[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!




More information about the thechat mailing list