Mattimus Prime IS AMERICA!

I've had people in my last gun control question raise questions about places and how gun control has worked there. (Australian and Europe mainly).

The fact is that if you actually take the time to read the statistics, yes gun related crimes decreased slightly, however overall crime increased by a significantly greater amount. There are less gun related suicides, but people are just using other means to kill themselves. And that is a major point. Most criminals are going to commit crime regardless, if you take their guns away they will just find another way.

Assault rates increased, in many countries post-gun control robberies and burglaries increase. In Great Britain where guns were taken away and many people have Home Alarms there was an increase in burglary attacks when people are home because their alarms are turned off.

Gun violence may see a slight decrease, but overall violence increases and this favors bigger stronger more violent aggressors over the women, elders, and less violent everyday people they attack. A gun is the great equalizer that allows a 100 pound woman or 65 year old man defend themselves from a younger, bigger, stronger attacker.

It's been shown throughout history time and time again that overall violence in a populace tends to increase after gun bans.

Criminals are defiant of laws by definition, gun control laws only effect those who follow the law to begin with. When a gun ban is imposed all it does is take away the means for everyday citizens to defend themselves, their loved ones and property from the criminal element.

Here is my Pokemon Team for GSC. It's intended for battling with friends on Stadium 2. Any suggestions are appreciated. No legendaries or ubers please.

Jolteon @ Leftovers

Thunder Wave

Thunder Bolt

Agility

Baton Pass

Umbreon @ Leftovers

Mean Look

Toxic

Moonlight

Baton Pass

Heracross @ Focus Band

Megahorn

Earthquake

Endure

Reversal

Starmie @ Miracleberry

Confuse Ray

Thunderbolt

Ice Beam

Recover

Skarmory @ Leftovers

Drill Peck

Steel Wing

Curse

Swagger

Blissey @ Leftovers

Heal Bell

Softboiled

Light Screen

Ice Beam

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JteMzV81Ij8

Just so everyone knows I am a conservative and I believe in conservative values but it's scary to me how many people in my own party are talking like this.

lOf course to much lesser degree...just the vary basic idea I mean.

Why is there this myth out there that just because someone is rich means that they have worked harder? I know people who have worked thier fingers to the bone at back breaking work for thier entire life and they made a fraction of what some CEO's entertainers, and politicians make in one week of lounging around. If they make more than they can possibly ever use why is it wrong to tax them more than Americans who work everyday and just dont have jobs that make a great deal of money?

It is a proven fact that our education system is one of the worst among the industrialized nations. Test scores are lower than nearly all of Europe. Why do we accept this when we should be striving to be the best. America has always prided itself as being the best. Our future is in Jeopardy if we dont make some changes. WOuldnt it make sense to see what the countries who are the best are doing and duplicate that?

Presidential candidates are promising the people lower taxes, health care, repaired Social Security and other sundry and wondrous miracles

The president can't do diddly squat about any of those subjects. All they can do is ask Congress to (whatever).

The Constitution does not give the president power over any of the topics the candidates like to talk about. The president can't raise or lower taxes; can't legislate on any matter, including Social Security and health care; can't declare war; and can't make treaties or appoint Supreme Court justices without the advice and consent of the Senate.

Obviously the Congress has more power than the president and is more important to these issues important to us. Why not make such a big dela out of the congressional elections?

America was built on the backs of hard-working Americans. Thier hard work, determination, and sacrifice is what made America great. We were tough then, we had to go without. We werent spoiled little brats like we are today. The thought process of most Americans these days are I am an American, I am entitled to do whatever i want. Guess what? We arent. So how about you quit whining because it costs so much to heat or cool your house or drive wherever you want. Toughen up a little you disgrace our nation.

In the first place, Iran is far from the most dangerous regime in the world. I would say it is not dangerous at all, so far as the United States is concerned. Except for idiots, sane people assess threats based on capability, not on political rhetoric, intentions or imagination.

So what are the capabilities of Iran? It has no nuclear weapons. We have about 3,000 or more. One American submarine could destroy the entire country of Iran and its population. Iran has no missiles that could reach us. It has no aircraft that could reach us. Its army couldn't even defeat Iraq.

There are two countries that have the capability of being a threat to us – Russia and China. That's foreign policy and geopolitical strategy at the kindergarten level. They have the capability. No other country in the world does. Only a moron would worry more about an ex-college professor with a long name whose office doesn't even control the armed forces than he would about Vladimir Putin. This present American administration, in one of the dumbest moves in the history of diplomacy, neglected our relations with Russia while it got us bogged down in two small desert countries that don't amount to a hill of coffee beans.

Also bear in mind that it doesn't matter diddly squat if some small country manages to make a few nuclear weapons. A few is no threat to many. Nobody with a few would be tempted to attack any country with many nuclear weapons.

Deterrence worked when the Soviet Union had 30,000 nuclear warheads, but these moronic, unscrupulous, intellectually dishonest, dishonorable neocons would convince you that deterrence wouldn't work against Iran.

Would it work if I had some black t-shirts and i wasnted to stencil on patterns with white spraypaint?

There are at least ten dictators alive in the world right now who have killed far more people than Saddam ever did and yet we havent given them a second thought.

1) Omar al-Bashir, Sudan. Age 62. In power since 1989.has killed at least 180,000 civilians in Darfur, driven 2 million people from their homes.

2. Than Shwe, Burma (Myanmar). Age 72. In power since 1992.One hundred shot dead outside a Myanmar school. Activists burned alive at government crematoriums. A Buddhist monk floating face down in a river. This has been happening for years now.

3 Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe. Age 81. In power since 1980.

Life in Zimbabwe has gone from bad to worse: It has the world’s highest inflation rate, 80% unemployment and an HIV/AIDS rate of more than 20%. Life expectancy has declined since 1988 from 62 to 38 years.

4.Hu Jintao 300,000 political dissidents are held in “reeducation-through-labor” camps without trials. Forced abortions alone add up to more deaths than Saddam ever commited.

What reason is there other than that it would make the war even more unpoopular than it already is?

Agree or disagree....this should be interesting...

Our education system is second rate. It has been proven time and time again. 7th graders from ohter countries know as much math and science as most of our high school seniors. Test scores have proven that we are vastly inferior.

Education is one of the most important things in our lives. How can we continue failing our youth and not do somehtin about it?

Hitler's second in command Herman Goering once saidEducation is dangerous - Every educated person is a future enemy” This is true. If we fail in educating our children it will be our fault when they will be the ones facing the consequences.

“Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

So why when someone is neither do other people find it thier job to tell them they are unamerican and various other things.

The truth is we are going to end up the modern Rome if we do not wake up and think for ourselves, but every time someone tries to he or she is derided for lack of patriotism.

patriotism is not blindly following what is set before you by the government, it is questioning with vigilence the governments actions. Those who love a nation most are those who criticize it. My grandpa once said "I only yell at you when you make bad decisions because i love you. If i didnt love you i wouldnt waste my time." This is much like I question what our leaders do because i love our country. If I didnt question it would show how little i care.

This is not meant to be a slam to anyone or any political group. I just can't understand why people when talking about how they support the War in Iraq would boast that we haven't been attacked since 9/11. Of course this is true, but it is also true that before 9/11 there had not been a major attack on U.S. soil since WW2. That is roughly 60 years. You can count the major attacks on U.S. soil in the past hundred years on one hand. Doesnt seem to me like being attack free for 7 years should be that big of a task.

And also that no man can tell you as a free American what to do?

Then why does everyone think that Obama should be somehow responsible for somehting that his pastor (whom he has no control over ) said.

Obama was victimized by the old guilt-by-association ploy. Somebody dug up some video clips of Obama's minister making some strong criticisms of America, as if Obama were responsible for the words of another person. The implication of such specious criticism is that since Obama didn't draw a pistol and shoot his pastor dead, he must agree with what the pastor said.

And, naturally, the clips are sound bites taken out of context. Who among us is responsible for what somebody else says or thinks? I hear people all the time with whom I disagree. I'm sure many people disagree with my opinions. No one in the normal world thinks it is necessary to "denounce and reject" someone else's opinion just because you disagree with it.

Yet it was clear that political operatives, including the talking heads on television, were going to crucify Obama for something his pastor said. Obama stepped up to the challenge and met the subject of race and racism head-on. Most politicians avoid the subject like the bloody pox. He rejected the pastor's comments in question. He called them stupid. But, shades of Harry Truman, he did not reject his former minister, who has since retired. This pastor, an ex-Marine, has been a father figure to Obama for 20 years. Obama, unlike most of the cynical cowards in politics, was not going to throw a man who had been a friend to the wolves.

We delivered a new ally to Iran. We lost nearly 4,000 American lives and suffered another 29,000 wounded. We spent $400 billion, by Pentagon accounting. We increased the federal deficit to $9 trillion. We've made the Middle East more, not less, unstable. American prestige is in the trash can. Oil is more than $100 a barrel. The military is strained to the breaking point, so we are now recruiting high-school dropouts and people with criminal records. The American economy is on the tipping point of disaster. Bush's disapproval rating is at 65 percent.

Iraq is by no means stable. The destruction of infrastructure and loss of life in Iraq have, many say, permanently wrecked the country. The so-called rebuilding of Iraq has, from the beginning, been a cluster-blunder marked by greed, corruption, no-bid contracts and incompetence. To a large extent, we have lost our economic independence. Most of the brands you see advertised on television are Japanese; most of the stuff we buy is made in China. We are the biggest debtor nation in the world. The product of our public education system sucks when compared with most of the industrial world. If it weren't for foreigners with Ph.D.'s in the sciences and engineering, many of our faculties would be lacking enough warm bodies to teach. You might think about that before you gripe about Muslims. The dollar has lost so much purchasing power, foreigners are beginning to demand payment in euros.