Rebane's Ruminations
June 2012
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George Rebane

RL ‘Bob’ Crabb posted ‘Inept vs Insane: The National Feud’ on his blog which by its title alone invited a heated discussion in its comment stream.  I put in my two cents and started a thread that had Bob worrying that people would “put holes in (his) new blog”.  Points were raised and questions put that are best answered on RR, which already has enough holes in it so that a few more here and there won’t matter.

GlobalizationObamaBob’s main point seemed to be that the polarized politics of the country have very little basis in reason, and therefore if people just cooled their rhetoric, they could find a nice middle way and all would be well for the country.  He couldn’t see that much difference between the two sides.  Well, I have spent the last five years on RR trying to substantiate the proposition that there is a huge difference between free market capitalism and collectivism in all its forms, many of which are clearly on the rise for reasons discussed in these pages.  Anyway, I commented –

“The main difference I see in the contending sides is that one says, your way won’t work because it will put all of us in a poorhouse surrounded by barbed wire; therefore let us go do our thing, and you can do your thing. The other side says your way is unfair, and you have to stay and pay us to make our way work (and we’ll use the barbed wire if we have to).”

Michael Anderson, somewhat incredulously, asked “George, what’s/who’s stopping you from creating a new country where you can “do your thing” within the border of the USA?”


Somewhat nonplussed, I replied that it’s “sorta like asking the citizens of the USSR, who outnumbered the Party members about 50:1, the same question. That’s the correct reply.  However, a more comprehensible answer is a) two plus generations of citizens graduated by our public schools, and b) the ‘progress’ of our republic toward a democracy. There is no way that the gimmes are going to let their meal tickets go.”

Gregory Zaller, a new voice from the left, replied, “I don’t know, George. The truth goes the other way you intended more readily. The far right are the intrusive ones who will jail those they find morally different and who want less government so they can develop more schemes to exploit people.”

GregZ’s “I don’t know …” was the only correct part of his comment, as several following commenters from the right attempted to inform him.  GregZ’s perception is iconic of the left and the prime reason for the Great Divide debate.  Only class warfare collectivists have put in place and operated regimes which removed individual liberties, jailed their opponents by the millions, and killed them by even greater numbers.  But their view of history is so different that the dialogue ends before it can start.

Piling on incredulity, MichaelA comes back with the claim that not only didn’t I answer his question, but that even my “proposition was dishonest”.  Then taking a tack way to the left, he attempts to point out the weakness of conservative propositions in general by focusing on healthcare, and claiming that the right has no solution that beats going to nationalized healthcare via the rosy road of Obamacare.  That argument had enough leaps, turns, and twists in it to put shame to some of the best Cirque de Soleil routines.  It was definitely time to come back to RR.

Adopting the established argumentation of the mainstream left, MichaelA completely ignores the sustainability and level of care problems under which EVERY nationalized healthcare system today in the world suffers.  As new evidence emerges daily about implementing Obamacare, it is clear that if you thought healthcare costs and levels of care were out of control now, you ain’t seen nothing until that monstrosity fully kicks in.  Yet progressives like MichaelA want to go toward certain disaster (added to the already dire fiscal condition of the nation) instead of even giving the conservative proposals another look.

Actually, it’s worse than that.  The leftwingers have not even given the conservative healthcare proposals a first look because these require drastic overhaul of our tort laws, tax code, and the elimination of a number of holy collectivist cows.  For liberals it’s nationalized healthcare or the gulag since, as I continue to point out, for us the highway apparently is out.

But pushing Obamacare is just one of many rocks on the road to recovery that this administration has laid down, and will continue to pile up in spades once they get re-elected.  And to be sure, it is again the apparatchiks of the left who are preparing the usual draconian response to the inevitable and massive civil disobedience when it comes.

If we appeal to Occam’s razor for the simplest explanation and one that has the most predictive power, then ‘It’s global governance, stupid!’ and Agenda21 is the way.

[Today’s headlines  – ‘Payrolls Rise by 69,000; Jobless Rate up to 8,2%’ – continue to corroborate the thesis that we are in Depression2.  And predictably the economists and analysts were again “surprised” by these “unexpected numbers”.]
 

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128 responses to “The Great Divide – the debate continues”

  1. Earl Crabb Avatar

    I’ve made my case before, but I’ll do it again in case someone missed the first twenty or so times…
    I agree with conservatives that lower tax rates for all would jump start business and bring in more revenue, providing that the loopholes the wealthy use to avoid paying are closed. The Norquist pledge makes that a tough sell for most Republicans.
    The Democrats need to get off the rules and regs bandwagon. This forced Bataan-like death march to renewable energy will ultimately be their Achille’s heel. Natural gas needs to be developed, with safeguards to protect water supplies and leakage. If that delays solar, wind, etc., it will only give those technologies time to develop more viable systems.
    Both sides need to put a stop to social engineering. Gays are not three-fifths of a human being. Abortion should be discouraged but not outlawed, especially in cases of rape, incest, or the woman’s health. (Just call me a libertarian on those issues.) Stop trying to force Catholics or others to go against their beliefs.
    Healthcare and social security are necessary evils. Making retirement savings voluntary is a sure recipe for disaster. Health care is a tough nut to crack, and Obamacare is deeply flawed, but there needs to be some government involvement.
    I’d go on in greater detail, but I know there’s a time limit on comments, so I’ll close by saying that if we don’t figure this shit out together, we’re no better off than those dumb hillbillies a hundred years ago, and history will record it that way.

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  2. Ryan Mount Avatar

    Is this a blog entry about another blog entry about a series another blog entries that you have been conducting? Holy Plato Batman. Where’s The Gorgias when you need it.
    At this level abstraction, is it even possible to have a reasonable conversation about specific issues and policy? Or are we at point where we are mere abstractions in the debate, so far removed from the actual topics, that all we have left is hearsay and frankly name-calling?
    What is a “leftwinger?” Or the “mainstream left.” Or a “conservative?” What are these categories we speak of. They seem like flimsy and whimsical constructions.
    For the record, Michael’s a good guy on a number of levels. I’d let him watch my 6 kids. Michael, are you free Saturday night? 😉

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  3. George Rebane Avatar

    EarlC 1028am – Bob, good points and I agree with almost all of them. (I break into a grin reading about putting “a stop to social engineering”, and couple of lines down seeing that letting people provide for their own retirement “is a sure recipe for disaster”.) But what you don’t address is the 800lbs gorilla problem of what all evidence points to is a permanently polarized population attempting to continue as one sovereign nation-state. Well, almost – one side wants America to give up that kind of statehood. Talking past that point and adopting the Rodney King plaint does not get us closer to a resolution.
    RyanM 1037am – Yes, MichaelA is a good guy, and from what I can tell, with the best of motives for America going forward as a strong sovereign nation-state in the world community.
    However, the “flimsy and whimsical constructions” are and have been part of the international dialogue on governance for over a century now. I try to use them as concise labels for well publicized ideologies and ideologues. We cannot communicate without the use of labels; all we can do is attempt to use ones that are either broadly understood and/or well defined. None of them are nor should be taken as being pejorative.

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  4. THEMIKEYMCD Avatar

    If state’s rights survived to the extend to which the founders hoped such a divide would have occurred naturally; freely (one could choose to be free or be enslaved to the state). Today the power of the state’s are nil and the power of the mob is amplified. Morality is at a low (as proven by laws being accepted on the basis of a mob rule). I refuse to accept laws as moral just because the mob voted for them.
    An obvious (slow, long term) solution would be a focus on state’s rights (via nullification, 10th Amendment, etc) and let individuals decide.

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  5. George Rebane Avatar

    I hearken back to these thoughts and invite your (re)consideration.
    http://rebaneruminations.typepad.com/rebanes_ruminations/2010/10/is-america-too-big.html
    Also, Walter Williams’ ‘Should We Obey All Laws?’ is relevant to this discussion.
    http://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2012/05/16/should_we_obey_all_laws/page/full/

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  6. Greg Zaller Avatar

    Let’s not take words out of context, George. “I don’t know” was used as an expression of weariness. Cute insults make for a poor debate.
    I am much more right than left, if left at all. The “left” aren’t everyone that disagrees with you, George.
    I also posted this on Crabb which you might have missed: “Listen guys, few know more than I how deeply government is the problem. In a few minutes I will be off to court to defend my right to evict some folks that got the way they are clearly because of government. I would be the hardest right republican possible if they also weren’t a bunch of hypocrites.
    My point isn’t that the left is right. It is that the right is equally as wrong. We need to get out of the box, there are other ways to do this, and we need to stop squabbling, and get get busy truly solving these problems.
    Reply”
    BTW they didn’t show and we continued with the eviction. Now I am calculating how big a dumpster I am going to need. All of this is because of government enabling.

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  7. THEMIKEYMCD Avatar

    I define the “left” as those wishing to use government FORCE (via immoral laws, compulsion, collusion, corruption, proposition process) to enslave individuals to the point of giving up their inalienable rights to serve the collective (though, ultimately the elite).
    I define the “right” as those wishing to protect their inalienable rights (property, life, individual freedoms, etc) from the heavy hand of government (collectivists/elitists/planners).
    Those on the “left” don’t accept their label. Time and time again their actions support the FORCE of government while their word claims otherwise.
    Interestingly, those on the “right” wear their label proudly.

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  8. George Rebane Avatar

    GregZ 200pm – Apologies if your declared position on the ideological spectrum trumps your written word. Your understanding of the history of the Right, and your assessment that “the (R)ight is equally wrong” served to effectively camouflage your true colors.
    But I’ll be the first to concede that the confusing of ‘Right’ with both the mis-ascribed ideology of fascism and the current conservative/libertarian values of governance serves to add more heat than light to these discussions. However, it is what the Left lamestream has saddled us with since FDR’s day.
    RR is a continuing and expanding dialogue between its readers, and no post of mine stands alone in the sense that it covers all the bases upon which its stated propositions are founded. Thousands of words have preceded these in the five-year life of this blog, and every post and comment I have contributed lends its weight (or in some eyes weakens) what I daily add. I can be and do invite to be taken to task for all my previous sins, but not putting everything into every post is not one of them.
    (Use either RR’s search, or google with ‘rebane’ added to the key words to discover my past.)

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  9. billy T Avatar

    Mr. Crabb seems like a delightful fella. Really liked his cartoon with Nevada City as the beauty queen and Grass Valley as….the maid of sorts. The Great Divide is nothing new. The names hurled at the opposing sides since George Washington to today is nothing new. Tame considering what Andy Jackson had to endure. Even Honest Abe was a civil liberties squashing “buffoon”. I lean right cause of individual liberties, personal responsibility, and the old “Don’t thread on me.” Spending time on the res has shown me what a tragic way of life those that live by The Great White Father in DC’s handouts. More than tragic. But I really get my radar maxed out when government encroaches year after year under the guise of this utopia thing. History is full of countless examples of good intentions run amok. More threatening is the history of control freaks that have set them up as gods to themselves. These harsh taskmasters replace God with “the state”. Stalin killed more of his own than Hitler killed in many nations. Nobody really knows how many countless millions Mao murdered. I do know that when Mao took over China, the number 2 person on his enemies list was a humble Christian minister named Watchman Nee. Died in prison for being a threat to “The State”. Yep, the State must be the God of these “socialist” nations. Like Bob Dylan wrote “you got to serve somebody”. So, when somebody states how wonderful life will be if we just try one more time to do socialism differently, well…I remember the first European experiment in the New World and how it utterly failed. The Pilgrims dropped socialism for survival after just one year and we keep trying to revert back to that. Guess I am just a rubber meets the road kind of guy. Don’t know how many times I have uttered the expression” The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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  10. George Rebane Avatar

    billyT 722pm – You are a delight to behold through the thoughtful and revealing scribbles with which you grace these pages.
    And yes, Sir Robert of Crabb is a delightful fella with many talents and always a good word. His self-assigned quest to join the unjoinable – the right and freedom to win or lose on our individual merits that opposes mind-melding into a mass to seek a sullied salvation through elitist diktats – is an honorable joust with the windmill. A place in the pantheon will reward his labors.

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  11. Douglas Keachie Avatar

    “My point isn’t that the left is right. It is that the right is equally as wrong. We need to get out of the box, there are other ways to do this, and we need to stop squabbling, and get get busy truly solving these problems.”
    ~GregZ~
    I think I’ve been pretty much saying the same thing for awhile now. I owuld think the following article I read in Wired at the Asian Garden today would be of interest.
    http://www.democracynow.org/2012/3/21/exposed_inside_the_nsas_largest_and

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  12. Scott Obermuller Avatar

    “We need to get together and solve this.” That is the talk of the dominate party. We have been hewing hard left for decades. When do we get just one year of less regulation and taxes? Want to sit and talk middle ground? Fine – let’s talk about abortion. Middle ground is just killing half of the humans. Which half? I dunno, you tell me. We are such a socialist country that middle ground is a joke. I wish that just one tenth of the folk that talk about middle ground would put in clear concrete terms what they are talking about. They won’t. Saddles on dinosaurs may make you feel good, but it ignores 100% of what needs to be discussed. How is this country worse off if there is a saddle on a dinosaur? Who forced you or anyone you know to believe in something they don’t want to believe in? Now tell me how this country is better off by having a AG that spews racists hate speech? Where is the middle ground? Jindal is trying to have true choice in Louisiana. Are the “middle ground” folks willing to give it a try? I haven’t seen any support yet.

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  13. Michael Anderson Avatar

    Scott, the country is much worse off if the cost for the statue of the dinosaur w/ a Western saddle is hoovered out of your and my wallets. Isn’t that what we are talking about here?
    So OK, let’s talk abortion. I’ve been married twice, and both times I was told that if you try to legislate my womb, I will cut off your balls by popular vote as well. Seems reasonable to me. My balls cannot create life w/o a womb, and since the womb belongs to someone other than me, and nurturing a living being for nine months is what is involved, I will always defer to the person to whom that womb belongs.
    Late-term abortions are another story altogether. Legislation, agreed upon by serious and responsible adults, will define this state by state. It will take time, but hard decisions require hard work.

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  14. Michael Anderson Avatar

    Alas, our denouement must wait until tomorrow, or even perhaps the next day. Let us hope the recipe is still robust, worthy, and well sought-after.
    “Goodnight sweet prince.” From good ol’ Willy Shakes.
    http://michaelnewberry.com/art/fig/pw/denoue.htm

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  15. Greg Zaller Avatar

    My attempt at describing the left and the right:
    On the left, the government should protect the poor from exploitation, and on the right, the poor should look out for themselves.
    The left approach fails because the poor rely more and more on the government until they produce nothing and the system starves. The right approach fails because the poor are exploited without protection to the point that they can’t survive and the system collapses.
    I think that if we were taught to look out for each other there would be no need for the right or the left. The system would be self correcting and stable. This could be done with education. There are many ways to set up education systems like this that work. We need to do this.

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  16. Todd Juvinall Avatar

    GregZ, do you believe in fairy tales? The “right” does not exploit, the “right” educates you to fish so you can be fed or the rest of your life. The “left” wants to give you the fish (after taking it from the fisherman) whenever they want it. There, my simple view. Your simple view is just wrong.

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  17. Douglas Keachie Avatar

    “hewing hard left for decades” is a very accurate statement in terms of history, but I think the meaning you intended is better conveyed by “skewing.
    “the “right” educates you to fish so you can be fed or the rest of your life.”
    Tell that to the Detroit auto workers, if you can find any.

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  18. Todd Juvinall Avatar

    Regarding abortion. I diverge from some on this. I believe the government should stay out of a woman’s womb but I also do not want to have my taxes for them. If it is a right to privacy as the SCOTUS determined (out of whole cloth mo less) then I have the right to privacy of my money don’t I? Many men already have lost their “nads”and are what I call “metrosexuals”. Wooses and wimps in matters of conscience. Mostly liberals.

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  19. Douglas Keachie Avatar

    Somebody mentioned “no Skynet yet” but again the article I cited above certainly gives rise to the notion that there might be the data and processing power for it coming on line soon. I think putting a failsafe nuke in the middle of that complex, operated and protected by strictly mechanical connections to the trigger point, again a strictly mechanically hardened site, would be a damn good idea. And make sure it is all earthquake safe.
    http://www.democracynow.org/2012/3/21/exposed_inside_the_nsas_largest_and

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  20. George Rebane Avatar

    GregZ 615am – Many of us, in fact, are “taught to look out for each other”, it is part of our religion and, moreover, part of our rational social philosophy. But such care is taught to be rendered on an individual basis, not through government diktat. As history demonstrates, it is a perverse belief that charity is best when dispensed with forcefully taken monies through distant and faceless bureaucrats responsible to no one.

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  21. Douglas Keachie Avatar

    Many men in boardrooms and stockholders already have lost their “nads” and have sold out their country to the Greed Goddess.

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  22. Douglas Keachie Avatar

    Yes, charity is much better dispensed in precise measure to accounting needs of the businesses involved, picking up tax deductible advertizing on the backs of all the little children and their play areas, or high profile gifts for PR, as in donating a $10,000 police dog. I’d believe in the latter if the donation was in progress BEFORE Bandit the German shepherd was shot in Sacramento, the donation by the Maloofs.
    If we just had lower prices and higher wages, more of the middle class might be able to make bigger donations, and maybe battered women’s shelters would not need to be so large.

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  23. Scott Obermuller Avatar

    I think the saddle on the dinosaur was private money. Control of our bodies is legislated in many ways. Why are women exempt? Abortion is about taking human life. If you are pro-abortion – fine. Don’t hide behind cute phrases and don’t say you are middle of the road. I was asking what is middle of the road in areas such as that. Saying that it is legal to kill a human one day, but not the next is an interesting call, but highly subjective and hard for me to accept considering that it is ageism in the extreme. I’m aware that the same ageism is called for at the other end of life, so I’m not surprised.
    Greg Z’s description of the left and right are telling. He throws the Constitution away and wants only “protection” for a chosen class. I’m in total agreement about schools educating all children to be capable of thinking and producing for themselves, but that ain’t gonna happen with the current ed system. The left has been very successful in taking almost complete control of the little ones from toddlers through grad school. There is a reason Pres Zero wanted more money for govt run programs for the very youngest. The left wants a socialist system of controlling the people from cradle to grave, and it is very close.
    As far as the right wanting the poor to look out for themselves – Actually, the conservatives want everyone to look out (think and produce) for themselves. It’s a far better way to live. Just because the govt isn’t helping, doesn’t mean there isn’t help. The right is not against helping your fellow man, the right is against govt control of our lives. The govt has been “helping” the poor for decades. Spent trillions. Care to take off your blinders and measure the results? Then check out the millions that have, with help from the private sector, led happy and productive lives. It’s mostly a matter of equal opportunity vs equal outcomes. If the govt has a door for the public, then anyone who walks through that door gets the same treatment. Bill Gates or Joe (or Jane) Doe. If the homeless have the “right” to sleep anywhere they want, then so do I. That is middle of the road.

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  24. Douglas Keachie Avatar

    “but that ain’t gonna happen with the current ed system.”
    “but that ain’t gonna happen with the current set of parents”
    “but that ain’t gonna happen with the current tax structure”
    “but that ain’t gonna happen with teachers being among the lowest paid and least respected of the professions”
    So Scott, what magical ed system would it happen with, and how are you going to get it, and how will you pay for it? When just one ordinary but extraordinary classroom teacher, nationwide, gets paid $200,000 for one full year of teaching, you might get change. As it is, you stick your tongues out at them and go “nah, nah, nah,” all day long, and today is no exception.

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  25. Douglas Keachie Avatar

    Every homeless person, especially the mentally ill, that dies in the streets, is ABORTED by society.

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  26. George Rebane Avatar

    DougK 946am – what in hell does “ABORTED by society” mean??
    And since ALL social issues depend on their numbers, how would we compare the number of homeless dying in the streets with the millions dying in the wombs or upon forced exit?

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  27. THEMIKEYMCD Avatar

    Being homeless in American is a choice.

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  28. Todd Juvinall Avatar

    Scott makes some very good points about the “body” and governments “rights” to have a say in it. I like the law that says suicide is illegal. Try and prosecute that one after it is practiced!
    Now we have the nannies telling people they can only buy a 8 ounce soda in New York because obesity is so prevalent among the welfare class there. How is that law OK (with all the standard do-gooder reasons (such as the government has to pick up the tab in healthcare for fatties) and a woman’s womb? Is fat different than a baby? The abortion supporters say babies and fat are equal. Why do libs say they can control some aspects of a persons body and not others? Scott, take it and run with it. You seem to have a good skeptical set of explanations. Maybe the left will listen?

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  29. Douglas Keachie Avatar

    I means society choose to cut off life support, just as insurance companies ABORT patients by refusing to pay for needed treatments. Where have you all been? Everyday society makes choices which KILL human beings. Usually in the name of, “we can’t (choose not to) afford that.” Society affords all kinds of other things, things that it chooses to affort, like aircraft carriers. We have about 2,340,000 deaths in the USA per year, including 34,000 suicides.
    Note that very very few proportionately, occur in the third and even the latter half of the second trimester.

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  30. Douglas Keachie Avatar

    Why are you in favor of having the government have babies that are unwanted by the mother and must be supported by the tax payers? Such kids often grow up to be the very kids you complain about teachers not being able to control, as if it is the teacher’s fault the kids was born and raised in a household that didn’t want him.
    As near as I can tell from the chart, we lose 40 times as many folks to car wrecks as we do to third trimester abortions.

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  31. Douglas Keachie Avatar

    Being homeless is a choice about the same way being slammed into and killed by a drunk on a blind curve with no lights on a rainy night is a choice.

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  32. Douglas Keachie Avatar

    Interesting thing about that graph. The middle portion is wider than either edge, thus emphasizing, falsely, by larger area, the number of abortions that occur then.

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  33. Scott Obermuller Avatar

    Keachie – you know perfectly well that sort of education exists and the teachers get paid less than the union teachers. Pres Zero stomped it out in DC as one of his very first accomplishments. “Sorry poor kiddies – back to the union hell hole school”. Of course, his 2 daughters won’t be going there, but it’s what we need to do to keep up the dependentcy class. Bobby Jindal is trying to make quality education available to the poor kids in Louisiana that is free of govt monopoly. What happened to the middle here? Where’s the support? The judges have decided that the mentally ill can’t be controlled by coercion, so we can not get them the meds and help they need. It’s a touchy subject and I’ll agree that it’s a tightrope walk of forcing people against their will to get help vs govt control of our lives. The idea that a homeless person dying on the streets is because, as a society, we don’t care, is total nonsense. You lefties claim to be such great humanitarians, and you know where the homeless are. How many times have you driven around picking them up and taking them to your home and feeding them and giving them money and letting them lounge around at your house? Try forcing one to get in your car on a freezing night and he doesn’t want to go and the cops show up. It’s just not that simple to say that our society is heartless. There is an abundance of help from the govt and the private sector. I’m very uneasy with the idea of the govt being allowed to force me to take medications. What if it’s used as the Soviets did? What safeguards will exist? Who is paying the salaries of the “experts” that decide I am in need of help? But let’s please get off of this nonsense that we don’t care.

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  34. Douglas Keachie Avatar

    Your government does care about you, which is why it is building this:
    Skynet’s hardware is almost in place. I think putting a failsafe nuke in the middle of that complex, operated and protected by strictly mechanical connections to the trigger point, again a strictly mechanically hardened site, would be a damn good idea. And make sure it is all earthquake safe.
    http://www.democracynow.org/2012/3/21/exposed_inside_the_nsas_largest_and

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  35. Douglas Keachie Avatar

    We have no problems building jails, and feeding prisoners. One in every one hundred Americans lives in one today. How about a bank of secure, 1 on 1, sleeping bathing facilities, with a human watching to make sure just one willing person goes into each such locker? Enough space for a single bunk, and a shower commode combination area, and a few healthy snacks. This does not have to be large, most yachts 28 feet and larger do this four four people, inside a curved hull with pointy ends, motors, etc. Spend the full night, putting your clothes in a bag in a chute before you go to sleep, clean clothes in the morning, and a free breakfast coupon awaits you when you exit. Mass produced these shelters would be far cheaper and more effective than most of what we’ve got going now. A person regularly living in one would be employable. Pay something each night, and get an upgraded one. Put a real bottom safety net in place, instead of, “where would you like to get mugged, raped tonight?”

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  36. Douglas Keachie Avatar

    “Jindal is trying to have true choice in Louisiana.”
    Here’s your “true choice” in LA with Jindal:
    Of the plans so far put forward, Louisiana’s plan is by far the broadest. This month, eligible families, including those with incomes nearing $60,000 a year, are submitting applications for vouchers to state-approved private schools.
    That list includes some of the most prestigious schools in the state, which offer a rich menu of advanced placement courses, college-style seminars and lush grounds. The top schools, however, have just a handful of slots open. The Dunham School in Baton Rouge, for instance, has said it will accept just four voucher students, all kindergartners. As elsewhere, they will be picked in a lottery.
    Far more openings are available at smaller, less prestigious religious schools, including some that are just a few years old and others that have struggled to attract tuition-paying students.
    The school willing to accept the most voucher students — 314 — is New Living Word in Ruston, which has a top-ranked basketball team but no library. Students spend most of the day watching TVs in bare-bones classrooms. Each lesson consists of an instructional DVD that intersperses Biblical verses with subjects such chemistry or composition.
    The Upperroom Bible Church Academy in New Orleans, a bunker-like building with no windows or playground, also has plenty of slots open. It seeks to bring in 214 voucher students, worth up to $1.8 million in state funding.
    At Eternity Christian Academy in Westlake, pastor-turned-principal Marie Carrier hopes to secure extra space to enroll 135 voucher students, though she now has room for just a few dozen. Her first- through eighth-grade students sit in cubicles for much of the day and move at their own pace through Christian workbooks, such as a beginning science text that explains “what God made” on each of the six days of creation. They are not exposed to the theory of evolution.
    “We try to stay away from all those things that might confuse our children,” Carrier said.
    Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/01/us-education-vouchers-idUSL1E8H10AG20120601

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  37. Michael Anderson Avatar

    “For the record, Michael’s a good guy on a number of levels. I’d let him watch my 6 kids. Michael, are you free Saturday night? ;-)”
    Nope, goin’ on a camping trip that weekend. Catch me next time (-;

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  38. Michael Anderson Avatar

    If Governor Jindal wants to do the voucher thing, I think he should be supported by the constituency in his state, 100%. If the majority rules, let there be vouchers in Louisiana.
    That being said, Louisiana will have to withdraw from the Union, which I also support. I think the southern states should secede and form their own country.
    Vouchers are unconstitutional, but if you live in territory such as Louisiana, it’s time to move past that and create a new country in that region. I support this effort.

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  39. billy T Avatar

    Abortion on RR? Not a topic that is usually discussed here, but it is the part of The Great Divide. I have just 2 points to make. First, there is a 50% chance that “the thing” in the womb has a penis. If it has a penis, then it obviously is not part of the woman’s body. It is living in her body, growing in her body developing a heart beat, fingers,feet, head and spine inside her body, but a male with a penis is only in the body, not the mother’s body. Second, it is hard for me to name any argument that has reverted from English back to Latin. Fetus means “unborn child”. Talking about terminating the life of an unborn child is not done in polite company and is rather horrifying. But if one changes the term Unborn child back to its Latin roots, then it is a “thing”, an it, a fetus. Now, discussing a fetus is not distasteful and rather clinical. Which sounds better? Talking about an unborn child with an innie or outie (boy/girl) or talking about a thing called a fetus? Thus the Great Divide on the setting the ground rules for labeling it “it” or labeling it “her/she or him/he”.

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  40. Earl Crabb Avatar

    Yes, billyT., the dreaded scarlet “A” word does come up…A touchy question, indeed. It’s rather barbaric, and has been since ancient times. I would certainly never advocate it, but then, no one is asking me. I’ve talked to enough women who are in their seventies now who done it before it became legal. It was usually at the request of the parents, or rather, demanded. Outlaw it and you’ll just take it back to those enlightened times. Most likely it would be outsourced like everything else.Perhaps it will spawn new businesses in the border towns north and south of us. So will Big Daddy then require an ultrasound or vaginal probe before you can leave the country? (X-rays are definitely out!)

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  41. Todd Juvinall Avatar

    MichaelA said this in a previous post on this thread,
    “Vouchers are unconstitutional, but if you live in territory such as Louisiana, it’s time to move past that and create a new country in that region. I support this effort.”
    My question is where in the Constitution does it say anything about requiring a public eduction (and its infrastructure)? Please explain.

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  42. Douglas Keachie Avatar

    Todd, “the common good.” How stupid do you want your fellow citizens to be/ Too stupid to read the instructions on the bottom of the boot to drain it? They’d make great pilots, now wouldn’t they? Expand that thought downwards to the lowest private. Now try providing for the “common defense.”

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  43. Douglas Keachie Avatar

    A country inhabited by too many unwanted children who grow into unwanted adults, is a country that will abort itself.

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  44. Todd Juvinall Avatar

    Please show us where it is enumerated and I will agree.

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  45. Douglas Keachie Avatar

    So, Todd, for you the Preamble is an illegal part of the Constitution? Please review the following, and remember, the whole Constitution was written by the infallible Founding Fathers, who would be most unhappy with your attempt at partial Constitution abortion.
    http://www.apsanet.org/imgtest/preamble.pdf

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  46. Todd Juvinall Avatar

    The Preamble is not the law, please show us in the enumerated document and I will agree.

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  47. George Rebane Avatar

    The Constitution says nothing about “the common good” (DougK 755am), nor do I find anywhere in the document that “vouchers are unconstitutional” (MichaelA 1053pm). A mighty wide door to government control would be opened were debate to stop on the ‘provide for the … general welfare’ power of Congress. The progressives, of course, argue that the door is already wide open and the federal government can do anything it pleases under its Art1sec8 provisions which includes the famous ‘commerce clause’.
    I am also pleasantly surprised to see MichaelA’s support for a particular form of the Great Divide.

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  48. Douglas Keachie Avatar

    So we should rewrite all our textbooks to erase the Preamble? You are arguing that the Premable is not part of the Constitution? Making church sponsored schools into public charter schools violates the principle of separation of church and state, which is not in the Constitution either, but it has been part of a legal cases that have made their way to the SCOTUS.
    Please review the following, especially McCollum v. Board of Education Dist. 71, 333 U.S. 203 (1948)
    Court finds religious instruction in public schools a violation of the establishment clause and therefore unconstitutional. :
    http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/church-state/decisions.html

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  49. Douglas Keachie Avatar

    For those unclear on this, a church school that dleetes evolution and replaces it with a religious belief is performing religious instruction.
    Again, from my earlier comment above:
    “At Eternity Christian Academy in Westlake, pastor-turned-principal Marie Carrier hopes to secure extra space to enroll 135 voucher students, though she now has room for just a few dozen. Her first- through eighth-grade students sit in cubicles for much of the day and move at their own pace through Christian workbooks, such as a beginning science text that explains “what God made” on each of the six days of creation. They are not exposed to the theory of evolution.
    “We try to stay away from all those things that might confuse our children,” Carrier said.”
    Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/01/us-education-vouchers-idUSL1E8H10AG20120601

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  50. Steven Frisch Avatar

    Hey, if we are going to go back to the Constitution, as written in 1789, lets just acknowledge that blacks are only 3/5 ths of a human being. Denying 233 years of history would really be the great divide!

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