hillary is a piece of shit

[Dalya]

ralph nader. one can dream.

[roach]

ralph nader. one can dream.

is he bed ridden yet? sadly he's not around, so that was my thought.

[Irock]

saying that the patriot act is an invasion of privacy is the same as saying "i don't actually want to fight against the patriot act"

does not compute.

McCain would do harm by accident--he is too easily swayed in my opinion.

Because when you met him at that dinner party he seemed really eager to please? I don't know muych about the guy, but this seems like a really big jump so me, what could have led you to this conclusion?

[monet2u]

ralph nader. one can dream.

sounds more like a nightmare to me. the green party doesn't even want him.

[Dalya]

does not compute.

because saying the patriot act invades your privacy doesn't mean anything. it's not unconstitutional to invade anyone's privacy. the word privacy doesn't appear in the constitution.

For example, "Section 215 modifies the rules on records searches. Post-Patriot Act, third-party holders of your financial, library, travel, video rental, phone, medical, church, synagogue, and mosque records can be searched without your knowledge or consent, providing the government says it's trying to protect against terrorism." This, unfortunately, is not unconstitutional. The government doesn't protect your right to anonymous library book check-out.

what is unconstitutional are very specific aspects of the patriot act. unwarranted searches and seizures and denying the right to trial. here is a really good article written by the cato institute. it specifies which sections are unconstitutional and which ones are just morally wrong (like denying trial to non-citizens). http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa443.pdf

it's silly when politicians go around condemning the wiretapping or whatever. that's not the unconstitutional part. plus, more broadly, what is unconstitutional is that all rights not explicitly given to the federal government are reserved for the states. and there are more civil rights than are stated in the constitution. that is what should be debated. if everyone is so excited about privacy, then we should write an amendment and make it an explicitly stated right. or we should be upset that the dallas police aren't the ones listening to our phones calls instead of the FBI.

if you want to read something really sick, here is the transcript of the "debate" over the patriot act. everyone just keeps congratulating each other on what a good job they're all doing. http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/sept_ ... e_proc.htm

Because when you met him at that dinner party he seemed really eager to please? I don't know muych about the guy, but this seems like a really big jump so me, what could have led you to this conclusion?

Q: Do you have a plan to help people with bad credit get lower interest rates so they can keep those homes and avoid foreclosure?
A[McCain]: Yes, and it's tough here in California, it's tough in Arizona, it's tough particularly all over, but it's very tough particularly in the high growth states. The efforts that have been made so far are laudable. We may have to go further, but the fact that the FHA and the other organizations of government under Secretary Paulson's direction, and he is doing a good job of sitting down and fixing at least a significant number of these problems. We've got to return to the principal that you don't lend money that can't pay it back. There's some greedy people on Wall Street that perhaps need to be punished. There's got to be a huge amount more of transparency as to how this whole thing came about so we can prevent it from happening again. If necessary, we're going to have to take additional actions and particularly in cleaning up a mortgage.
Source: 2008 Republican debate at Reagan Library in Simi Valley Jan 30, 2008

Q: You gave a speech recently in which you said, "It's not the duty of government to bail out & reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they're big banks or small borrowers." What would you do to help the thousands of Americans who right now are in the process of losing their homes? Or do you feel, as you said in your speech, that's not the duty of government?
A [McCain]: Look, Americans are hurting right now. They don't know if they have to get another job. The challenges are enormous right now. The key to it is not to bail out people who speculated or people who engaged in unsavory practices. The key to it is get the lender and the borrower together. We know how hard that is because of identifying the lender, but there's ways to do it. Of course there's a role for government, but it's not to reward greedy speculators. It is not to reward people who misbehave. And it certainly isn't a huge expenditure of taxpayers' dollars which, in the long run, could exacerbate the problems that exist

Q: You said, "It's not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they're big banks or small borrowers." What about Bear-Stearns?
A[McCain]: On the issue of Bear Stearns, every financial expert I know says that if it had failed, it would have rippled throughout the entire financial community and would have caused greater problems which eventually would have come down on the average citizen if our economy continues to decline the way that it's been doing.
Source (both above quotes): Fox News Sunday: 2008 "Choosing the President" interviews Apr 6, 2008

Basically, he trusts his advisors too much and doesn't have any of his own ideas/goals/opinions, except for broad moral convictions (and I am glad he's not anti-abortion). I could find like 5000 examples of this, but you can do the same. just go to ontheissues or something like that.

[katie]

"It's not the duty of government to bail out & reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they're big banks or small borrowers."

i agree with this.

[roach]

"It's not the duty of government to bail out & reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they're big banks or small borrowers."

i agree with this.

it's their duty to make sure the economy doesn't crash, I think bailing some times helps the economy from taking a huge hit. but this is coming from a guy who barely passed micro and had to take macro economics twice.

[Dalya]

i agree with it too, i don't agree with them bailing out bear-stearns.

he doesn't have consistent views, he just fluctuates with what his advisors tell him. and he wants federal regulation of baseball (steroid use) and all this non-conservative bull shit that makes the government bigger.

my number one reason for not supporting him is his commitment to the war. i wouldn't be at all surprised if the war expanded into iran under his leadership. not the direction i hope america goes...

[sam]

I don't think (but wouldn't be that surprised) that McCain would take on Iran. His commitment for 50+ years statement was a reference to the situation in places like South Korea. Our presence there isn't controversial (for us, anyway). I'm more interested to see if Obama will really dismantle the "enduring" outposts we've built in Iraq. It forces us to stay in bed with Turkey and the Saudis. That, or we really examine the nature of our foreign policy and the baseworld we've built.