I just hope whoever wins, the other side concedes. We dont need another fiasco like the 2000 election.

Name how many current Americans actually made such sacrifices, then compare them to the number that are willing to sit back on their couches and swallow whatever line of bullshit the Teevee feeds them.

Sorry, but America became the England that "we" all ran away from quite a while ago. And now there's nowhere to run.

It just hurts to see the polls going the way they are. I wish I could say I understand it, but I just don't. I would place resposibility on all those red states in the middle and south of the country that always vote republican. If Bush truely does win, it is by their hand, and therefore is their responsibility to see that he stays honest and keeps his word. The reality is that the coastal states that traditionally vote democrat will still be the ones watching over him while the trusting, relegious middle states put their "faith" in Bush and leave him to do what he will do because he says he's doing "gods'" work. I still maintain that people who vote their relegion over their brains are making a huge mistake and they cause problems for the rest of us. If Bush wins fairly he wins, period. I won't like it, but I'll concede it. However, given four years of media manipulation, obvuscation of the facts and truths, and a spin machine that ould make any carnival goer sick, it's not surprising that those who don't look for information don't find it. I still believe we have a huge "by any cost" machine working on the right which has made it difficult to do anything other than play their game. I hope that all you people who voted for Bush are really watching the things he's doing. Look beyond your petty, relegious based issues and your fear of a terrorist attack that will likely never come. He's your man, take some fucking responsibility.

Last night I was actually told by a Bush supporter, in all seriousness, that the reason it was unimportant to go after Bin Laden was because he was already dead.

Yes, despite the video that was released last week. He claimed that was the trickery of "somebody like Michael Moore."

The Bush voter in 2004, ladies and gentlemen.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,136644,00.html
See "Who's really smarter"

I love losers who have to believe they are just smarter than the winner, in order to make themselves feel better. Bush won. (electoral and popular vote) Bush is smart. Smart people voted for Bush. Thank God that Australia is not deciding our election. Then again, Australia voted to keep their pro-Bush government. I guess you whiners will have plenty to gripe about on both sides of the world for the next few years.

p.s.
1. I am smart. I have a juris doctorate to prove it.
2. I do not have a big business. In fact, I'm an associate in a small business.
3. I am not war hungry. I wish Bin Laden had left us alone.

Hey, Freemanlaw - way to point out the glaring error in our Aussie's post:



GW Bush was never a Senator. He was Governor of Texas.

His father, GHW Bush was a Representative for Texas, UN ambassador, Chairman of the RNC, Director of the CIA, Vice President and President.

GHW Bush's father, Prescott Bush actually was a Senator but this time from Connecticut.

Little known fact: at the 1980 RNC convention Ronald Regan was in a lurch as their preferred running mate became unavailable. Thy narrowed dow their last-minute choice to two people: George HW Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. As fate would have it, they preferred Rummy, but only had Bush's phone number.

AMERICA, FUCK YEAH


It is really cool that alot of people went to vote. (only positive)

first arnold and now this. thanks a lot american voters.

This isn't some kind of game where we play who's right and who's wrong on some arbitrary piece of trivia. This is peoples lives and livelyhoods we're talking about.

Freman, your man won. Are you going to pledge to keep an eye on him as the man you helped elect, or are you going to go back to your life, safe and secure in the knowledge that he'll do what is right? If he is the man you wanted, is it not your responsibility, and the responsibility of all that voted for him as well as all those who didn't, to keep him honest and to his word? Is that not our job, to seek out all the information, not just what FOX NEWS and the major media outlets put forth?

I haven't called you out on anything personally up to this point, but now I feel I must. Can you honestly say that you will monitor Bush in the same manner that you would have monitored Kerry? Can you honestly say that when you voted against a womans right to choose, when you voted for a constitutional ammendment that would open the door to an open discrimination of gays based on a relegious reaction and nothing more substantial than that, when you voted to continue a military presence in the middle east, when you voted to continue to drive this country further into debt, when you voted to continue an ecological platform that is failing by all accounts, that you were voting for what was right for ALL the people of the United States?

Are you going to keep a watchful eye on the government you elected, or are you going to just look for what you want to hear?

Well, no. In fact, nearly all of the major metropoliltan centers of the country -- New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, Seattle, Portland (OR), Philadelphia, Washington DC -- went for Kerry. The only significant centers that didn't were in Texas.

What's interesting about this is that it's those cities that are the most likely to be hit by terrorist attacks, and they don't seem to have trusted Bush to take care of them. Could it be because his policies have only made it more likely that terrorists will attack? Hmm.

This is all now a matte for academic debate. There are still some things that don't add up, but if 2000 is any indication, we will probably never get the answers we need. What we need to do now is figuire where to go from here. How can we keep fighting the good fight for the things we know are right? Can we keep fighting now that we've lost so much ground in the house and senate? What can we continue to do?

Projbalance, I will continue to watch what the President does, just as I have watched the Presidents before him. When he does something I like, I will rejoice. When he doesn't, I'll call him on it. I only wish the self-righteous left (not you in particular) had watched over Clinton after they elected him, twice. The man lied under oath and lied to a federal investigator. Martha Stewart went to jail for less. Clinton made millions on a book and speaking tour.

As I've said before, I believe Bush is fiscally too centrist for me. I wish the social security drug program had not passed, because it is too expensive. Overall, though, I agree with him on major issues. Like Arnold, I choose to support him, in spite of my differences. You may find it hard to believe, but I think the gay marriage fight is ridiculous, because I think the government has no business licensing marriage. My state stopped allowing common law marriages in 1997. That was a step in the wrong direction. The only reason to license marriage is to get taxes and to make it easier to handle divorces. So as you see, socially and fiscally I can differ with W. I just feel he is the better man for the job and definitely my choice when it comes to security, which is the most important issue to me. My next most important issue is taxes, on which I lean toward Bush.

Krispies, do you believe that just because a person lives in the inner city they are smart? Do you honestly believe those in the countryside and suburbs are ignorant? Look at inner-city school ratings, drop out rates, etc. and you'll see my bewilderment with these assumptions. Kerry used the black religious leaders to pull in blocks of uneducated voters. I saw it personally in my city. People in line had print outs, drafted by their "leaders" telling them for whom to vote; nevermind that the candidate may be inexperienced or even proven to be a horrible leader in the past. I trust a learned voter like Projbalance much more than I trust the masses from the inner city. Some of my best friends and co-workers staunchly disagree with me, but we respectfully disagree. If you have thought of the options and make an educated vote, that's a republic. If you were rounded up on a van and never heard of the candidate who gets your vote, that's just ignorant.

Aye! Arnold is the COOLEST republican around
If he was President, there'd be no wars!

Demolition Man here we come!

Uhhh, with Howard in charge, it is. That man refuses to consider the best interests of Australia and just does what Bush wants.

So yes, with the combination of Heads of State here and there, we are being screwed over.





Do you think that the war in Iraq caused more or less security for Americans?

Well maybe there is some hope for reaching across the aisle after all. I will stand by Freeman and all the people who voted for Bush like him. I won't always agree, and we'll bicker on issues I'm sure, as is the right thing to do. I hold no ill toward you though and I just hope we can fix some of the problems we CAN agree on and get this country moving foreward again.

That being said, now that we are in Iraq, what do we do? Most of the major military officials say we are stretched to thin and we will soon run low on manpower. Bush has promised there will be no draft, yet there are two new draft bills in the house (I'll post the bill numbers as soon as my dumb ass can find them). Are we gonan have a draft? Many people think that if we're going to continue to police the globe for terrorists that we'll need some sort of mandatory service or we won't have the people. Can we get out without losing face AND without looking like we're giving up?

By the way Free, lets trade newsites. I like to read the stuff at Salon.Com, RawStory.Com, and Informationclearinghouse.Com.

Where do you go? PLease, no major news outlets, lets keep the big boys out of this, I don't like the way they smell.

In the end, isn't it kinda telling that New York and New Jersey went to Kerry? Obviously they are't feeling to secure with Bush running the show.

I believe it was you who said:



The clear implication is that people who DIDN'T vote for Bush AREN'T smart. And sorry, but I haven't seen any 64-bit processors coming out of Topeka lately.

Interesting map:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicsel ... ntymap.htm

I just think that means we need to get people un-dumb. A big part of this election cycle was just educating people on how important it is to vote and be informed about the issues. No one is exempt from knowledge.

The pursuit of knowledge, like the privilege of voting, is a choice.

Isn't it a given, experianced through mutual obvservation of people in this world, that the majority of people don't seek out knowledge for whatever reason they may give for it? I beleive there are just too many people that don't see the point of gathering knowledge, instead preferring to construct a comfortable life full of their own comfortable rationalsations as to why things are the way they are. Rationalasations that ultimately serve to do no mroe than suport their comfortable bubble of ignorance. IT's the ostrich syndrom; if you dont see it, it isn't really there. Why then should the rest of us be forced to live by the guiding han o those who are trying to seperate themselves from the rest of the world for fear of bursting their comfortable bubble of ignorance? Just my little rant.

You do not have to live by the guiding hand of the ignorant, you may secede and form your own country or find one you like better.
Just a thought.

Sorry for the typos, I get in a rush and I dont always type so good.

One thing that I have noticed throughout this election cycle and into it's fallout period is that many people who voted for Bush, in an overly simplified way of looking at it, voted their relegion.

I always thought politics was something you debated on. You pound away back and forth. Yoiu have two approaches to a subject and one side either gets the other to agree to their way, or you have a situation where you meet in the middle, but that's politics.

When it comes to relegion, it's a matter of faith, it's a feeling. You can't debate a feeling. You can't argue the validity of a feeling or try to show why one feeling is better than another, it's a moot argument. I believe strongly in peoples right to think and feel whatever they want personally.

The problem occurs when a persons relegion is their politics. You then enter into a situation where you can no longer have a debate on an issue. And it goes even further, unfortunately.

Many people in this country think that their relegion is being marginalized, or that thier views are being seen as archaic by others who think they have "evolved" past such things. Because of that they become very defensive. You can't say anything to them that brings their faith into question or they automatically shut you out. Now you add a political slant to this and you have a situation where not only can debate not occur on an issue, but you are dealing with someone that has basically shut you out completly. It's a "My way or the highway" mentality. Many, not all mind you, but many of the relegious right have taken that stance and that effectively shuts down the political process. And those on both sides of the aisle that want that debate find themselves put out; liberals for not cowtowing to the right, and the moderate right are shut out for being seen as not towing the party line.

I think this is what people are referring to when they say that the right has "hijacked" the political process. By removing the chance for a debate it just becomes a power struggle that the left will never win because their way of approaching issues removes the emotional fire that fuels the right into doing things the way they do. And despite the current popular to say trend, the left cannot allow itself to become galvanized in that manner because that truely destroys any hope there is for any kind of debate at all. So they ask the other side to remove from its politics the very thing that governs their daily lives, be it for good or ill, and that approach is a futile and stupid gesture.

I don't want to take any ones relegion from them, I would rather see them give up the more ritualistic aspects of it and just focus on the central messages of peace and love. But even that becomes a problem, as a disgusting number of relegious people, ANY relegion, are so blindly hypocritical that those messages become lost in the posturing that so often accompanies the practices of people who value relegion over faith. The far right became galvanized around essentially bigoted issues concerning homosexuality and abortion. By voting their relegion they removed the debate from the issues and turned it into a black or white, for or against way of handeling politics. How are we supposed to unify in the face of that?

You don't live in a democracy and you don't have an absolute freedom of speech.

America is a republic. We don't get together and debate every single issue and vote on every single issue. We elect representatives who are like-minded to our way of thinking.

Freedom of speech only applies to the governments denial of your freedoms. It has nothing to do with an absolute right to say what you want without consequence. If you say something against the government, you should not be arrested. If you say something that another person doesn't like, you may get punched in the face.


To many, religion is more than just a belief or faith, it is a way to live. If you are guided and live by your reliegious convictions, your politics will be reflective of that. If a person believes strongly in the faith that governs their lives, they do not have to compromise those beliefs, just for the sake of debate.

How many times have you had a gut-instinct, a feeling, a belief to do something turned out to be absolutely stupid? I have on a great number of occasions, and I don't see myself as being a stupid person, I think.

As far as living by the guiding hand of your beliefs, I'm all for it, if you understand the basis of your faith. Unfortunately the christian religions of the world, which we must admit we are talking about, don't actually know the origins of their fiath of where the ideals and morals developed by them come from, and most of them will never bother to look. I wouldn't hav a problem with it if it wasn't so steeped in hypocrisay and hatred on so many levels. It must be admitted that the word or the christian god can, and has, been twisted and re-interperated by many people to favor their own agenda. These things get implanted in the relegion and passed down and become part of the word, even if the meaning has been tainted. No church of the christian faith is spared from that. That is one reason people like myself have issues with being goverend fro mthat point of view. Jesus the christ (the official Jewish title, if I'm not mistaken) taugh about the values of peace and love, if the word can be taken as true. So how can the majority of people who say they follow the word of Jesus possibly justify violent actions of any kind? The entire christian faith should be pacifist. That's what Jesus was. He was the ultimate hippie. He enjoyed conversation, philosophy, and organic foods. (Ok, I threw that last bit in there) He was not in favor of violent outbursts. He was not in favor of big, grand churches, or adulation in his name. Yet this is what we have in majority in this country, in this world, in this faith. So already we are starting down a hypocritical path.

I really do try very hard not to knock people of faith, I really do. I wan't to believe that they know that the message is more important than the messenger. But the idea of people who are willing to fight to protect the conventions of a relegion that so few of the vocal minority truely seem to understand just confuses the hell out of me. Those are the ones I have a problem with, and those are the ones in charge. (not you Freeman. As I have said before the fact that you are willing to engage in this discussion and not get nasty speaks volumes about your charecter) People in this country and the world around have used relegion as a way to justify all manner of nasty, hateful shit. Are we suddenly supposed to beleive that has changed because it's our country?

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm
http://www.blackboxvoting.com/
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...opic_id=2602324
http://blackboxvoting.org/
http://zapatopi.net/afdb.html
Glitch gave Bush extra votes in Ohio
Registrations vs votes in Florida
Exit poll discrepancies
Florida voting patterns analysis
The Ultimate Felony Against Democracy
Kerry Won
Was the Ohio Election Honest and Fair?
Outrage in Ohio: Angry residents storm State House in response to massive voter suppression and corruption
Votergate
Stolen Election 2004

Rigged.

Actually, on Palm Sunday, His joyous entry into Jerusalem, He went to the Temple, saw the way the money changers and business people had corrupted the temple and He had an amazing violent outburst. He overturned their tables and began chasing them out of the temple with a whip.

The truth of His message has lasted this long, because it is there in black and white. No matter how many people try to twist it, misinterpret it or use it to justify their sin. We are all sinners. We deserve hell. Jesus died as a sacrifice for our sins. Through his sacrifice, we may be redeemed. Anytime someone uses the Bible to support their position, I try to look at the message of the Bible, as a whole, to filter that interpretation. Paul said for slaves to obey their masters. Slaveowners took this and ran. Yet reading the Bible as a whole, you see that Paul believed Christ was coming back tomorrow and it was not the slave's place to battle their masters. God would set things straight. Jesus himself told the rich man to give up his possessions and follow Him. If the slave is a possession of the rich man, Jesus said give him up.

I know you may not want a Bible lesson this morning, but my point is that Christians believe in trying to live like Christ. We also know that no amount of trying will ever make us pure enough on our own. We must ask Christ to stand in our place and forgive our sins.

Electing Christian leaders is different from having a Christian government. I choose representatives for this republic who share my beliefs. I also know that while on earth, evil exists and will try to harm us. While I pray for God to protect us, I recognize that he has given us the tools to defen ourselves. This is how I support the President and the war on terror.

War on (those who use and support) terrorism... should be the title. When a non-country declares war on you, you can't declare war on a country. You could call it the "war on radical, fundamentalist Islamic terrorists," but that too is just too long. For brevity's sake, it's the war on terror.

The terrorists are in Iraq. We call them insurgents, because they come into Iraq to fight our army and destabilize any hope for democracy in Iraq.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,137896,00.html

Insurgent is just another word for rebel. The Media won't use rebel because it has a positive quo-notation.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=insurgent

There you go again with the FOX news. It hurts me brother, it really does.

Free, I'm having trouble understanding what you said back there. Maybe it's just the difference in how we view the world, but I just can't follow the logic of your statement. Wasn't it Jesus who said turn the other cheek, beat your sword into plowshares and all that jazz? Did God gie us nuclear weapons to defend ourselves? Are we really defending ourselves by attacking a country that wasn't involved in 9-11 and killing thousands of her people to look for terrorists that may or may not be there, not to mention the WMD's that werent there, all in the name of 'preemptive defense'? Are you saying that God would support the idea of beating the crap out of someone because of what you think they have the intention of doind to you? It's fundamentalists fighting fundamentalists, the only difference is the book each side follows. According to them, WE'RE the evil ones. Are you saying we have the right to make a judgement call on who's relegion is right and who's is wrong? Is it really about defense or is it to prove that the Christian relegion is stronger than the Muslim relegion, the crusades of long ago merely put onhold. if we were really following the words of christ as you say they are shouldnt we have waited for him to come down and take care of things instead of being presumptious enough to assume that he wanted us to take revenge for what happened and then take it upon ourselves to free the world in his name? Isn't that a little arrogant? Maybe I just can't see it, seeign as I refuse to give up my eternal soul to anyone and that I'm going to hell. But won't I be forgiven, because that's what he's all about? Won't everyone be forgiven in the end, even the Muslims and the terrorists. If Jesus is the one, true god, and he loves and forgives everyone, won't we all just end up in heaven playing hacky sack and drinking mocha-chinos by the river of dreams? If god is the only one who can judge, the only one who can punish, arent we overstepping our bounds by taking matters into our own hands? I honestly am confused by all this!

I saw a news break segment earlier of the phantom attack thing whatever its called and the spin to god approve the whole attack was to have a shot of a bunch of army blokes as one recites prays to jesus and then the lot of them saying amen just before going off to kill people - ironic.

Not according to my reading of the Bible. He offers forgiveness, but you must accept it. Here's a link from someone more learned than I.
http://www.bible.com/answers/aforgive.html

As for the Christian dealing with war, I turned up this: (and no it's not FoxNews)
http://www.bible.com/answers/awar.html
I haven't read the whole thing on either of these, I just scanned them, but I think they get the jist of it.

Projbalance: I'm not relgious in any way (agnostic, hedging my bets ) but that was a fucking good post, man!

I can certainly see your points there, according to what is in those texts, but I just can't reconcile them. The forgiveness issue boils down to something that has always bothered me: God gives each person free will to do what he or she wants, but punishes you if you choose not to follow him. If you don't ask God to forgive you, he won't. I have a problem with that.

I don't know, what some people see as God entrusting mankind with the power to govenr and rule themselves in his name, I see as excuses for why God isn't readily apparant in his influence on a day to day basis. With this basic difference in evaluation in mind, I guess it's not so hard to see why I don't understand these things. I don't want to argue it, I just do not and can not agree with these things. It becomes pointless in the long run because all these beliefs require and inner "faith" that I just don't have. And I'm sorry if I just have an innability to trust everyone who says they do.

Not sure you're realing hedging your bets there.

Revelation 3:15-16.
15 "'I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! 16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth.

You are absolutely right. It does require an inner faith. Too many people I know have expressed the same doubts as you and used their inability to rationalize and explain everything as a stumbling block. I don't have all the answers, but I pray for understanding. That's why I love debating with those who have opposing opinions. It makes my beliefs stronger.

The biggest doubter I knew growing up was my brother. He questioned everything and was quite the hellyun. (sp?) He studied every religion he could and today he is a baptist preacher. Whenever I have a theological question that I can't answer, I ask him his take on it. That does not mean that I always agree, but he is great at playing devil's adovcate (as well as being God's advocate).

I just hope you keep searching for answers and the truth, rather than settling for not knowing. (see my post above about lukewarm)

People talk of god and them and forget another entity that is just as important and that is everyone else.

My point of view on the free will that god bestows on us is like putting individuals into a hedge maze and giving each the choice of how to get to the other side - and I don't mean the other side being heaven or hell or whatever may seem longterm.

To me, free will gives you first the choice to ask Jesus to be your savior. You ask him to forgive your sins and recognize the sacrifice he made for you. This is the beginning. (The mouse enters the maze headed in the right direction) You then choose to make him Lord of your life, so you live your life according to his directions. (The mouse follows the best path) Just because you sometimes mess up and go another way, you are still free to choose to get back on the right path. (God can always help out by knocking down a piece of hedge) The term sin comes from archery and means to miss the mark. Just because you don't follow His perfect plan, you can still get back on the path if you ask for guidance.

My opinion on this is that god will intervene regardless.

He definitely has been known to intervene. Jonah ran from what God wanted and Jonah ended up in a fish!

Yeah but....I wasn't talking to you.
I was talking to the tolerant guy.

Come on, be fair. He's not being intolerant. In fact, he's being really tolerant of my shit right now because he is secure enough in his faith to do so, and while I dissagree with him about just about everything, I still respect him. That's what we're talking about, r-e-s-p-e-c-t, find out what it means to me.

But that's kind of what I've been talking about here. There are just too many people of deep relegion that do not repsect others right to NOT hold the same beliefs. There is a large contingent of people who think that the values an beliefs they hold should be the values and beliefs of all of us. Many of us on the other side are more than tolerant, we have to be, because we are virtually buried in Christian relegios icongraphy and rhetoric every single day. And many Christians have the nerve to say their relegion is under attack because we don't think the ten commandments should be hanging in the courthouses? Or because we don't think it's a good to idea to make a moral, relegious belief into a law that binds even those who don't share the belief?

No offense Freeman, and please forgive me for what I'm about to say, but I find the majority of relegious people to be completly full of both shit and themselves. My girlfriends father goes to church ever sunday, hardcore catholic like, and you know what; he's an asshole of the highest order! He blames everyone else for his problems, treats his family like crap whenever he get's the chance, loves to try and make my girlfirend cry, and loves to spout of ridiculously closed minded opinions on subjects he doesnt know the first fucking thing about. Almost every person I have known that has said they are a relegious person turns out to be one of these spiritually arrogant, holier than thou, "I can fuck up all that I want as long as I don't break a commandment and go to church on sunday and beg for forgiveness" kinds of pice of shit hypocrites. And I'm sorry, but I just cant trust my life, security, livelyhood, and the well being of the people I love and the world I live in to a ridiculously large relegious group that can't even agree on what their relegion even means. Hell, they can't even agree on one version of the fucking book! How easy would it be to have everyone literally working off of the same page!

And I'm sick and tired of having those kinds of relegious people look at me like theres something wrong with me because I like to ask, "why?". It's not their place to tell me or anyone else that what we believe is wrong, adn their sympathy for our souls is equally as arrogant. Why can't they just be content to be who they are to themselves and to eachother and leave the rest of us alone?

And now these types of people are trying to force a sort of national conversion through legislature and policy. Hell, all we want is to give everyone a level playing field to operate on. We don't all have to agree, but we have to respect, and that's what's missing in these people. They choose not to respect the rest of us that don't think like they do. That's my political beef with them. I don't give a rats ass who or what you believe, I just don't want to be made to live by it. Pro-choice isn't just about abortion anymore.

Take into account this - for religous people, I mean hardcores, there is no maybe, there is only fact and just like you and I know that jumping of a house roof is going to damage a child we would (I hope u would too) do anything in our power to convince that child that jumping from that roof is a bad idea - just the same way as religous people try to convince sinners of their fate.

If any political/social/scientific discussion I have with someone ends up with their defense of their position being 'because of god' in some form, discussion over. The person isnt thinking rationally, but simply going with some basic ideology that has no basis in facts.

Religion is fine to give a person an idea of bigger picture. Religion is not fine when it is imposed as a moral guide on society, because inevitably the rules stop being about facts and logic and start being about fictional characters.

Well put. Because of a belief that they have, they are complled to share it with others. Most genuinely hope that you will recognize the danger that they believe you are facing.

ProJ, I am equally disgusted by self-righteous people who use religion as an excuse. I certainly don't have the answers, but anytime a person acts inconsistent with the teachings of the Bible, I question their faith. Nowhere in the Bible does it say act like a good person and you go to heaven. It actually says "by grace are you saved, through faith, not works, lest any man should boast." Tell your girlfriends father that next time he's a jerk and believes going to church on Sunday makes him special. Not to mention, the Bible has a whole lot to say about how a father should treat his family. He has a greater responsibility not to be a dick, because he's a dad.

Because I feel my beliefs are headed in the right direction, I vote for people with similar beliefs. I also recognize that our country was founded on religious freedom. I hate that we don't have school-sponsored prayers, but I would not want school-sponsored prayers to Allah, Buddah or Satan. I agree that the Ten Commandments should not have been displayed in Alabama in such a way that clearly flew in the face of the establishment clause of the first amendment. I also think our traditions should allow the ten commandments, along with Hamurabi's (sp?) code, to be displayed in the Supreme Court. We can have tolerant respect for our traditions and still not establish a religion. Our government should seek the balance between religious freedom and no establishment of religion. Our legislatures should enact laws they feel appropriate and our courts should only overrule those laws when they actually conflict with the Constitution.

Daglington, I'm sorry if you think I'm not thinking rationally.

Actually, right after God gave the Ten Commandments, he sent the Israelites into Canaan to take the land by force. The Old Testament is full of times when God told the Israelites to fight their neighbors or defend themselves against conquerors.

the difference is not fact - the difference is and always will be 'a point of view' thats such a cool icon