[thechat] protests?
deacon b.
web at master.gen.in.us
Wed Mar 26 04:54:24 CST 2003
> > > To note:
> > > The Japanese started the Second World War (as far as US
> > > involvement goes).
> > I was unaware that the Japanese ran the US
> > government in December 1941.
> Sheesh. This isn't debate, it's pedantry.
I'm not insulted; "pedant" means schoolmaster. And
apparently someone has been sleeping in class. If
you *look* like a tourist, you're much more likely to
be pickpocketed. And the assertion was "there's
never been a war started in a Republican
administration". (Which was only true for the 20th
century.)
> > > Reagan and his supply side economics were also responsible for the
> > > largest ballooning of the federal deficit in history up until this
> > > administration.
> > Yeah? The Reagan tax cuts *increased* federal
> > revenues. Yes, federal spending increased even
> > faster than revenues, but this was primarily because
> > of programs passed *before* Reagan went into
> > office.
> "The other guy did it." Reagan ruled with an iron fist for eight
> years, and he didn't have a chance to dismantle the programs that
> worked directly *against* his principles of government? I don't buy
> it.
bork, v.t. "to rule with an iron fist"
Reagan couldn't even get them to consider that
ketchup has nutritional content - and now that he's
out of office, environmental scientists are saying
that turpenes from trees play a major factor in the
formation of ozone hundreds of miles from the
mountains where the trees are growing - something
I had been told in organic chemistry classes in the
1970s.
> > > The Reagan and Bush I administrations were also
> > > directly responsible for the greatest expansion of government
> > > intrusion into private behavior, known as the War On Drugs.
> > Lyndon Johnson started the War on Drugs in
> > December 1964 with the Single Convention on
> > Narcotic Drugs.
> ...Which has blossomed, since Reagan took office, into a nearly
> ten-trillion-dollar fiasco. (Yes, I hold Clinton responsible for this
> issue, too.)
But it appears to me that the size of the drug market
has blossomed, too. Has the "War On Drugs"
expanded faster than the market for drugs?
My objection to the "War On Drugs" is not that it's
big, but that it's the wrong solution to the problem.
After all, we can invent new designer drugs faster
than we can outlaw old ones. In a free society,
people should be allowed to do stupid things to
themselves. Drugs cure abuse, after all. Think of it
as evolution in action.
When it comes to "intrusion into private matters", it
occurs to me that the biggest and most blatant of
the Republican sins involve wacko right-wing
fundamentalist christianity. If the Republicans'd
stuck to their knitting, they would have removed
Clinton from office; but they were so outraged by his
sexual behavior that they ignored his behavior as
chief executive. Infidelity is, and should be, a civil
matter between husband and wife. Someone
needed to put up some billboards, "It's the perjury
and obstruction of justice, stupid."
I hope DirecTV responds to Pat Robertson's phone
harassment stunts by simply dropping the ABC
Family Channel. I've got DISH, and I wish they'd
replace it with something like Gene Scott.
--
RIP Adam Osborne, 1939-2003
And 23 pounds of thanks!
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