other thing, I will vote for Bush again because at least he has priciples. What did Clinton have? Scandles of the worst kind for a leader, he made us look bad as a nation as he represented us.
Just goes to show you, its not your integrety that matters its just how well you look and act. Play a Sax and your in there buddy.
Geez, what a gullable nation.

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Samual Hunter Sr.

KC5ZSL

As for he can't find whatever country on a map? Most people can't. Since they are allowed to vote, shouldn't they also be allowed to run for public office? Hey I can't find it on a map. I never studied north korea, but I know it exists becuase I watched MASH all those years.

Yep I voted for Bush. Not for bieng a republican, which I am not, but because I wanted to see what happens when we send a crack fiend into the white house.

Now we know.

Yes I know he is a former crack fiend, but he is human. At least we KNEW he was a party animal, more like the rest of us. If Gore had even TRIED to put that image across he would have nailed the election.

I saw post election loss party thrown by Bon Jovi and Mr. Gore was drunk off his behind, dancing with a beer in each hand. Had he let us know he was a regular guy, instead of a tree trunk, he would have won and I would have voted for him.

I am pretty tired of the jokes about the low intelligene of Bush. that is all far from the truth. And also the jokes about daddy bush. So what? His dad was president. Is he barred from public service? Come on, lets get real here and just support our president and hope we all don't die in a cloud of anthrax dust.

Dave
 

As for the other scandals, let's face it...there was nothing there. Nothing...not after the right wing spent millions of your tax dollars looking for something...anything...to nail him with. What did they come up with? Maybe some good ole boys in Arkansas got a bank loan they shouldn't have. And the Gov maybe made a crude pass at a secretary which she turned down and didn't sue until a right wing group talked her into it, paid for her lawyers, and (later) a nose job.

None of this had anything to do with actual matters pertaining to government. If you want a real scandal you'd have to look back to Watergate or to Iran-Contra where serious violations of law took place (and I haven't forgotten how Bush the elder denied all knowledge of that despite records showing his presence at many meetings where it was discussed. Uh...right.)

You don't have to like Clinton's politics and he certainly had some private failings but I've no doubt that this is a man with a brilliant mind, who came from modest beginnings...was a Rhodes Scholar...and, according to people who met with him, had an incredible grasp of details for whatever the topic at hand was.

As for taxes, keep your BP down; I wasn't suggesting raising them. But you were suggesting cutting them. The last cut put us into deficit so maybe that wasn't such a hot idea and I can't see us cutting them more, not with all the war and anti-terrorism costs.

I would also suggest that your "towel head" comment is inappropriate and may be offensive to some of the readership here. Many perhaps even most of the people wearing turbans are not even Arabs but may in fact be Sikhs. You do know that people from India read F-T, right?

Gord, I always thought Trudeau was a rather amusing personality!!
Mark

To Brad, maybe the policy on these forums may be altered to the fact that political and religious discussions should not be placed here.

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Samual Hunter Sr.

KC5ZSL
 

edit - You shouldn`t worry that his adventures in any way damaged the reputation of the US over here in Europe - on the contrary. Clinton was and still is immensely popular here. He was invited as special guest for the revelation of the renovated Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on reunion day (10/3).

IMHO it is necessary to separate George W's motives in this from the likely outcome of Iraq - or any other country controlled by Islamic extremists - getting its hands on WMDs. During the Cold War the principle of Mutally Assured Destruction ensured that no-one nuked each other. The logic was simple: we don't want to die, we know that if we nuke the other side then they'll nuke (ergo kill) us, therefore we keep our fingers off the button.

With Islamic extremism none of this applies, because the principle of 'we don't want to die' isn't there. They practice religious beliefs which condone - and in some cases even require - observers to kill other people and themselves in certain circumstances. So if they have WMDs, no rational argument is going to prevent them from being used. The only thing that will is the certainty that they will be prevented from achieving their objectives.

Nobody wants a war for the sake of it, but what is the lesser evil - making a stand now or waking up one day and finding that Sharia law has been imposed in York?

BTW, Michael's comparison with WWII is an interesting one - during the mid-30s Churchill was portrayed as an unintelligent and reactionary right-wing extremist by his political opponents (largely as a result of his support for rearmament), just as George W. is now.

There comes a time, which hasn't come yet, but it is getting close, when the talking stops and you have to do what you have to do.
 

Lets talk about the right winged republicans who spend millions of our tax dollars prosecuting bill clinton. This was spent by the Justice department, not the republicans. The justice department was run by Janet Reno, who appointed the special prosecutor and gave him unlimited budgetary spending power. Reno is a liberal. Not a conservative. Not right winged in any sense of the word.

To use right winged is to admit leftist liberal leanings. Its all politics and its he said she said. ITS ALL CRAP. hey mistakes are made all the time. Get over it.

Dave
 

Meanwhile the Paula Jones case was financed by the Rutherford Institute which isn't just right wing but has been described as "ultra right". Its founder, John Whitehead, once published an editorial endorsing charges of murder and drug running against Clinton. You can't get more right wing than that. BTW, Ms. Jones' original attorneys resigned the case after she declined what was described as a very generous settlement offer. They indicated they could not proceed without a violation of ethics, the inferrence being that she and her handlers wanted something more than a simple lawsuit and settlement.
 

I would like to think that most people here, yourself included have open minds. For every quip you have on the republicans I got one on the democrats. Its all the same crap. I am moderate whatever. Neither party. But all this blame game is pointless.

Dave
 

Now you're using the word persecute to describe the actions of people who dislike Mr. Bush and his policies and trying to say that their actions are comparable to those who tried to prosecute Mr. Clinton. Hardly even close. What do you refer to that rises to the level of "persecution?" Political speeches? Newspaper columns? That's hardly persecution. If anyone was persecuted it was Clinton, hounded for almost 8 years.

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Samual Hunter Sr.

KC5ZSL

Thoughts on this discussion:

1) I get a little nervous when a man who pronounces the word "nuclear" as "NUKE-U-LEHR" is in charge of so many terrible weapons; especially when that man's job consists 90% of talking/speech-making which should be his greatest strength.

2) One fact I heard among the hundreds flying around during election time was that the Bush Boys run/ran the 2 states (Texas and Florida) with the worst drug and crime problems. This seems surprising because in the "retail world" if I ran the worst department chances of promotion would probably only stem from lack of options (Gore or Bush?)

3) I think it a bit hypocritical to say no other country can develop nukes while America can have as many as they want. I just imagine a scenario such as the one portrayed in Stephen King's "The Dead Zone", where some maniac gets his finger on the "big red button" and the world goes "poof". Why are we so trustworthy? On the other side of the coin, I really fear the idea of someone throwing a nuke over to the US. Sure I don't want my daughter dealing with a Nuclear Winter, but I'd rather someone didn't fly a plane into her daddy's Best Buy either.

What it comes down to is I don't know the right course of action. Inspections seem to have done squat in the past, there are probably ties of terrorism to Hussein and other countries so should their citizens be held accountable? I hate the idea of killing off hundreds or thousands of INNOCENT people so my family can live safely, just because those innocents live close to a lunatic they cannot escape. I know I would be pissed if my family was killed because somebody bombed us in what they thought was self defense.

In short I'm glad I'm not the president, but I'm not thrilled with our current situations and how they are being handled either. I don't have any better ideas though, so I guess I cannot complain. As for our economy and prior contributors, I was pre-teen during Reagan and barely in my teens for Bush Sr. so I can really only comment on later Clinton years and GWB. Not had much time to research recent history and as many of you probably know pulic high school only really involves you in the Revolution.....all 4 years of high school.

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"The greatest thing you will ever learn, is just love and be loved in return."

Barry C. Martin
IATSE Local 182
 

The secret code you refer to is the fact that I am dyslexic. In fact if I even try to look at the screen when I type a message I blow it. So instead I just look at the wall when I type, it comes out better. But in reality I cannot tell the difference between capitalized letters and not. I just trust my fingers to do the talking for me.

As for Steve K. WHOA DUDE!!! No really, I consider any political debate to be of the highest caliber. The fact that we can remain collegues and friends makes it that much more enlightening.

In fact, quite often I am not right, and sometimes, as I live in a very conservative state, I am bombarded by information that may not be completely accurate.

As for the bill clinton Thing, although I did not vote for him, I did look to his presidency for leadership, and found that many programs that he either did or tried to do were very good. The country is better for his bieng in office for eight years. There are many reasons for it. Besided, I don't know why the republicans wanted clinton out, they would have had to deal with Gore, and he would have ripped them a new hole if they threw out Clinton.

And for what, cheating on his wife? I would have cheated on her. SHes a pain in the royal behind.

As for the ken Starr thing, I hate the guy. I realize now that I may be quite wrong about what I know about the situation, other than it was completely a total screw job. 55 million dollars wasted, and for what? to find out that Monica Lewinsky blew the president a few times. SO WHAT.

Did anyone see the HBO special with Lewinsky? We were able to see a different side to the story, once the gag order was lifted from her so she could finally tell what happened to her.

Back to Bush, I like the guy, but war scares the hell out of me. I just hopes he knows what he is doing. I will back him up. He just has to promise me that he wont blow me up.

True, at this time no one is trying to prosecute bush, but the persecution is there, not as bad as it was with Clinton though. If it were not for war, believe me it would be pretty tough. Right now people cannot concentrate on issues like that. It gets shoveled out the door.

I lost track, where am I again? Oh yeah, Utah. Conservative to a fault. So conservative that we make the Republican Party of the country look like liberals.

Dave
 

Besides, lest anyone think that the GOP are standard bearers of family and morality please remember that Henry Hyde cheated on his wife and Newt Gingrich...I can't recall if he cheated but he did go to his wife in her hospital bed recuperating from cancer surgery to tell her he was divorcing her. Morality and lack thereof is pretty much the same across the political spectrum.
 

Mind you, I suppose we're in no position to talk. In Britain, our corrupt, dishonest, tax-happy and incompetent government only has to say 'vote for us because we're not as bad as the alternative' (i.e. the Conservative Party). People do, because sadly, that statement is entirely true. Our steadily declining election turnouts tell the story, I'd say.

Sam Hunter writes:

quote:

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...but since other nationals frequent this forum then lets show them that we can unify and put aside our differences and act as one even if our government cant

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This is the USA/UK/Germany/Cyberspace, not Iraq! I gather that in Iraq Mr. Hussein recently scored 100% in a vote with a 100% turnout. An amazing place, Iraq... it seems that no-one ever goes on holiday or gets sick! But the western democracies still managed to win two world wars whilst operating a system of government that allowed for disagreement and debate, so I'd say that there was little to worry about on that score.

BTW, there was a very interesting and, I thought, well-balanced report on the mid-term congressional elections on BBC Radio's The World Tonight yesterday. The report was from a small town in Minnesota and focused on Paul Wellstone's campaign for re-election. It included two lengthy interviews. One was with a local coffee shop owner who said that under normal circumstances she'd vote Democrat but that she felt so strongly over the Iraq issue (i.e. the need to oust Saddam) that she'd vote Republican. The other was with a pensioner who'd seen her income slashed because of the stock market falls and intended to vote Democrat because she felt that George W.'s government had ignored the economy to concentrate on foreign policy.
 

quote:

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I get a little nervous when a man who pronounces the word "nuclear" as "NUKE-U-LEHR" is in charge of so many terrible weapons; especially when that man's job consists 90% of talking/speech-making which should be his greatest strength.

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I cringe whenever W says "NEW-cue-lur". That means I cringed about 20 times while listening to one of his recent speeches. However, note that Jimmy Carter, a trained nuclear engineer no less, also pronounces it "NEW-cue-lur". Clinton said "NEW-cue-lur" sometimes, and Eisenhower also said "NEW-cue-lur". Look it up.

But damn, you'd think someone on W's staff would get that problem corrected. Maybe W is a Simpsons fan and picked it up there...

In American politics, it is diffucult to reach a consensus. Most issues and elections (I said most) rairly exceed 55/45%. We agree to disagree, and that's what makes this society great.

Then we read that Saddam got 100% of the vote in the recent election in Iran. Now there's a country that's really together! Do you all want to live there? Sorry for the sarcasm. Let the debate continue.
 

It's common for people to be human. I once was a nucular treknishun, but I deesided 2 bee ay pergekshunisst innstead.

Dave.
 

On the pronunciation issue, it's NOO-CLI-LER which makes me hit the roof. And W, a Simpsons fan? I suppose his daughter's adolescent, err... shall we say 'assertion of independence' might have led him to sympathise.

Economics:
- In August, Bush blocked $5.1 billion for homeland security, which included improved healthcare and fire fighters communication equipment.
- He cut funds for mine safety.
- To offset revenue losses from Bush's tax cut (which almost everyone agrees had absolutely no positive impact on the economy), he will have to veto $5 billion per business day for the next year.

Taxes:
- Who is getting the tax breaks? Mainly the rich: Bush is reducing the top bracket (over $297,000 maried) and wants to eliminate the estate tax. People make a big deal out of this, but did you know that only estates larger than $2 million pay the estate tax?

- Summer 2000: Bush claims the tax cut is affordable.
- Spring 2001: Bush pushes tax cut through Congress. Claims a $trillion reserve.
- Summer 2001: Just weeks after tax cut passes, officials reveal that tax revenues are way down, but still claim that the overall surplus is greater than the social security surplus.
- October 2001: Bush says, "lucky me, I hit the trifecta," and claims that the recession, national emergency and the war let him off the hook in terms of keeping the budget balanced. He claims to have made this exception to his promises known during the 2000 campaign, but there is no record of him having done so.
- November 2001: Budget Director Mitch Daneils admits the overall budget, not just Social Security will be in deficit for fiscal 2002.
- July 2002: White House admits fiscal 2002 deficit will be $165 billion with a non-Social Security deficit of $322 billion. Claims budget will be back in surplus by 2004.
- Aug 2002: Congressional budget office says that the 2003 deficit will be twice that the Administration claims and will be until 2006.
Goldman-Sachs predicts $100 billion deficits each year until 2010.

IRAQ:
Halliburton (Cheney's company) sold more equipment to Iraq than anyone, $23.8 million (or was it $billion?) , although they did not seek new contracts when these first contracts expired.
1980's: US gave his army satellite intelligence to Iraq so that it could use chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers.
1988: Hussein used nerve & mustard gas aginst Kurds, Reagan blamed Iran.
1978-1988: we shipped seven strains of Anthrax to Iraq.

Also: A 1994 study by the Pentagon said that war with North Korea (which was proposed at the time) would have caused 100,000 US military casualties.

But listen up. My grandmothers estate was valued at 1.6 million dollars. Why then did taxes and probate costs eat up all but 0.3 million dollars? Her husband worked hard building ships for our military. He saved every penny and invested wisely. That money was for his family, not the government.

He paid his taxes on all of it. She paid all the taxes on it after he died. The taxes were paid, and not a penny of it was held in any trust to avoid taxes. The taxes were paid, then the remains invested. The earnings were taxed, and the remains invested.

That money was taxed. Left to the family. And then taxed upon her death, then taxed upon the transfer.

But then that's fair right?

What of my uncle? He owns a ranch in Nevada. He has a bad heart. When he dies, the government will swoop in and claim an amount, and once again, assets will have to be sold to pay the tax debts. Just as it was with my grandmother's estate. There was not enough money to cover the tax debt, and all assets had to be sold for much less than market value to cover the tax bill.

Each of the five surviving children each recieved a total of eleven thousand dollars after is was all over. This from what the goverment valued at a 1.6 million dollar estate.

This comes from years of doing it fairly and paying the taxes.

So why is this fair?

So you understand, most teachers make more than my uncle does. But I know his land, albiet in the middle of nowhere, will probably be valued at such a high price that the family will have no way of paying the tax bill. I hope they already learned thier lesson to not trust the goverment on this issue, and leave it in trust to his children.

Dave

Back to Martin, I decided I don't need to look for countering facts to what you have, because you have actually yet to prove that what you have is even true. If you are going to infer reference to the NY TIMES like you have, then you need to make direct qoutes and post links to the articles in question. All I could get from what you wrote was that this was your own personal interpretation of what you read. Trouble is, what is interpretation and what is fact?

If you want to post the links to the articles you read, then the rest of us can go read it as well, and gain this same knowledge for ourselves.

Dave

quote:

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Also: A 1994 study by the Pentagon said that war with North Korea (which was proposed at the time) would have caused 100,000 US military casualties.

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This is the only thing I really want to respond to, and the reason why is WHY this is here in your post? Your post is an obvious diatribe against Bush, but in 1994 Clinton was president? And at this time no one is talking about war with North Korea?

Just confused how that little snippet got in there?

Dave

I agree that if we leave it unchecked, and allow only diplomatic means against a dictatorship, that we would be very well to just run and hide and hope we all don't get run over.

Peace, is only found by wielding force. Myriad examples exist throughout history. The cuban missle crisis is a prime one. We wanted a dimplomatic solution, not war, but we were ready to launch attacks and invasions and prepared to fight a war, IF the other party failed to see how resiliant we were in wanting a diplomatic solution.

Dave
 

What exactly is there to negotiate over with Saddam Hussein? We already know he will say one thing and do the opposite. Same for NK. Same with all the middle east peace accords. Do we have peace in the middle east? Aw come on, let's try negotiating a peaceful settlement one more time. It's bound to work this time.

As for the US being aggressive in the role of world peacekeeper, the greater peace does occasionally require a little war here and there. And yes I would rather have the US imposing some kind of order around the world than to sit back and let things collapse in on us, which is what will happen if we close our eyes.
 

Dave
 

Dave
 

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This is noted by the fact that recently the US refused to sign into the accord that would allow US servicemen to be tried as War Criminals by other countries.

The US was founded on the basis that it is not beholden to any other goverment or ruling body. It is the reason the US exists. To say the the US or anyone making the statement is arrogant in its soveriegnity, is to say that freedom is an afterthought and not really important.

I myself agree that it is important to have world goverment approval for any action that is outside of your own borders. However I also see the need for a country of any origin be able to thumb thier nose and say "take this tea and shove it".

That isn't arrogance, just the silly foolish pride of 200 plus years of freedom obtained by blood and sacrifice.

Does Iraq have the right to thumb the nose? Yes it does. It has. The body that Iraq has thumbed its nose at is trying to bury its head in the sand so as to say "please sir may I have another". The US is usually the nation that takes the lead, and in this case again it is. The UN must act to stop Iraq from the continual thumb nosing. Wether it be inspections, or war, it has to happen. Otherwise the UN sends the continual message that it is ok to disobey.

So if Iraq gets to disobey, why is that ok? People are only paying attention to the possibly disobeyment of the US. Last I looked, it was Iraq that was under scrutiny.

Dave

I don't think the issue of whether Iraq was directly involved in September 11 or not is the most important one. The important one is WMDs, Iraq's determination to develop them and track record of using them. If they succeed, then what happened on September 11 will seem trivial. There are other things that need to be sorted out - Israel and the Palestinians and Saudi connections to Al Queda among them. But removing WMDs from the equation which are in the hands of a state which does not adhere to the principle of mutally assured destruction has to take priority.
 

What do you mean by that? I thought they had WMDs to assure destruction? If you take them away, destruction won`t be mutual anymore.
BTW, it is of course true that you can declare war without the UN. It is not like the UN kept the keys to all the tanks and planes. But that kind of action should be taken consortedly and not by one nation alone.
 

Imagine that someone just broke into your house while you were sleeping, and shot your family to death. You shoot them to death. Now you increase security to your house, and stay fully armed at all times. You meet a new woman, you marry, and both of you stay fully armed and ready in case of attack.

Now all of a sudden you remember that your next door neighbor used to come over and kick your dog and punch you in the face. You took him to court and he lost. You remember that he hasn't paid up like the judge told him too. You ask the sherrif to come over and take his stuff. He tells you that you should work it out. Now you remember that your neighbor used to say he was going to kill you if you told on him about kicking your dog and punching you in the face.

You are afraid he may do something. You can't prove to the judge that he IS going to do something, but you have a gut feeling that if you give him enough time, he will sneak up on you and blow your brains out.

So you can't wait for the judges and the cops to do something. You march over there, all guns blazing. You blow his brains out. Turns out, you were right, he is a nazi scumbag. He was planning to kill everyone on the planet somehow.

Or maybe you were wrong, and he was just raising kittens, and they were bieng eaten by your damn dog.

The analogy here, is that the US feels that Saddam will EVENTUALLY do something bad to us. It is at this time paranoia, but there is evidence of the past and some present that he MAY do something bad to us. We want the UN to back us up so we can go in and break some iraqi balls.

The danger, is if we go in without the approval of the UN and the US is wrong, we come off like complete dolts, and deserve whatever sanctions we get from it.

However, Iraq has failed on all of its promises that were given as a result of his surrender to allied forces in 1990. That is cause enough to re-engage his forces and topple his regime.

This whole thing may just be a smokescreen to get the issue off of other things. Republicans do very well historically in elections when we are at war, or talking about war.

Dave
 

quote:

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What do you mean by that? I thought they had WMDs to assure destruction? If you take them away, destruction won`t be mutual anymore.

---

During the Cold War both the US and Soviet Union had enough nuclear missiles to destroy the world and kill everyone several times over. That didn't happen, because one side knew that if it started a nuclear war it too would be destroyed. As long as the two forces were balanced in terms of their overall firepower, no war would start.

With Islamic extremists that logic doesn't apply. They have a track record of perpetrating atrocities in the name of their religion. Their religious beliefs tell them to kill large numbers of innocent third parties. People argue about whether they are interpreting their religion correctly, but frankly I don't care about that. Very few people would argue that the Spanish Inquisition was just fine because its perpetrators misunderstood Christianity.

The US and most Western European nations (most notably the UK and France) have held chemical, biological and nuclear weapons for decades, and never used them in actual conflict. Iraq has been attempting to develop these weapons since around 1980, and in that time has used chemical weapons against the Kurds and has attempted to fire missiles with biological warheads against Israel. That, for me, is a good enough reason to work on the basis that if Saddam ever gets his hands on a nuke and/or the means to deploy his chemical weapons more effectively, he will use them, and use them against the West.

I'm with George W. on this one - kicking out Saddam is priority no. 1.

Very similar to Dave's extreme example is a "what if":
They say that Usama is still at large, and we don't know where he is. Now, is that the truth, or is that what they want us to think? There's a great possiblity that we have a SEAL with sights on Usama's head right now. But, we haven't pulled the trigger because intelligence says that Usama is supposed to have dinner with Saddam on New Year's eve, so they're waiting to kill two birds with one stone. Only kick is, that there's no reason for the general public of the United States to know all of that, because it would cause widespread panic, etc...

So what do we do? I really do not like President Bush, but his ear is full of words coming from people much wiser and stronger than himself. I trust that the *ultimate* judgement of the office of the President is what really needs to be done. I might not know why, and in this case I do personally agree that we should NOT do anything to Iraq without being promted, but there's always that "what if?".
 

However, if he is known to be dead, I'm not surprised that we're not being told. It would remove much of the political justification for launching a new war on Iraq. I wouldn't be surprised if he were miraculously caught and tried a short while after George W. has finished with (and hopefully finished off) Saddam.