Those of you who hate the patriot act will be interested in this...

[Rufus Rhastus J]

Well, with bushy boy spying on everyone and admitting (klinton style) he's a bold faced lier...it's hard to have much hope. it seems the whole thing is going down the drain. I wish i could be as optimistic as BattlefrifleG3 and Outriderdark! I love America and it pains me to the bone to see Her betrayed like she has been. I guess we can thank God that bush doesn't have another term ahead. Because, in the klinton vein again, I bet America would vote for him again. what a disappointment he has been. Like the contract with America, i had such high hopes.........now, just if we can survive his theft of our rights before he is gone is the best we can hope for. I can never vote for a dem so my hope lies with those repubs to come. God help us if they are bush clones! What we need is another Reagan!

[Stopper]

We'll need more than a Ronnie act alike to get us back to where we should be. We need a person with integrity - real integrity, not someone who just pays lip service to the trait. Someone who knows what the constitution sys and means - not someone who regards it as a GD piece of paper.

Niether major party has anyone up and coming who shows any real promise. Condi is a bush crony now and always will be from here on out - billary is just that - billary. Rudy is a joke, so is just about anyone either party wants to throw at us.

[BattleRifleG3]

I don't think Bush would be elected again, for better or for worse, and that means that the repubs will be hard pressed to find a candidate more concerned with constitutional liberties. Four years ago he would have had to give everyone maximum security to stay in office, now folks are tiring of the abuses and I think the Reps will be pushed back to their constitutional roots IF they want to win the next presidential election.

I think the time couldn't be better for a true republican (small r republican), one who believes in focusing on the freedoms of our own country more than global involvement, respecting the boundaries of others and holding firm to our own. Let's hope the big R republicans can come through.

[cmoore]

I saw an ad for a "Homeland Security Paper Shredder" and just had to laugh my !!! off...

[Thrawn]

Originally Posted by iflylow74

Thrawn

I totally agree. Terrorist can be a relative term. To the British, our Founding Fathers were terrorists, to the north, the Conferderates were terrorists and so on. Now I do know what the intended meaning of terrorist is in the patriot act but whose to say 10 years down the road, my stash of ammo and weapons will make me a terrorist??? Thats what scares me!!!

No disrespect to the poor victems of 9/11,but middle easterners in planes do not scare me. No offense to our soldiers, but I don't give a rat's rear about Iraq. What does bother me is the idots in washington that seem to think they know whats best. republican or democrat matters not, both parties seem to have become tyrants in their own mind.

[Rave]

My greatest hope is that we get a decent choice in 2008,I sincerly pray for it to happen!:right:

[Rufus Rhastus J]

Originally Posted by Stopper

We'll need more than a Ronnie act alike to get us back to where we should be. We need a person with integrity - real integrity, not someone who just pays lip service to the trait. Someone who knows what the constitution sys and means - not someone who regards it as a GD piece of paper.
Niether major party has anyone up and coming who shows any real promise. Condi is a bush crony now and always will be from here on out - billary is just that - billary. Rudy is a joke, so is just about anyone either party wants to throw at us.

:right: You almost said what I was hoping you'd say. your response was great! But, you are not totally accurate about condi.....you forgote to mention what a perfect "YES-Man"he is whilst wearing a female's suit! And, you forgot to mention the size of her gonads! They must be like two basket balls! Imagine haveing to face the media, and America, while spouting all the bush lies and half-truths! I just don't know how she stomaches it. And your comparason of billery! Even billery reached her limit with that piece of shizzit husband of hers! finally, you are correct.....the repubs have soiled thier pants far too often.....I think I, as a repub, may as well face it....the dems are gona be running the show when bush is out.

[Rave]

Unfortunitly you are probably right,dam!

[troy2000]

Dick Morris has been pushing a book he wrote, in which he assumes Condi will be running against Hillary in '08. Or at least, he assumes Hillary will be the Dem nominee, so he's urging the GOP to run Condi against her.

[Rockabilly88]

Originally Posted by BattleRifleG3

Thanks Kurtis.
Rockabilly, what I meant by it being "too late", I meant that it was too late to avoid the Civil War. I mean the secession sealed its fate. I most certainly agree that seccession or avoiding the need for seccession would have been better off had slavery been abolished at the birth of our country. Just that, like France, South Carolina effectively wielded veto power over the Declaration of Independence if slavery were abolished. And Georgia would not have gone for Revolution if they were cut off by SC. That might have discouraged NC too. So we would have had 10 colonies in rebellion, not 13.
I used the term compromise because that's how history books recorded many agreements that tried to keep the Union, whether the 3/5ths compromise (which was blatantly lousy), the Missouri Compromise, or others. Perhaps a better term would be barganing. Something that would call the other side out. Terms they can't refuse. I'm essentially arguing that the south could have gotten practically any freedoms they wanted if they in return gave up slavery. Because the rest would be unable to refuse.

Sorry I misunderstood you. Yea I wouldn't argue you on either point you just made, except these two points I already made.

1. Yea the South could have gotten alot by giving up slavery, but it would have been extreamly unlikely for the slaveholders to give up that power.

2. To quote a certain cartoon character "you can call a shovel an icecream machine, but its still a no good shovel" call compromise what you want, but still all your acheiving is sedation. A true nation is a group of basically hegononimous people and to hold two nations under the same governmental banner is never going to work without one being subjected by the other. Tommy Jefferson said so about the white and black races and the same holds true for northerners and southerners. We don't have to hate each other, I know pleanty of good yankees, but we can't very well live under the same governement when we are so different. States rights tried to find a way of working this out and it was a good concept, but states rights got brushed aside when it got in the way of nation a subjecting nation b. The same pattern holds true all over the world. Look at South Africa, after the whites lost their rule over the blacks the blacks naturally imposed their rule over the whites and as much as the blacks may have suffered under aparteid, they wern't faced with the genocide that the white boers are faced with now. The same pattern showed itself in the Balkens.

Thanks for the kind words kurt

[Rockabilly88]

Originally Posted by Thrawn

No disrespect to the poor victems of 9/11,but middle easterners in planes do not scare me. No offense to our soldiers, but I don't give a rat's rear about Iraq. What does bother me is the idots in washington that seem to think they know whats best. republican or democrat matters not, both parties seem to have become tyrants in their own mind.

I have to agree with you although I'm more worried about the tyrants who know what their doing in washington than the idiots. Papa Bush doesn't scare me his puppetmasters do.

BTW merrry Chirstmas everyone.

[troy2000]

Originally Posted by Rockabilly88

We don't have to hate each other, I know pleanty of good yankees, but we can't very well live under the same governement when we are so different.

In the first place, I don't think you can divide the country into North and South, Southerners and Yankees any more, if you ever could. Where would you put California, the most populous state in the Union? Or the Pacific Northwest? Or the Midwest, for that matter?

In the second place, between immigration and people moving around, we're getting pretty well stirred together. Boston for example was founded by English Puritans, but it absorbed a huge number of Irish Catholics a century and more ago. Today it has everyone from the old bluebloods to the descendents of Portugese fishermen.

Look at Florida: between the retired northerners and the Cubans, not to mention other groups, there's hardly room for the natives.

As someone who's lived and worked from California to Florida and up to New York, I'd say we're definitely one culture and one country, with a lot of local flavors.

[Rockabilly88]

First place: I was talking about North and South which doens't include any of the other regions you mentioned. They would obviously be their own entities.

Second place: this never should have happened.

Florida thats exacly how the south gets screwed over. Unwanted northern retirees and cubans who are allowed in under this government over ride the will of the actual Floridians who view Florida as Florida and not just a place to live, work, play.

Your last statement: I'd have to dissagree completly as someone who lives in a state with many unwanted immigrants, many of them domestic, I can tell you people see things very differently in differnet parts of the country and alot of the people I and many other North Carolinians never asked to come to this state, are changing things to suit them which more often than not hurt the native people. Maybe you don't see this because your part of the upper caste and although you may not be causing any trouble you can't imagine our point of view because you've never been told that your way of life is wrong by people who moved into your neighborhood two weeks ago. My two cents.

[troy2000]

Rockabilly, my parents started out as migrant fruit workers. I myself have been a farmhand, truck driver, merchant sailor, carpenter, concrete finisher, oil-rig roughneck, convenience-store clerk, and a host of other things that hardly put me in the upper crust.

I think part of your problem is that you're young and inexperienced. Wait until you've been around a few more years, gone a few more places, and done a few more things. I think that what you now see as huge gaps between you and other Americans will get down to being more like cracks in the sidewalk.

[Rockabilly88]

Thanks for the kind words troy . I said upper caste not upper class, you don't have to be at the top to be higher than someone else. When I said upper caste I was referring to the part of society that is able to impose its will on the other half. You obviously have never had someone move into your hometown and tell you that your way of life is wrong and that you have to change things now that you've been blessed with their magnificent presence.

As far as my problem goes (I didn't know that disagreeing with someone was a problem), I may be young, but I think I've got plenty of experience. I've been going to a school for the last four years where just getting through the day without a fist fight is a hassle, not the fact someone is found with a gun or a knife every two to three months. There have been two stabings at school in the last year. There are guys who will jump you just for being white much less rocking a rebel flag on your jacket or tee shirt. I've got scars on my knuckles to prove it, but I've learned you can't punk out and hide your pride in your heritage because people want to take it away. I've had people move to my town and change things because they don't like it. We've had a bill passed that prohibits smoking in restaurants because some out of staters didn't like it. We've had anti-gun laws go through our town legislature (and thankfully fail). We've also had some snot nosed college kid who is a guest here petition to get a Confederate battle flag removed from a graveyard where my relatives are buried some of whom were Confederate veterans. That *$&# doesn't even live here and she comes around and takes down a flag that has flown over that cemetery for over a hundred years. Or how about the people who say that my little sister can't sing Christmas songs at school, but is forced to sing Chanukah and Kwanza songs?

As far as work experience goes I've cut and split and hauled wood, and done some construction. Not much but considering it was done just to pay for room and board with little if anything ever left over for saving and I never once complained because I had a place to stay after being kicked out of my house by a drunk stepfather.

I can admit I've only traveled out of Carolina (South Carolina included) about 50 some odd times, as far west as Wyoming and as far north as Canada from what I've seen I think I'll stick around here.

Yea I've only been around for seventeen years and have alot to learn, but I think I have a little authority on this subject which has affected me from birth. Its about quality of experience not quantity. Now if you can take step down from your high horse for a moment and take a chill pill or two, we can finish talking about this subject rationally before the mods close it down.

[troy2000]

"Now if you can take step down from your high horse for a moment and take a chill pill or two, we can finish talking about this subject rationally before the mods close it down."

I don't see much to discuss, rockabilly. Merry Christmas...

[Stopper]

Rufus, about the time I thought the demcrappers were going to make it big on '06, here comes Rummy with "reduce the troop levels" exactly what everybody wants to hear - think they are trying to turn tables on the demos??? I sure do. We'll get this lip service until next November then we'll get it up the ol keester again. Seems like the next big American value - being able to take it up the wazzo, and taking it with a smile.

Since when has big gummitup been so freak'n popular?

[BattleRifleG3]

I have a feeling Bush will be very very very happy when his term is over. I'd really like to hear what he has to say about it all when it's long over.

[Stopper]

BRG3 - do you really think his "term" will ever end?

[Rufus Rhastus J]

can't end soon enough for me!