nostradamus02012

a poster out here just asked the following question:

What do you think of this famous quote on American slavery?

""... In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country. It is useless to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it however a greater evil to the white man than to the black race, & while my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more strong for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence.""

Circa 1856.

and here's my response - that caused this asked to block me almost right away:

"here's what i think of your quote:

to say that a kidnap victim is better of in one place or another only tries to cover up or justify the original CRIME that was slavery.

it's up to each of us to decide what kind of life we live or not - whether in africa or on some godforsaken, disgusting plantation in alabama as forced labor - separated from my family and everyting i ever knew in my life - so that my children would be born into slavery.

i'll stay free every time - the notion that any other response is acceptable is FUNDAMENTALLY UNAMERICAN - which the more i look at it, the more i think the south is fundamentally unamerican.

this above all else is the american way - freedom to come and go as you please, to marry who you please, to settle and live as you please.

my grandfather came to america of his own free will - he wanted to come here and did.

to say that generations of people forcibly removed from their families, friends, cultures and lives is somehow better for someone in the longrun is the kind of garbage that hitler used to spout and it's high time we called these 18th and 19th century historical revisionists out for the racist, rabid and hateful monsters that they are.

for people who prize freedom above all else, how can anyone anywhere embrace this sort of insipid DREK for anything other than what it is?"

do you think my response if fair?

what does it say about this poster that they blocked me just a few minutes after posting my response?

metaphors ok?

lets say you decide that you are going to set a budget for something - for the sake of arguement - lets set your weekly budget for gasoline.

you set the budget, but you don't actually get the gas - it's purchased for you.

lets set that at $100.00. maybe some weeks you won't use it all - maybe some weeks you use more - but you decide this is a reasonable amount to budget.

but after giving out your first $100.00, (on day two) you are told that we are out of gas and we need more money for gas or you won't be able to go to work or do anything.

you need to get to work and never know when you may need to drive to the hospital - so you put out another $100.00.

on day three, you are told again that we are out of gas and we need more money/gas to get to work, etc.

on day four, when you are once again told that we are out of gas, and need more in order to do the basics you decide to look into this and find that the gas is being purchased at a price of $100.00 a gallon and that even though that much is being spent, even the basics aren't being met.

what do you do?

i'm serious here - this is a perfect metaphor for what has happened to our budget - except the last part where the person found out that the money was more than enough, if only it was spent wisely.

so again, long winded question - but what to you do?

I have had the same blue cross policy in place for about 8 years. between my employer and me, they get about $140.00 a week from me - making it one of my highest expenses.

$140.00 times 52 weeks in the year times 8 years of employment = about $58,240.00 that has been paid for my health insurance to a company that has never had to spend a single penny of it on me.

I have never had to use my insurance until a few weeks ago when I had an MRA.

Last week I got a bill in the mail for 100% of the bill - you see i have not yet met my annual deductible.

So, my question is this - are these health insurance companies actually scams? When you look at the simple math, it sure looks like something I'd read about in the Godfather rather than respectable business practice.

I'd be very curious to hear people's opinions on this as well as any similar health insurance scams.

I'm just curious if any American President was ever the leader of a union before becoming president.

anyone else having trouble with Duracell AAA batteries?

i've bought two packs of them in a row that don't have any charge in them.

anyone else finding this to be the case?

http://www.care2.com/causes/politics/blog/breaking...

here is what i found most fascinating - check this out from the article:

Halliburton Pleaded Guilty

Houston-based engineering firm KBR, a former unit of Halliburton, pleaded guilty last year to U.S. charges that between 1994 and 2004, it paid $180 million in bribes to Nigerian officials to secure $6 billion in contracts for the Bonny Island liquefied natural gas project in the Niger Delta.

if haliburton has already pleaded guilty, then what will be the basis of cheney's defense?

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0821/fox-shareholder-f...

another classic moment brought to us all by fox news...

I never ordered this, or selected it to be on my computer, but there it is - a bar that I never selected. It's really slowing my pc down and basically making web search all but impossible.

I have looked in a few different places and can't actually find anything that matches what I seem to have - somewhere in the instructions things stop matching.

To make matters worse, I may have deleted some things that would have made the uninstall process work.

What's with a company that just puts stuff on your computer that drastically effects performance?

What kind of business model is that - forcing people to have something that is wholly redundant (on my pc at least) and then making it impossible to remove.

to me this just doesn't make any sense at all.

if you want the label top contributor then i think you should be willing to undergo some sort of scrutiny.

does the fact that yahoo answers allows top contributors to be private in their answering and asking patterns undermine the credibility of the entire yahoo answers community?

Just curious - do clean beaches and fishing ever matter to an economy?

Won't oil all over the place impact that?

I mean, we don't want to get all wacky with pesky regulation and all - but don't soiled beaches and devastated fishing industries also matter to an economy?

Just curious?

For those of you who like to look at pictures:

http://www.csmonitor.com/CSM-Photo-Galleries/In-Pi...

does that mean that a corporation like Massey Energy, the owner of the coal mine that had a huge number of safety violations in the years and months leading up to the explosion will now be charged with murder, manslaughter or some other crime that you or i would be charged with if we caused something like this to happen?

if a corporation has what amounts to individual rights - can they also be charged with crimes that individuals can be charged with?

and if found guilty of a crime, how would we put a corporation in prison?

Sara Palin is speaking on the Boston Commons today.

Scott Brown won't be there.

Why not?

i can see why bottom feeding trolls would be allowed to do this, but top contributors?

how can anyone ever know for sure if they have the actual total of best answers that they claim to have?

shouldn't this be stopped?

I'm a single guy in good health and i pay about $380.00 a month for my health insurance.

how much do you pay?

consider the following Harper's Index facts:

Percentage change since 2002 in average premiums paid to large US health-insurance companies: +87%

Percentage change in the profits of the top ten insurance companies: +428%

Chances that an American bankrupted by medical bills has health insurance: 7 in 10

congress have 100% of their health expenses taken care of, COURTESY OF THE AMERICAN TAXPAYER.

if they insist that we have no public option then why shouldn't we take theirs away?

why not?

if restricting people's rights can be now be a voter referendum, then why not other things that we have long assumed protected?

we can just change state constitutions to end this tax exemption.

religions use infrastructure and we are broke - why not - particularly on the state level?

why should they be tax exempt and why can't the people just give this an up or down vote?