*DAMN R6 Forum

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=710&e=1&u=/usatoday/20040617/pl_usatoday/gopcomesaroundtoamajorityview (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=710&e=1&u=/usatoday/20040617/pl_usatoday/gopcomesaroundtoamajorityview)

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By Andrea Stone and William M. Welch, USA TODAY

During his first decade in Congress, Republican Rep. David Dreier of California complained bitterly about the heavy-handed way Democrats ran the House of Representatives. Now in their 10th year of holding the majority, Dreier and his Republican colleagues see things much differently.?

...

"We have had to do some of the things we criticized once," Dreier admits. "But now that I'm in the majority, I have this responsibility to govern. It's something I didn't completely understand when I was in the minority."
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Somethings the Republicans understand now:
* The House ethics committee is investigating whether Republicans offered campaign contributions amounting to bribes on the floor of the House
* Tom Scully, then the administrator of the Medicare system, negotiated for a job as a drug-industry lobbyist while helping write the law.
* House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas has pressed industry interest groups and associations to hire Republicans as lobbyists. A Texas grand jury is looking into the use of corporate contributions to local Republican candidates by a political action committee he created. And DeLay engineered an unusual redrawing of House districts in Texas after Republicans took control of the state Legislature in 2002
* Tempers flared last fall when House Democrats, angry at being denied a vote on their Medicare legislation, demanded that a clerk read the text of a lengthy bill to prolong a meeting of the House Ways and Means Committee. When Democrats left the room to talk strategy, committee chairman Bill Thomas called the Capitol Police to break up their session. The police refused, but Democrats haven't forgotten the attempt.
* The committee system has virtually collapsed under Republican rule. Bills are routinely dictated by House leaders, rather than written in committees. That leads to the concentration of power in the hands of a few leaders, led by Hastert - a man virtually unknown to the American people. When House and Senate bills need to be reconciled, Democrats are often excluded from the negotiations. Only two Democrats, who already were sympathetic with GOP goals, were allowed in the room when the final Medicare compromise was written.
* The predawn Medicare vote last November lasted three hours, rather than the customary 15 minutes. Stopping the clock until a bill is passed has become the norm under Republicans, but the Medicare vote set a record. "We've been working three Congresses for that," Hastert says. "We can wait three hours to vote."


And this is just the House, and just a few of the many things.


Oh, and what's up with EVERY fricken hyper-political person in the white house stating that Saddam had connections to Al Queda? Haven't we heard enough bullshit? When the 9/11 commision comes out and says, um, Saddam wouldn't even talk to Osama, that Osama tried and was ignored, and then Dicky and Bushy through themselves all over TV trying to counter the truth ...

The whole Republican machine is rotten to it's core. The vaughted idealism of the Right, that they offer sure leadership, honesty, and better government is no more. They don't even mention small government anymore, or better policy.

Where the fuck are all the real conservatives?

I would rather have incompetence and abuse of power than a group of people who want to bow down to the French and the United Nations.

And there you have it. Perfect examply why you are helping terrorism, why your views fuel extreamist reactions, why you are helping to fuck your country up and paint a great big red target around your country.

The United Nations is (hence the name) about UNITED NATIONS. wtf makes you think the US is so special that it shouldn't work with the UN?

Why should we belong to an organization that puts the interests of the United States behind the interests of every other nation on earth???

Personally, I'm all for getting out of the UN and kicking the UN Headquarters out of New York.  Pull all of our forces back within the boarders of the United States and let the whole fucking world whine the next time they errupt into war and want our help.  I'm tired of the United States being the world's peacekeepers.  Hell, the very people who would be speaking German under a Nazi flag, or Russian under a Communist Flag, if it wasn't for our help, are the same people who are against us in everything we try to do.  So I say pull all of our forces back, stop all of our aid to EVERYBODY, and laugh at Europe when they start fucking up the rest of the world (and you have to admit, Europe is VERY good at that!).

Peace.

-GhostSniper Out.

Bullshit. sorry but your kidding me. where, when, what... give an example.


Yeah and then when 9/11 version 2 happens, when US citezens are kiddenapped and killed even more regulally than now, when the number of people intent on destroying the US magifys even greater, Europe and everyone else will be able to say nothing but "we told you so"

jeeeez thx God, GS cant do a shit  ;)

You seem to think your country is the centre of the universe, you seem to think that you can and should do what you like and that whatever happens your country should come first before all else.

You don't seem to understand that your actions which you think are "defending" yourself, are actually causing more and more problems - and that communication and wokring with the UN and accepting yourselves as a country of many in the long term could and would help the US in more ways than your current actions can ever ever do.

NO, NO, NO.....you are the one that has been saying we brought 9/11 on ourselves.....because of our support for Israel and the way we handle our foreign policy.  So why would they attack us if we suddenly did exactly what they want us to do?  We leave Israel to fend for itself, we pull all of our forces out of the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and everywhere else, and we stop aiding the whole world....then why would they still have a reason to attack us?  Your argument now makes no sense BFG....please enlighten me.

Um no, im not saying this was some short term "one week we decided we hate america, lets go blow them up" , and im certainly not saying its all your fault, jeus you only have to look at a Fundamentalist, be they Muslim, Christian, Hindu etc, to know what you are dealing with - irrational behaviour is the hardest behavior to deal with. however there are triggers. Triggers that magnify and feed the problem.


It wouldn't, not to the same extent - if you were to litterally close your borders, cut yourselfs off from the rest of the world then im sure it would remove many many reasons for the attacks (say the unwavering support for israel perhaps) but its not removing the root problem - the conflict of religion and beliefs, the difference of Values and morals. Were there is no tolerance violence finds a place

Interesting.  Sounds like you would have been right at home under Saddam's leadership in pre-2003 Iraq.

This type of reasoning kills me.  When actions are founded on spite and malice rather than rational thought and honest consideration, you've impaired or annihilated your ability to make good decisions.  GhostSniper, I get the impression that you'd disagree with the French or the UN just because you'd rather not agree with them.  In the thread you recently started, you condoned voting for Bush because it's (...according to you, at least...) what terrorists don't want.  Would you really vote for a person to lead your nation and affect the entire world (President of the United States is the most powerful position you can elect someone into) on the basis of something so petty as spite?  That's dangerous.  If today's world was filled with people that thought like you, I wonder if the human race would exist long enough to regret its mistakes...

Shouldn't you be making decisions based on the world as it exists today, not how it was 10, or 50, or 100 years ago?  Your vindictiveness seems to govern all of your behavior.  Why?

If you help a person, do you expect them to submit to your will forever afterwards?  

Yeah, I expect you do.  In which case, I hope you never do me any favors.


Cobra

Exactly how i read it - whether thats the case or not, thats how it appears.

I love the fact that the UN is based in NYC. It's the symbol that tell the world not so subtly that the US is the Big Dog. But, as Spider man says, "With great power comes great responsiblity."

And here's my Super Hero/Super Villian comparison:

Does America want to be Spider Man, flawed, filled with doubt, young, agressive, and ultimately morally Good? But beholden to the Laws of the land?

Or

Does American want to be like the Green Goblin; Scizofrenic, delusional, reactionary, vengeful, powerful, but ultimately morally Evil? Beholden to no Law but our own?


Clearly this is a silly comparsion, and far too black and white. But think on it.


Right now we're slipping into Greeen Goblin. We're a pretty fucking crazy country, dishing out what we call justice, ignoring the plantive cries of the rest of the world, lashing out at all who we perceive to be enemies, and ulitmately working against ourselves. GG knows what's right and what's wrong on a moral scale but he works off a different moral scale, one that values only his own interests at the expense of everyone else. And while surely in his own head he is a hero of sorts, the reason why he is the ultimate villian is that he has no compassion, no law other than his own, and he takes lifes and ruins life as he sees fit. In sum, he is a villian.

I want us to go back to being Spider Man. Heroic. Heartful. Carring for others - "Your friendly neighborhood Spider Man". You know? The guy who would beat up the bad guys and then drop them off at the police station. The guy who'd be tempted to kill his greatest enemies, but was ultimately moved by their situation, even as he took then down. Spider Man at the end of the day  wanted to help other people, and like all good heroes, would put himself in harms way each and everytime. He knows the risks, and he's no fool, but he makes the choice to be heoric time and time again. In sum, he is a hero.

What makes these two so interesting is that they are two sides of the same coin - born out of chaos and uncertainty, gifted with great powers, stuck with emotional wounds so deep they strike to the core ... Yet one is Good, the other Evil.



Which one is your America?

I didn't figure you for the type that'd want to give in to terrorism. While I agree we should keep our noses out of other people's business, and let the world fuck themselves over, I also don't think that we should stop helping other countries just because some terrorists want us to. When you do what the terrorists want, they'll just continue to use terrorism to change a government's policies.