matt1122

Chuck, I think you're wasting your time posting in this thread, .

Just curious if you have some links?

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I just asked one of my polisci friends who went into excruciating detail on the issue.

Like Chuck said, doesn't change the fact that the numbers are exagerated. What I do keep thinking about is how that means Kerry's tax increases will affect even fewer people than it would if we went with Bush's definition for his example. It will NEVER cover Kerry's spending plan.

Ingenious. Those photos are all photoshopped and factcheck.org is way the sh*t off on all of this to begin with.

I bothered to check up on all of this because this seems like a load of stuff to me, so here are the facts:

The US President's funds are managed by the government, and at some point before Bush's 2001 tax statement was due the government purchased a stock in an oil deal for George W. This oil company also in some manor or another (I'm sure if you really care you can look it up) dealt with timber. George Bush did not privately purchase any stock in a Timber company, and is not an owner, he is a minor shareholder as a result of the puchasing of stock in that company. It wasn't even a direct transaction.

The bottom line, Bush is not a small business owner, Kerry should have checked his facts first. Even if he was the government had made the purchase for him, and chances are high Bush would have had no idea.

Nevermind, I'd be talking to myself.

I missed this thread, but yeah, I think whats-his-name did a fine moderating job and that things seemed pretty even.

I enjoyed when bush basically just said "hey you- stfu, I'm going to say what I want." now thats the man I want for el presidente.

I think a political subforum of off-topic would be beneficial. I second your motion. :D

I agree that some level of school reform by the federal government is most definitely needed, but I don't think the "No Child Left Behind" Act is the way to go.

Just FYI, superintendants in my area don't work that way, and I thank go after watching certain cartoons which paint pictures of the way supers work elsewhere.

There was more than enough complaining about the political threads, and now they have their own forum.

No one is making you read them and no one is making you participate! People shouldn't refrain from discussing what they would like to discuss just because you aren't interested or feel like you can't discuss it for one reason or another. Please keep this in mind and respect other peoples' right to speak their mind freely on an open forum as long as they do it in the right place.

Especially now that they have their own forum and you know what you're getting into by reading and participating there is no reason to complain, so please don't.

You need employees to be a small business?

Bush's figures aren't overblown, Kerry doesn't know what a small business is.

And BTW, that's an LLC, so Bush MIGHT NOT be affected. Under IRS P542 an LLC can be classified as a corporation for tax purposes. It appears GW is the Gaurantor, which eliminates the LL aspect, but not enough information is available to say whether or not they meet any of the other 3 characteristics to be taxed as a small business/partnership.

On another note, I highly doubt George W. Bush and hig partner are planning on cutting down trees themselves, so I'm sure they will have employees if they don't already.

How in any way does the ability to catch a football relate to the ability to run a country?  If anything, I'd prefer the one that can't simply because that means he's probably paying more attention to the country than a darn football.

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Or maybe he's just so unaware of what's going on around him that he didn't even see a football that was going to hit him in the face until it was too late.

So what if Kerry can't catch, Bush can't spell...

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We have spellcheck, but even with all the tools he has as president Kerry won't be able to catch a GD football.

Hey, why don't you move to Turbo Bricks.

Just kidding. :P

I don't see a lot of that in these threads, I see people talking about the issues. It might get heated but there isn't much flaming.

He made $87. Kerry's point was that under the definition that the Bush campaign is using, that counts as a small business that would be 'hurt' by Kerry's tax plan.

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I thought he had said something after the number, haha who cares about $84.00.

What are the terms for the business tax hike again? Don't make me go look since you have everything at your fingertips. ;)

I think pro-choice is the true "conservative" view. Conservativeism promotes the least amount of government intervention in one's personal life possible. 'nuff said there I think as it relates to the issue of abortion.

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I agree, as I found this above after thinking into it and relating it to censorship, as far as it is from that topic. The Republican party is obviously not completely conservative OR the far right. We need a proper conservative party that isn't too far right, something between republican and constitutional. Homosexuality is another issue that conservatives SHOULD be fine with. As such, I think maybe people can see more deeply into why this ISN'T a conservative vs. liberal issue and why I split it.

That said, if you have anything to say about the thread splitting please PM me and don't waste forum space and ruin the topic any further, I like it just the way it is. ;)

JFTR, I am not "NoGirlMan" and I couldn't tell you who is.

Do you think it wasn't? Don't you think we should have finished off bin Laden, of one of 37 (IIRC) nations that were more capable of producing and delivering a WMD to USA before we went after Iraq? Don't you think we should have thought up a plan of what to do about the anarchy we were creating before we reduced the nation to chaos? And Bush did know what would happen, or at least he should have, given all the CIA reports on his table indicating exactly what would happen.

No, no, we have a plan and it's being acted out now, I'm sorry to disapoint you with the inevitable anarchy that is taking place, but it's minimal. I invite anyone to come up with some sort of solution, there's nothing you can do to prevent this kind of anarchy. When a regime is taken out of power you have anarchy, and the only way to handle it is the way we are handling it now. If you have an example of a more peaceful process, please, by all means.

Re: timber company, the company doesn't expect to make profit until 2007 anyway, so even if bush didn't recall his half ownership of the company he most likely hasn't made a cent off of it yet. (see the supporting docs on that link)

Nope. That really wasn't funny at all.

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Funny can also mean "strange" when used appropriately, as in this instance.

My copy has been in the mail all week.  Wish it would get here.

Notice the guy making it was an advisor to Clinton?

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IIRC from what I watched a few hours ago the vast majority of people in the film (if not all) are democrats. They seem to defend the truth more than they defend Bush, though the film obviously *looks* like it's designed to be anti-kerry/pro-bush. Definitely anti-moore, and THATS what I wanted to see.

Did bush lie or did he make a human error?

How do you think Kerry would have handled the situation? Oh wait, you could never know with the sh*t he pulled.

Bush has changed his mind on Iraq plenty of times.

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Have you watched the debates at all? what are you talking about?

Seen it?

Just watched it. Loved it. Great film.

I'll pass on that offer, thanks.

Also, while I understand you may feel this merits it's own discussion, could you at least consult those of us actively participating in the discourse before splitting out parts of the conversation?

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This is a *completely* different topic from "are you liberal or conservative", so I don't think any consulting is necessary, sorry.

And so begins the longest post in VS history.

WOW! That's the biggest bunch of crap evAR! So what you are saying is murder should be leagal, I mean, were just going to do it anyway!

No, murder has a very negative affect on society, the murderer's are doing actual harm to the welfare of society and the individual in EVERY instance (except maybe true mercy killings, but there are exceptions to every rule). The vast majority of the time an abortion does not really harm the welfare of society, as a matter of fact it sometimes could be seen as a benefit to the unborn child and the mother.

Making murder illegal also helps to decrease the fear an individual has of being physically harmed. You don't need to make murder illegal to get justice - think linch mobs. If murder were legal the linch mobbing would be a legal activity as well. Making murder illegal simply helps to secure a right we wish was there - the right to live without fear. Any scientist would probably tell you that a fetus has no sense of fear in the womb anyway, but what is definite is that the fetus is not affected by the laws governing our fine country, so the fetus is not really going to feel any safer once abortions are made illegal anyway. I could have made this much nicer and clearer, I'm sure, but who has time?

I didn't say I approved of aborition, I SIMPLY said that the goverment has no right to single handedly decide what is right or wrong for millions of women and thier potential children. I would much rather see an abortion than a child raised in an unfit home, malnourished, beaten ect.

I agree with this statement, and these are GOOD examples of when an abortion will benefit the unborn child in the long run in some people's eyes.

Partial birth abortions are even worse!

Yes, the are absolutely horrible. Fortunately, though, we don't have to ban abortion entirely to stop these attrocities.

That is where we differ. I believe it is a life as soon as cells begin to split. No other way to look at it... wether you view it as "human" or not is besides the point ... it is an individual's life.

As far as the child not being wanted... Have you ever heard of adoption? This is where my point of selfishness comes in > if a woman is going to paticipate in sexual acts that get her pregnant but she doesn't want a child... 1. she should've thought about and took preventitive action before getting pregenent. 2. if those measures do not work - many couples who can't have children would love hers. Why should the baby be executed because her mother doesn't want to deal with it... that is pathetic.

No, which view you share IS part of the point, and your first statement seems like a HUGE self contradiction to me. You basically said the point isn't the point. Well it is the point.

As far as adoption goes, talk to me when you are a pregnant girl who doesn't want her baby and YOU are willing to go through what may end up being a difficult pregnancy which will have a big impact on your life and THEN you are willing to give up your own baby after you've gone through all of that.

You are either Pro Choice or Pro Life.

There is a middle ground, those of us who dissaprove of abortion but do not impose our views on others, especially in situations we cannot and will not ever understand.

To me Pro-Life legislation and censorship are pretty close together, and BOTH are attrocities. NO ONE is making you look at/listen to/play anything. In the same manor NO ONE is making ANYONE have an abortion, it's a decision people should be able to make for themselves!

Now that I think about it, I guess abortion IS a clear liberal vs. conservative issue, even though it shouldn't be. Government Control over our private lives? NO THANKS. You can kill all the babies you want and I'm gonna keep watching south park, listening to 2 Live Crew! and playing GTA3.

Our private lives should NOT!!!!! be the concern of our government. Good job, you made me hate liberals even more.

No one is asking me? No reason for me to impose my morals?

Nope.

Well why don't we all just go ahead and do whatever the eff we want?

Okay, as long as you aren't doing harm to society that's fine with me.

Why vote? Why have a say? Why stand up for anything? Let's just tolerate everything.

You throw away your vote voting for someone who has a chance for winning anyway, so I don't know why you bother anyway. You have no say in this election, your vote for another party has a much greater effect than your vote for either the republican or democratic party. I see a lot of "I don't like this in the middle stuff/politicians fighting for the middle ground", so why don't you get off your jerk and vote for a party that stands for what you believe in. If enough people thought about where they stand and voted for the party that stands for their beliefs there might actually be a chance for those parties to get on the ballot and maybe even one day win.

But don't pretend your vote matters for this election - it doesn't. No matter who YOU vote for the same guys going to win the electoral vote. Your vote is going to have a much larger impact on the next election, you should probably start thinking about that and really voting for who you want to win, and not just whoever you agree most with that actually has a chance. Otherwise you ARE tolerating a whole lot of stuff.

Newsflash... abortion is a conservated / liberal issue. Accross the board, liberals are mostly pro-choice... conservatives are mostly pro-life. This is what I have observed. If you haven't... I'm sorry, but before you begin a post like this do some research.

Yeah, that's completely true, but it has everything to do with more/less government control, and a lot less to do with morals. You can be pro-life and still be conservative, that just means you aren't a liberal asshole who tries to impose his views on others. Worry about yourself. MYOB - ever seen those letters before?

So we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Yes, we will

I apologize for being too personal ... got I little fired up. I'll edit as necessary.

Whatever, I don't really care. No worries, no personal offense to you either.

On a more positive note, it's nice to know we're free to have [and share] these views.

Yes it is.

This is true.. and thankfully, we both agree on that! (And that Matt's a retard)

Blow me.

And the splitting begins!

Pro-choice is nothing but selfishness.

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Quite frankly no one is asking you or the government what you think of it. There is no reason you have to impose your morals and thinking on anyone else. The US is built upon freedom of choice - people kill other adults even though it's illegal, so what makes you think making abortions illegal would stop them anyway? In no way would banning abortions help our society, even if it did make you feel like you were a better person and you lived in a better and more morally just country.

That said, abortion isn't really a conservative vs. liberal issue, it is a partisan issue. One party stands on one side in general, the other party stands on the other side, but it shouldn't influence your decision in this poll what-so-ever since the poll is not party based. See past the parties and politics and decide if you are for a more conservatively government or a more liberally run government.