Obama Gun-control

What do you think the chances are that Mr Obama even knew of this "M1 crisis" ahead of time? Or that he knows of it now? Don't you think that the man might have weightier matters to worry about?

Just to chime in; the danger is in the left ignoring, ridiculing and making a mockery of, not the right, as in the politicians, but of the citizens who happen to lean right.It is OUR fault for letting them stray. The people, citizens, who lean to the right have legitimate concerns, grevences and should be upset about the conditions they find themselves in financially, in the job maket and with concern to their health.These are ALL of our concerns. Problem is, we have not done our job at answering them properly. It does nothing to point out the issues with the right, make a joke about it, and then laugh while me bask in our (preceived) intellectual superiority. They want answers just as much as I do, difference is, they're getting their answers from liars who they, for lack of a better news network, have listened to.My dad, who is in his late 70's, is not going to listen to John Stewart, or Colbert, or Bill Maher, etc. In fact, these guys are leading the herd of disenfranchised youths who have become completely apathetic to all of it - for the most part. What, if anything, could my dad have in common with these guys?It boils down to information, and the lack of it that is found in the main-stream media. It also falls back on us, liberals, for not providing the rest of the country with answers to questions that truly concern us all. We seem content in making fun of them, the tea party and Palin and Beck, but a shit load of people listen to them, and not to us. These people are not stupid people, they're just not satisfied with the answers coming from our side, because, our side, as of yet, has NO answers.And just to stay on topic:If all AE is hanging on is, "Obama promised," then brotha, stand in line behind the 200,000 troups who have been waiting for a looooonnnnnggggg time to come home and were promised they would.- Oni

Um, yeah, our side does have answers. An abundance of answers.We're plagued, predominantly, by a substantial portion of Americans who would rather listen to Sarah Palin talk about "death panels" than listen to actual answers. "Public option" and "defined benefit" aren't nearly as compelling as conspiracy theories about the President's secret religion and feel-good bromides about "freedom." No, actually, not all that many people listen to them. Less than 80,000 people showed up to Beck's rally last weekend - far fewer than the "500,000" he claimed to have drawn.Right wing guys are inflating their numbers. Glenn Beck's show on Fox operates at a net loss, just like it did on CNN. Most of the book sales of people like Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly are sales to themselves; they, or conservative organizations on their behalf, buy up thousands of boxes of their books they never intend to sell and either give them away or pulp them, just to inflate the sales figures of the right.Conservativism - as measured by people actually holding those views - has never been popular in the United States. They're a small number of loudmouths given undue deference by the media. Fuck 'em. Fuck every single one of them. If they don't want to be derided than they don't have to hold risible views.

You have answers, I have answers, certainly people have answers... but who's gonna listen to you and me?People listen to the news, they get their answers from trusted news sources. However, when ALL of our news sources are corporate run, and making advertisers happy is their main goal, the news becomes sensationalized and hyperbolic - It becomes a ratings war. At which point, neither side has anything worth while to say, and they both fall victim to falsehoods. But that's the issue, no one has answers. If you turn on CNN, they're covering what the right is doing. If you turn on Fox, they're covering what the left is doing. At which point, people just pick who they dislike the least and listen to that channel. But they get no answers to why, health care sucks, unemployment is very high, and their wages stagnant.The right tells you it's the left's fault, the left tells you it's the right's fault - and by left and right I mean the left and right news sources. Because our political officials are fucking quiet the entire time. But neither side has any clue, they're just rallying veiwers by any means necessary. Yeah, I saw that. LolBut I wasn't talking about just that rally. Just in general. Repubilcans usually listen to conservative TV and radio stations. But they still have a vote. I get what you mean by fuck 'em, but I think educating them and not allowing the media to control our every thought might be a better solution. How do we get control of our media again? I don't know. But "fuck 'em" is not the answer.One thing I counldn't agree more with Omni on was, there was once a time when even if they disagreed they would still work together for the greater good of the country.These days that's gone, because you say fuck 'em and they say fuck you.- Oni

Yet the national elections come out very close to evenly balanced. Perhaps you are erroneously thinking your views are those of the mainstream. And the other 50% may feel the same way about you and your views.Since the '60s the lefties have been more loudmouthed, while those on the right have tended to sit back and avoid confrontation. That may have given those on the left the idea that they are mainstream.Perhaps that is starting to change, eh?

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

The left is not worried about becoming a communist nation that is ruled by a Kenyan-born Imam where government agents come to your house and take away your fire arms. People on the right are worried about this.The left is not worried about death panels telling doctors to kill our grandparents. People on the right are worried about this.To get back to the topic, the right wing militia movement has been around for about 30 years now. From the very start they have been claiming that at any moment the FBI is going to come down on everyone and take away their guns. They claim that it could happen next month, and when it doesn't they claim it will happen next month. When you hear "WOLF" cried for the upteenth thousandth time, what are you supposed to say?The problem is that the things both the left and the right should BOTH care about is drowned out by misinformation from the right. I am not saying that the left is some pristine virgin free of all sin, but there really is no comparison.

People believe what their trusted news sources tell them. People believe what their trusted news sources tell them.But what people on the right and left need is answers about health care from their news sources so that they don't have to listen to garbage about death panels.They need a government that keeps it's promises, addresses the issues like Iraq and Afghan, and Gitmo, and does what it says. If they had this, they wouldn't be assuming the worse of the president.He may not be what they say he is, obviously, but he still sucks, he has not kept his promises, and nothing other than a complex, barely understood healthcare plan has come from his admin. They won't vote for him again, whether they believe he is a secret Muslim or just an incompetent leader. Who cares at that point? But the left news sources need the right to spout their nonsense, so they can air it and get ratings. Stewart's and Colbert's entire show is about the stupidity of the right. Vice versa, Beck and O'reilly do nothing but point to the left media. Its a circle jerk.You may feel, as a liberal, that your side is the honest one. That they point out the nonsense the right does. That they show you how Beck lies, how the other fuck head contradicts himself, how racist Limbaugh is... but who cares? That's not news. That's not important information. What IS important gets pushed to the side because news stations need ratings, they need to sensationalize. They don't want to fully explain to you what the healthcare bill says, they'd rather show you what the right thinks it says. Then make fun of them. Great for a laugh, but 80% of the people still don't understand the new healthcare bill.- Oni

Tell me one president in the last 60 years who did every thing he said he would do.

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

Actually, by design the US has a relatively weak presidency. There is little the President can do other then encourage.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

jar notes: Indeed. What is the difference between being President of the United States and being Chief Towelboy in the biggest whorehouse?

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

A majority of Americans, who in polls support liberal agenda items with overwhelming majorities?Again I think you're not correctly apprehending the degree to which liberals are an informal popular majority; the problem is that conservatives exert disproportionate influence over the government and media. Influence far in excess of the actual popularity of their positions. There aren't any "left" news sources. How we get a handle on the media isn't going to be related to how we reach the one in five Americans who believes in a geocentric solar system. Those people are unreachable. That's the thing - no, they're never was. There was a period, however, when ideological boundaries cut orthogonal to political ones. For a period between the Civil War and the Civil Rights Act, Democrats were divided between liberal coastal Dems and conservative southern Dems; Republicans between southern social conservatives and northern fiscal ones.All the "bipartisanship" people remember in the "good ol' days" was bipartisanship only in name; it was conservative Dems voting with conservative Republicans to promote conservative ideas, and liberal Dems voting with liberal Republicans to promote liberal ideas. But that was a unique and idiosyncratic time in American politics; what's happened since isn't some kind of unusual increase in partisanship, it's been a renormalizing of political parties along completely traditional ideological grounds.Of course in the meantime we had a lot of structural changes to the American political system that basically torpedoed majority rule. The result is a system that gives incredible veto power to a minority, under a parliamentarian guise so complicated that only professional political observers can actually tell who did what. (Evidence: all the people who think Obama bailed out the banks.)If you want our political parties to work together for the greater good, then we need to reform politics to take out the structural incentives against working together. After all, under the current system, if the minority works to pass something the American people approve of, only the majority gets the credit, because they're the ones "in charge of Congress." On the other hand, if the minority is obstructionist, the majority takes the blame even though they're not responsible.That's a structural incentive for inaction.

"The toilet only has to take shit from one asshole at a time!"Wait, no, that's not it, is it?Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

Actually, there are a few exceptions to the rule of crying wolf. The end of the world comes to mind. How many times have religionists claimed the world would end on such date and such time? And yet, we continue to see people selling all their possessions and prepare for the end of the world EVERY SINGLE TIME.Same thing with the right claiming a liberal president will take away all our rights. Clinton was suppose to declare himself son of the devil and Obama was suppose to take away all our guns and put a tattoo on our foreheads months ago. Well, it's going to happen any time now...And yes, I actually know a couple people who buried their guns and ammo while building up their arsenal getting ready for another revolution. And these dumbasses are unemployed, too. Do you get it? While they were crying bloody murder over the health care reform bill, they were using unemployment benefit to buy guns and ammo. Edited by Taz, : No reason given.

Well, this is something that's strange regarding this sale.Why would the Government forbid the sale from South Korea?America is a trading partner with S.K., correct?And plus, the M1s are legal in America, if somewhat restricted by a background check.So the official reasons don't really make any sense to me. I wonder if something else is going on behind the scenes.

Maybe strange, but it is NOT an example of Gun Control.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!