Sleepy Conscience

As a true (i.e. Burkean) conservative I can say: they are not even remotely the same thing you ignorant, cruel beasts. Pedophilia causes massive harm to young innocents. Gay marriage causes minor social discomfort to traditionalists at the massive suffering of homosexual citizens. Please tell me that is worth it to my face. I haven't punched someone in the nose in a long time.

Since they want to prevent gun responsible ownership in minority communities and the subsequent safety benefits that inevitably result? I mean, how many times have you seen a gangland bloodbath and thought, "Gee golly gosh darn it, if they'd only had some guns, the evil-doers would probably have thought twice about doing their evil!" It really is that simple people!!!! I mean think about it: how did the North win the Civil War and end Slavery? With sock puppets? Heck no!!! They used guns! A well-armed militia is the surest defense against tyranny. Be it old King George or 500 inter-continental ballistic missiles armed with fusioned-based warheads targeted at your house. You too can fight it out and live your Red Dawn fantasy! That fantasy is totally worth the brutal deaths of dozens (this year that is) children. I mean, it's a small (no pun intended!!!) price to pay!

is it because blacks haven't had to face gun violence and don't understand the dramatic safety benefits that can be reaped by having most citizens armed? perhaps they could read the story of virtually violence free Compton in southern

california where well over two in three citizens exercises their second amendment rights daily

Maybe the problem is that they don't have enough power-saws. If everyone had a power-saw they would have a better understanding of the danger of power-saws and few deaths would result. That's just logic people.

Why don't we recognize the NRA for the petty, ignorant little thugs that they are? What has to happen to convince us that the status quo is absolute madness? Triple digit child murder? Quadruple digit? Yeah, yeah, I'm sure the same sick individual could have killed 26 with a knife. Or maybe they would have found four guns anyhow. (Probably not you delusional psychopaths) But why make it easy for them?!!! Are 20 young children a small price to pay for the freedom to shoot a pistol? Why don't you HONESTLY ask yourself that rather than passing it off as political maneuvering by your opponents? Whores.

How is what I'm asking any crazier than mike huckabee's comments on the shooting?

At the very least the teachers should be armed.

Dems never would have gotten a supermajority if W wasn't so awful. I mean this country is center right and they gave the Dems a Supernajority? You know how badly Cons have to screw up for something like that to happen?

E.g. Most of the Scandinavian countries, particularly Norway. My real point isn't that socialism is better, it's that neither socialism nor laissez faire capitalism are automatically fated to fail or succeed. It has more to do with the country itself. They're not even really mutually exclusive concepts. Most first world democracies have a mix of both capitalist and socialist concepts. The real question is how much of either you want.

My point is that it's entirely possible to increase our mix of socialism without ushering in some sort of economic apocalypse. There are many factors to a healthy economy and the answer isn't always black and white. Most ideas need to be examined on an ad hoc basis, not a knee jerk reflex against anything the government does. There are many things in the US today that we think nothing of that are really, at their root, socialist concepts (e.g. public libraries, public schools, public parks, government-funded local police forces), not just the obvious ones like Social Security, Medicaid, etc. Of course, there are many situations where a free market capitalist position is clearly superior (e.g. consumer choice, motivation to work, mature technology development).

Supposedly free people need to start actually critically examining things and not just invariably parroting catchphrases their team leaders told them. Of course, that will probably never happen. People treat their beliefs not so much as a set of malleable conclusions based on logical analysis of an ample amount of reliable, always expanding knowledge, but rather as a fan of a team. They think: I love my local sports team and hate all other teams and anything to the contrary is evil. Plus, if there are any characteristics that truly cross party lines, it's that most people are lazy and ungrateful and despise everyone else for their laziness and ingratitude.

Someone's probably already made this joke in the past few days, but I just thought of it and decided I'd put it up just in case it hadn't been made.

You with all the divorce and unhappiness and sanctimoniousness and all...I mean, what says love like a legally binding contract traditionally entered into to prove one's love?

Both parties have their share of wild, radical, crazy wingnuts, just like both sides have their share of logical, responsible, fair-minded members who actually give a $#%& about what the other side has to say. That said, it seems to me that right wing crazies are given far more leeway in the Republican Party than left wing crazies are in the Democratic Party.

For example, consider the Bush Presidency when uber-leftists labeled Bush a Nazi, that catchall evil term that everyone is just supposed to hear and assume wickedness. Yes, there was a group of people calling Bush a Nazi, but they were always waaaaay left of the mainstream Democratic Party and without friend among elected politicians.

Now consider the modern Republican position. Calling Obama a Nazi or Socialist or Fascist or Communist or any combination of those terms --- or whatever other American bogeyman they can dream up --- is common not just in the fringes, but among the rank and file Republicans. I mean for God's sake, Chuck Norris's wife said that re-election for Obama would usher in "10,000 years of Darkness." Seriously? Come on! I wouldn't even put my money on the USA being around in 10,000 years, let alone some Biblical period of utter hyperbolic darkness and evil. If that's not paranoid, what is?

I understand the Republican distaste for Obama. It is certainly arguable that he has done a bad job, but it's just that: arguable. Reasonable people can disagree, but Republicans act like it's objective fact that he has been terrible. You really can't argue to me that he is the Democratic equivalent of or even worse than Bush. I mean, do you remember that guy? His speeches sounded like fourth grade book reports. His understanding of policy was, at best, the kind of thing a newly converted college Republican learns but eventually grows out of. He is the kind of Republican who will attempt to read Atlas Shrugged because he's heard that's where the smart Republicans go for ideas, but he will fall short because he's not John Galt enough to finish it.

I work in a rather liberal, hyper-PC-ish environment where any sort of statement can be construed as racist, sexist, etc. etc. This morning I simply point out that the Negroyd race disproportionately utilizes welfare services and I am immediately attacked as a "racist," that ultimate bogerman of the liberal fashion. Nevermind that they call me a "Bible Thumper" on a daily basis and somehow that is not offensive. And in any case, can I really be what they claim me to be when I have female-Afro-American friend whom I cherish dearly? Were Nazis friends with Jews? Certainly not! What say you progressive establishment?! Will you simply attack me or will you...gasp!...try to reason with me...using that logic thing you read about once in college.

I mean if you don't even bat an eyelash at jumping on the Romney bandwagon, how low are you willing to go? Honey Boo Boo? The reanimated corpse of Joseph Stalin? George W. Bush?

Let me guess, they want to give everyone everything they want that the President doesn't actually have control over. They will lower gas prices and taxes, massively increase the military, end welfare and distribute free copies of the Fountainhead! Conservatives, are you really that stupid? I know you're not. The Dems don't offer much but at least they don't lie to you. The only the thing Republicans will actually deliver is Christian rhetoric and no new gun control laws.

Why is the falseness of, say, ancient Greek religion so obvious to us, but the falseness of our own is not? Why is thinking Poseidon controls the ocean tides so silly and primitive but thinking that Jesus turned water into wine and walked on water not?

Or is the reason we get so angry when someone so much as questions the truth of our faith because deep down we know it's no less false or different than the older religions and we don't like to be reminded of that?

wasteful government program of all?

I'm not saying the DoD isn't necessary or that we shouldn't have the strongest military in the world, but most people have no idea how ridiculously wasteful and bloated our military is. For every important, necessary weapon system we buy there are 10 more we buy that any idiot can see are designed for a nonexistent threat and have little to no chance of ever being used.

For example, did you know that until recently our military still bought reconnaissance blimps? http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/artic...

Celebrate diversity.