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"Malcolm Teas" wrote in message
om...

Just for historical accuracy I think the "behaving too much like a
Democrat" thing is pretty outdated. After all, the only balanced
budgets in the last thirty years has been with the Democrat Bill
Clinton in office.

And his role in those surpluses was...?

"C J Campbell" wrote in
"Cecil Chapman" wrote in message
P.S. You're right, we should all thank Mr. Bush for turning a
hard-earned surplus budget (earned under Clinton's rule) into a 4.3
trillion dollar DEFICIT.

That is really funny coming from a Democrat. Here we have Democrats
accusing Bush of behaving too much like a Democrat. ROFL.

Just for historical accuracy I think the "behaving too much like a
Democrat" thing is pretty outdated. After all, the only balanced
budgets in the last thirty years has been with the Democrat Bill
Clinton in office. (Source: Appendix F of the CBO publication The
Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2005-2014.)

No matter what you think of Clinton, neither of the Bush presidents,
nor Ford, nor Reagan managed that. In fact, the deficit climbed
significantly in the Reagan and first Bush terms. First time over one
trillion. two trillion, and three trillion in those years.

So, high time to adjust our view to reality.

-Malcolm Teas

I think a more balanced view might be the relative growth of the budget
vs inflation during various administrations. The main reason Clinton got
to run a surplus was a huge increase in income due to the internet bubble
and the capital gains taxes it generated. While a surplus is a good
thing, it must also be viewed against spending as I certainly don't want
a budget surplus if it means they take all my money!

Frank wrote:
Peter Duniho wrote:

snip

My main point was simply that the electorate in general believes what they
want to believe, regardless of what the actual truth is. This is true of
all people, regardless of party affiliation. My secondary, much less
important point (especially now that the election is over), might be that
I personally feel that lying to the public in order to justify a deadly
war is a much bigger transgression than has been witnessed in the
Executive branch since the Iran-Contra scandal.

Pete


Very well put Pete.

I'd add that even if the Iraq invasion was justified it was bungled badly.
The administration ignored its own experts and we lost lives because of it.
For that reason alone they don't merit being returned to office.


There is no evidence that the public was lied to. Having and acting on
bad intelligence isn't the same as lying. That would imply that the
intelligence was known to be bad and I simply don't think that was the case.

Sure, certain things about the invasion and aftermath were bungled, but
you don't fire people for making a mistake or two. If that was the
case, then not a single congressman would survive more than one term.

And most of us would have lost our pilot's licences long ago if a
mistake or two was the metric.


Matt

Matt Barrow wrote:

"Malcolm Teas" wrote in message
om...

Just for historical accuracy I think the "behaving too much like a
Democrat" thing is pretty outdated. After all, the only balanced
budgets in the last thirty years has been with the Democrat Bill
Clinton in office.


And his role in those surpluses was...?




Luck. He was lucky to be following George Bush the First.


Matt

In article ,
(Malcolm Teas) wrote:

Just for historical accuracy I think the "behaving too much like a
Democrat" thing is pretty outdated. After all, the only balanced
budgets in the last thirty years has been with the Democrat Bill
Clinton in office. (Source: Appendix F of the CBO publication The
Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2005-2014.)

which brings to mind that saying about the rooster thinking
the sun rises because he crows...

No matter what you think of Clinton, neither of the Bush presidents,
nor Ford, nor Reagan managed that. In fact, the deficit climbed
significantly in the Reagan and first Bush terms. First time over one
trillion. two trillion, and three trillion in those years.

So, high time to adjust our view to reality.

it's high time people learned which branch of the Federal
Government is responsible for appropriation.

--
Bob Noel

Matt Barrow wrote:

"G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message
...

These people all had religious beliefs.

Not in the sense that CJ was using the term.

I disagree. C.J. has consistently argued that freedom of religion is right and
proper. That implies a recognition that worship of gods other than the
Judaen/Christian tradition are religions. Perhaps he draws the line at the Hindu
pantheon, but he has not implied that he feels that way, AFAIK.

George Patterson
If a man gets into a fight 3,000 miles away from home, he *had* to have
been looking for it.

In article vnpkd.81153$R05.56261@attbi_s53,
"Jay Honeck" wrote:


I'm with Stefan on this one (*gasp!*) -- there are plenty of moral and
logical arguments against murder or theft that don't involve religion.

I, for one, don't practice any organized religion -- but I've taught my
children morals that quite closely parallel the Ten Commandments.

Morality and religion often run on parallel tracks, but are, in fact, quite
different.


I agree with you entirely on this and have done exactly the same thing
with my own four now grown children (and my teaching seems to have,
fortunately, "taken" with all four of them, for which I take some
satisfaction, even if not necessarily credit).

I'd also like to extend my understanding of the non-religious arguments
involved in other of our country's current political issues, and maybe
you can help.

I also happen to have -- as I'd be pretty sure you do also -- at least
one specific close relative (not actually one of my children) who is an
openly gay or lesbian person, and who I also know is absolutely a fine,
moral, admirable, and productive person.

So, I'd really like to know what the non-religious arguments are that
are so strong and so important that many people are pushing us to go all
the way to the extreme measure of a Constitutional amendment, just to
deny people like this the same benefits and rewards (and costs) of
marriage as heterosexual couples enjoy. What are the NONreligious
reasons that justify this very major step?

Please note: I'm not attributing any views on this issue either way to
you; I have no idea what your views are (and my prediction that you'll
have at least a few gay or lesbian individuals among your not too
distant relatives is based only on simple statistics).

But you're in a Red state, and occasionally outspoken on issues; and I'm
in a Blue state, and genuinely puzzled by this particular issue. So,
what are the non-religious argments on this issue that drive the Red
states to this level of action?

Aviv Hod wrote in message ...
cut

It irks me when I hear that this election was decided on values and
morals, suggesting that Bush has a monopoly on morality. In fact, I
argue that the majority of people in the blue states hold moral values
that make financing social programs that improve the poor's situation
more important than lower taxes. They hold moral values that recognize
honesty with the American people on issues of war and peace to be
important. They also hold moral values that place civil rights and due
process in our justice system to be sacred. All moral choices that the
president doesn't agree with me and about half the people that voted.

Look at a usual electoral map for 2004, say:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:U...lCollege.p ng

And then this map of slave/free states and territories c1860:
http://www.learner.org/biographyofamerica/prog10/maps/

Damn near identical areas.

What moral values again? The USA would have been better off to let
the slavers seceed. They've been dragging the country down for
centuries: slavery, bigotry, and financially. And now they're
sticking us with idiots like Bush.

"Frank" wrote in message ...
Peter Duniho wrote:

Very well put Pete.

I'd add that even if the Iraq invasion was justified it was bungled badly.
The administration ignored its own experts and we lost lives because of
it.
For that reason alone they don't merit being returned to office.

How do you explain why the military voted overwhelmingly for Bush?

"G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message
...


Peter Duniho wrote:

I'm still waiting for the "connection" that explains why we're in Iraq
now.

I doubt it will surface for many years. The president said he would still
have
invaded even if he had known there were no WMDs and no connection between
Al Quaida
and Sadam

In fact, Kerry has said the same thing.