Politics - 6 December 2007

2007-12-06 10:02:04 · 11 answers · asked by Anonymous

2007-12-06 10:00:19 · 16 answers · asked by realitycheck 3

2007-12-06 09:59:17 · 14 answers · asked by Anonymous

2007-12-06 09:58:19 · 6 answers · asked by Anonymous

2007-12-06 09:56:04 · 6 answers · asked by Anonymous

Isn't the central point of the 2nd amendment that we should be able to defend ourselves against a tyranical government? A 9mm isn't going to do much against a US Army tank.

2007-12-06 09:51:08 · 16 answers · asked by john_in_dc 4

Iran's President, Ahmadinejad has told quite a few bold faced lies in the past.

Recently, he has told the world that there is no such thing as a homosexual or gay person in Iran.

He has expressed so much anti-american sentiment and religious fundamentalism over the years.

Recently he tried to take Hugo Chavez under his wing and posed for photographs raising their collective fists against America.

Now, I don't particularly like George Bush as a President, and I think he's made some awful choices... I plan on voting Democrat next year.

But do you really think that George Bush is far off base by not trusting this anti-american liar?
It's probably the first thing I've agreed with him on.
Sanction the hell out of Iran for all I care... that guy is a bigger jerk than Bush!

2007-12-06 09:47:24 · 28 answers · asked by rabble rouser 6

2007-12-06 09:38:38 · 49 answers · asked by Anonymous

2007-12-06 09:36:40 · 20 answers · asked by Anonymous

What is your opinion on universal health care? I sure wouldn't want to wait in line for 6 weeks for an MRI like in Canada! If you have MSRA staph, and you need to wait for a week to see the doctor, wouldn't you already be dead? Seriously, would you rather pay $500 for treatment, or be dead, where money is no object? I SAY UNIVERDAL HEALTH CARE=BAD!

2007-12-06 09:35:21 · 16 answers · asked by Luke Was Here 6

John F. Kennedy
The Protestant immigrants to the New World brought many things in their baggage, including a deep-seated distrust of Roman Catholicism. Although Catholics had been among the early settlers of the New World, they had been a minority in the thirteen colonies that eventually became the United States. Not until significant numbers of Catholics began migrating to the United States in the mid-nineteenth century did anti-Catholicism emerge as a potent, and ugly, political and social phenomenon.

Although Irish Catholics began to play a major role in local and state politics in the latter nineteenth century, the first Catholic to seek a national office was the popular governor of New York, Alfred Emanuel Smith, who was the Democratic nominee for president in 1928. Anti-Catholic prejudice, the fear that a Catholic president would "take orders" from the Pope, insured Smith's defeat. Methodist Bishop Adna Leonard declared: "No Governor can kiss the papal ring and get within gunshot of the White House." Even liberal Protestants were concerned. The Christian Century declared it could not "look with unconcern upon the seating of a representative of an alien culture, of a medieval, Latin mentality, of an undemocratic hierarchy and of a foreign potentate in the great office of the President of the United States."

Smith's defeat at the polls seemed to foreclose a Catholic from seeking the White House, until John F. Kennedy captured the Democratic nomination in 1960. Much to his dismay, he discovered that many southern Protestant groups still believed in old canards about every Catholic having to obey the Pope's commands unquestioningly. He finally decided to try to defeat the issue by meeting it head-on, and on September 12, 1960, he delivered the following statement before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association.

There, according to one of his biographers, "he knocked religion out of the campaign as an intellectually respectable issue." Anti-Catholicism, of course, could not be eradicated that easily, but Kennedy's meeting the issue forthrightly limited the damage to those whose prejudices would never respond to reason. And with his election that November, barriers to Catholics in American politics melted away.

For further reading: T. H. White, The Making of the President 1960 (1961).


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ADDRESS TO SOUTHERN BAPTIST LEADERS
I am grateful for your generous invitation to state my views.

While the so-called religious issue is necessarily and properly the chief topic here tonight, I want to emphasize from the outset that I believe that we have far more critical issues in the 1960 election: the spread of Communist influence, until it now festers only ninety miles off the coast of Florida -- the humiliating treatment of our President and Vice President by those who no longer respect our power -- the hungry children I saw in West Virginia, the old people who cannot pay their doctor's bills, the families forced to give up their farms -- an America with too many slums, with too few schools, and too late to the moon and outer space.

These are the real issues which should decide this campaign. And they are not religious issues -- for war and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barrier.

But because I am a Catholic and no Catholic has ever been elected President, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured -- perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again -- not what kind of church I believe in for that should be important only to me, but what kind of America I believe in.

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute -- where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be a Catholic) how to act and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote -- where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference -- and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish -- where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source -- where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials -- and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

For, while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew -- or a Quaker -- or a Unitarian -- or a Baptist. It was Virginia's harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that led to Jefferson's statute of religious freedom. Today, I may be the victim -- but tomorrow it may be you -- until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped apart at a time of great national peril.

Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end -- where all men and all churches are treated as equal -- where every man has the same right to attend or not to attend the church of his choice -- where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind -- and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, both the lay and the pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.

That is the kind of America in which I believe. And it represents the kind of Presidency in which I believe -- a great office that must be neither humbled by making it the instrument of any religious group, nor tarnished by arbitrarily withholding it, its occupancy from the members of any religious group. I believe in a President whose views on religion are his own private affair, neither imposed upon him by the nation or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.

I would not look with favor upon a President working to subvert the First Amendment's guarantees of religious liberty (nor would our system of checks and balances permit him to do so). And neither do I look with favor upon those who would work to subvert Article VI of the Constitution by requiring a religious test -- even by indirection -- for if they disagree with that safeguard, they should be openly working to repeal it.

I want a chief executive whose public acts are responsible to all and obligated to none -- who can attend any ceremony, service or dinner his office may appropriately require him to fulfill -- and whose fulfillment of his Presidential office is not limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual or obligation.

This is the kind of America I believe in -- and this is the kind of America I fought for in the South Pacific and the kind my brother died for in Europe. No one suggested then that we might have a "divided loyalty," that we did "not believe in liberty or that we belonged to a disloyal group that threatened "the freedoms for which our forefathers died."

And in fact this is the kind of America for which our forefathers did die when they fled here to escape religious test oaths, that denied office to members of less favored churches, when they fought for the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom -- and when they fought at the shrine I visited today -- the Alamo. For side by side with Bowie and Crockett died Fuentes and McCafferty and Bailey and Bedillio and Carey -- but no one knows whether they were Catholics or not. For there was no religious test there.

I ask you tonight to follow in that tradition, to judge me on the basis of fourteen years in the Congress -- on my declared stands against an ambassador to the Vatican, against unconstitutional aid to parochial schools, and against any boycott of the public schools (which I attended myself) -- and instead of doing this do not judge me on the basis of these pamphlets and publications we have all seen that carefully select quotations out of context from the statements of Catholic Church leaders, usually in other countries, frequently in other centuries, and rarely relevant to any situation here -- and always omitting of course, that statement of the American bishops in 1948 which strongly endorsed church-state separation.

I do not consider these other quotations binding upon my public acts -- why should you? But let me say, with respect to other countries, that I am wholly opposed to the state being used by any religious group, Catholic or Protestant, to compel, prohibit or prosecute the free exercise of any other religion. And that goes for any persecution at any time, by anyone, in any country.

And I hope that you and I condemn with equal fervor those nations which deny it to Catholics. And rather than cite the misdeeds of those who differ, I would also cite the record of the Catholic Church in such nations as France and Ireland -- and the independence of such statesmen as de Gaulle and Adenauer.

But let me stress again that these are my views -- for, contrary to common newspaper usage, I am not the Catholic candidate for President [but the candidate] who happens also to be a Catholic.

I do not speak for my church on public matters -- and the church does not speak for me.

Whatever issue may come before me as President, if I should be elected -- on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling, or any other subject -- I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be in the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressure or dictate. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.

But if the time should ever come -- and I do not concede any conflict to be remotely possible -- when my office would require me to either violate my conscience, or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office, and I hope any other conscientious public servant would do likewise.

But I do not intend to apologize for these views to my critics of either Catholic or Protestant faith, nor do I intend to disavow either my views or my church in order to win this election. If I should lose on the real issues, I shall return to my seat in the Senate satisfied that I tried my best and was fairly judged.

But if this election is decided on the basis that 40,000,000 Americans lost their chance of being President on the day they were baptized, then it is the whole nation that will be the loser in the eyes of Catholics and non-Catholics around the world, in the eyes of history, and in the eyes of our own people.

But if, on the other hand, I should win this election, I shall devote every effort of mind and spirit to fulfilling the oath of the Presidency -- practically identical, I might add with the oath I have taken for fourteen years in the Congress. For, without reservation, I can, and I quote "solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and will preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution so help me God."

Source: New York Times, September 13, 1960.

2007-12-06 09:28:50 · 14 answers · asked by Anonymous

2007-12-06 09:28:27 · 14 answers · asked by Anonymous

2007-12-06 09:24:32 · 18 answers · asked by Anonymous

i asked a question as to whether the professors, firefighters, 9-11 family members etc all were conspiracy nuts for questioning the official 9-11 story. Then provided a link. I wanted to see what everyone thought about that. It was deleted. The reason was "solicitation", i was told. What does that mean?.

other similar questions were all wiped out.

this Yahoo is the second biggest dictatorship after China.

2007-12-06 09:24:31 · 7 answers · asked by orange truck 1

WALTERS: Hugo Chavez, I was amazed that he, that he didn’t get to be president for life. I thought he was going to just bring in loads and loads of people.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/justin-mccarthy/2007/12/05/barbara-walters-hugo-chavez-charismatic-does-positive-things

2007-12-06 09:22:38 · 30 answers · asked by Anonymous

2007-12-06 09:13:22 · 4 answers · asked by John C 1

2007-12-06 09:10:53 · 22 answers · asked by Anonymous

2007-12-06 09:02:52 · 26 answers · asked by Zardoz 7

Why? Why not?

2007-12-06 08:55:55 · 10 answers · asked by Anonymous

2007-12-06 08:55:29 · 12 answers · asked by . 5

Check out my 360 for details.
I ask this in "politics" because there are frequent posts about rich folks.

2007-12-06 08:53:01 · 9 answers · asked by Anonymous

2007-12-06 08:39:00 · 13 answers · asked by word UP!! 2

Thats why he made the movie and all the other crap about humans causing Global Warming. He knows that people will like that.

2007-12-06 08:38:07 · 20 answers · asked by Anonymous

Nazi stands for National Socialism ( see the dictionary!).
If Democrats are for pushing the socialist agenda, why do they try to call the Republicans Nazis. Do they really not know what the word means?

2007-12-06 08:33:10 · 21 answers · asked by Anonymous

If so, why? What is there to be fearful of?
You would think from the sound of some posts that it was the end of the world and a religious President would turn us all to stone. Isn't it just a basic insecuirty they have?
Since when is being a person of faith a negative? What kind of value is that?

2007-12-06 08:32:21 · 13 answers · asked by Anonymous

I am trying to understand different forms of government and right now I am reading on democracy and communism. So, why did the U.S. consider communism to be so bad?

2007-12-06 08:22:51 · 15 answers · asked by Ruthy 1

She makes some good points.

2007-12-06 08:20:01 · 19 answers · asked by MrOrph 6

I'm sorry if people think Pres. Bush is a good Pres. But I think 16yrs of Clinton would have been much better...he made have had personal issues with sex. But he wasn't a greedy oil tirant. You know he is filling his pockets from money we have to spend on gas. And he just sounds ignorant anytime he opens his mouth.

2007-12-06 08:13:35 · 34 answers · asked by plg19632000 3

About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new
constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor
at the University of Edinburgh , had this to say about the fall of
the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as
a permanent form of government."

"A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters
discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public
treasury."

"From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who
promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result
that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal
policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the
beginning of history, has been about 200 years."

"During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the
following sequence:

1. from bondage to spiritual faith;

2. from spiritual faith to great courage;

3. from coura ge to liberty;

4. from liberty to abundance;

5. from abundance to complacency;

6. from complacency to apathy;

7. from apathy to dependence;

8. From dependence back into bondage."

Professor Joseph Olson of Hemline University School of Law, St. Paul,
Minnesota , points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000
Presidential election:

Number of States won by:
Gore: 19
Bush: 29

Square miles of land won by:
Gore: 580,000
Bush: 2,427,000

Population of counties won by:
Gore: 127 million
Bush: 143 million

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:
Gore: 13.2
Bush: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush
won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great
country. Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in
government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government
welfare..." Olson believes the United States is now somewhere
between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population
already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.

If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal
invaders called illegal's and they vote, then we can say goodbye to
the USA in fewer than five years.

Everyone should realize that our freedom is truly at stake.

2007-12-06 08:08:49 · 12 answers · asked by Change... 1

Are people really aware of what the Nazis did? Do they really think some in the Republican party are as bad or worse? Isn't it a huge insult to the millions of people who died at the hands of and defeating the Nazis in WWII. Does it not make their sacrafices trivial?

2007-12-06 08:07:33 · 17 answers · asked by Anonymous