No, I don't.

We have two political parties in office right now whose SOLE objective is to put the other out of power. And yes, that is their sole objective. The voting population is only a means to an end. If they can promise without having to follow through, they will. If voting for their own interests (or that of their constituents) will benefit the other party in any way, they will vote against their own interests.

America is simply the battleground that the political parties are using to conduct their campaigns, and we will be the collateral damage, if we haven't already become so.

Since the demise of the Soviet Union, the politicians no longer have a common enemy, and "terrorism," being an abstraction rather than a particular state, is not filling the bill.

What we need is a revolution to get those in office out. TEABAGGERs (Totally Enraged About Blacks And Gays Getting Equal Rights) let us down (like we didn't see that coming) have not been the remedy they promised us they would be, as they have become the same self-absorbed fools we have now, enmeshed in the same conflict.

The obvious question is how far out is the foreseeable future.

Yes, I think the US will remain a (not necessarily the) top nation for quite awhile. I don't see that many counties rising to the top soon. I could see the US behind India & China.

I believe that enough people would work hard and regulations thrown out such that US would not slip out of the top 5.

No, I don't. Rome is not the center of the Earth, and the British Empire is also gone. Neither had things taken from them as much as they were given away.
I cannot understand how some people living here and enjoying some of the most amazing creature comforts can actually hate themselves, and by extension, their country.
Boortz trapped some unfortunate idiot on the air the other day. Forced to acknowledge that at any time in history, there is a dominant nation - after several minutes of hemming and hawing - the caller then basically whined that China should be that dominant nation, anyone but the USA, because we think we can do what we want.

I find this repulsive. Just as the solution of an American problem is not expressed by "love it or leave it", the proper application of prosperity is not to give it away and hope that others will treat you decently - because they won't.

The solution is to embrace the idea that with great power comes great responsibility, but since Americans abandon that every chance they can, great power will also go away.

@Patrick,
I disagree with you about the Tea Partiers. I think what they stand for has already started to pay off. There's a link below to a NYT story from 2/26 about the prohibition of earmarks. A small first step, but a good one, to some fiscal responsibility.

I also find your Teabagger reference incredibly rude and disrespectful. The Tea Partiers support small and limited fiscally responsible government. How awful! Your reference to blacks and gays is a low blow ad hominem attack that belongs on the Huffington Post.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/politics/27cong.html?_r=2&hp

Patrick personally knows a majority of the people in the tea party movement so he is qualified to make such a remark. Actually he is a putz that believes what the left says without thought or reflection. He is known as a drone.

That's a good Teabagger-bot, Dave B. I'm sure when you forward a link to this blog to your superiors in the Tea Party movement, they'll be very pleased.

For those of us who can think for ourselves, Teabaggers are the hypocrites that I expected.

Get a grip Patrick. You do not know me or a majority of people who subscribe to the tea party movement. Yet you seem to think you are qualified to label them all racists and homophobes. Pray tell, based on what? It obviously isn't your personal knowledge young man. Are you angry at me because I caught you being absurd or that I do not agree with your close minded world view?

On Amy's topic, I do not share his optimism. We became a strong nation because of our freedom to use the resourses available to us and our ability to focus on things other than basic survival. Since the 60s, we have hampered our economic engine with excessive government rules and spending. We now hamper our economy, to our peril, making energy sources expensive unnecessarily. Oil and coal drive our ecomomy.
We may wish it to be otherwise, but it is not.

Gee, what could possibly be convincing me that Teabaggers are hypocrites? Aside from the fact that they're supposedly against earmarks, yet their supposed members who joined while in office proved to be most egregious offenders.

Maybe it something to do with the scumbags that they forward, like the pretty idiot Sarah Palin, who can't seem to get it through her head that no matter how many times she asks, the librarian is not going to allow her to remove "objectionable" books from the library shelves...and her clone who lies about her educational credentials, Christine O'Donnell? Or perhaps rabid homophobe Carl Paladino...who hates gays but sends out pornography that includes bestiality and videos of dancing chimpanzees and calls it "Obama's inauguration party." Isn't that just a scream? And of course, he publicly outed his gay nephew, driving him into self-imposed exile.

Or perhaps it's that raving psychopath Sharron "Second Amendment Remedies" Angle? I would just to tell her to her face what I think of that knee-slapping little quip. Her ears would be ringing for a month. Why wasn't she charged with sedition?

And speaking of psychos, we just can't leave Michelle Bachmann out, who thinks judges are telling little children that they should try homosexuality. I can only imagine that she tried to prove her contention that carbon dioxide isn't harmful by standing in it for extended periods of time until her brain suffered oxygen deprivation.

I'll say one thing for her. She admits she's not a deep thinker. No duh, Michelle.

Is this what we can expect from the Teabaggers?

It is the media that's telling me that they're racists and homophobes. The Teabaggers themselves are telling me that.

Perhaps you should get an eyeful of the delightful signs they carry at their rallies. I thought I was looking at the Westboro Baptist Church rally.

Take a look. I dare you. Then tell me the teabaggers aren't raving bigots.

It appears that you are past getting a grip Patrick. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY5T1Pdiols

Gee, Dave B., can you highlight the salient points of that video you posted? I saw some crude language, but I didn't see any racism or blatant suggestions that we need to shoot our elected representatives. (I wonder if Loughner was a Sharron Angle fan.)

Patrick, do have something constructive to offer as an alternative?

why are the leftists so afraid of the tea party. A group of people who want the government to shrink back to it's intended size and role? It is just ignorance and fear, but it has so much emotion behid it that it is scary

and the BOTU and Patrick types are the ones who lead me to believe this great country is doomed in the very near future. We have politicians that just keep slopping today's pigs with tomorrow's food, and they are getting elected by majorities who by and large do not pay into the system and love the concept of "increase taxes on the rich"

why are the leftists so afraid of the tea party. A group of people who want the government to shrink back to it's intended size and role? It is just ignorance and fear, but it has so much emotion behid it that it is scary

It's their belief system being challenged, ron.

In liberal-world, they are superior in every way, and we should get down on our knees and blow them to thank them for telling us how to live our lives.

To a conservative, liberals are misguided. To a liberal, conservatives are evil.

You don't compromise with evil, you crush it. Which is why they will say the vilest things about conservatives, yet we never respond in kind.

If we get our way, it represents a rejection of their worldview, and is a personal insult to them that we reject their benevolent offer to control our lives with their superior mental acumen.

Most of those "delightful signs" didn't appear genuinely racist to me, Patrick.

ronc: why are the leftists so afraid of the tea party. A group of people who want the government to shrink back to it's intended size and role? It is just ignorance and fear, but it has so much emotion behid it that it is scary

That is not what the Teabaggers are about, and it never was. They are repackaged Republicans, and that is all they are, and they will pursue the Republican agenda.

And I am not a leftist. If it were up to me, I'd throw them all out, Republicans and Democrats...and I'd start with the President.

My question for you is, what is it about Republicans that makes them insist that anyone who doesn't agree with any part of their agenda is a leftist? Actually, you don't need to answer that, since I already know. Republican are pathologically afraid of anything different. Differing points of view, being incomprehensible to them, require a label and that label is leftist. I have no use for either party, but at least liberals don't set themselves up as the keepers of morality and family values...which only results in them looking like the party of hypocrites when they get busted, as politicians on both sides inevitably do.

And Brian, I would never ask that from you, but since you brought it up, you're free to blow me any time you feel like. (Hey, it was your idea. Not mine.)

I have voted for McCain, detest Obama and always have because he's a racist, socialist, condescending, smug, arrogant prick.

Radwaste, since you asked, I have no idea what can be done, but I have some things I would like to see.

No campaign donations for incumbents. At all. They do that, they are breaking ethics violations and subject to censure and even impeachment. When you are campaigning for the first time, and have never been in office, you can accept all the donations you can get your hands on. Once you are elected, however, you are OUT of the money-making business.

How will an incumbent get the money he needs to campaign? The government will match up to 80% of the funds that his opponent can make. Why match only 80%? Because incumbents have the advantage...or they should, unless they did a shitty job.

Another thing I'd like to see...lobbyists will never have communication with Congress in session. Congress in session will be incommunicado with the outside world until session is done. (Once campaign contributions for incumbents is eradicated once and for all, that shouldn't be a problem.) None of this bullshit eavesdropping with lobbyists furiously typing out responses to debates. When a congressman is in session, he is on his own to sink or swim.

I would like to see impeachment proceedings be mandatory against any elected official who is caught accepting anything of cash value that is even tangentially connected with his work. Someone gets busted, their impeachment is now at the very top of the next scheduled session. National emergencies are the only item that can push it down. Accepting bribes will now become the fastest way out of office that you ever saw.

That's all I can think of at the moment...I'd love to hear what changes you'd like to see, Rad.

Mpetrie: Most of those "delightful signs" didn't appear genuinely racist to me, Patrick.

Oh, most didn't? That makes it okay, huh?

Sorry, but by allowing that there, that is giving your tacit approval. Most of them not appearing racist simply isn't good enough.

When gay activists march, it is not enough for them for it to be "mostly" about gay rights, with a few NAMBLA members, who erroneously consider themselves part of the gay rights, thrown in.

No, that shit needs to be barred completely.

Is it so freaking hard for someone organizing a march to put out the message, "Let's not have any Nazi symbolism or racist suggestions, please, such as a teabag that looks like Obama hanging from a noose. All signs carried at the rally must meet with approval from staff organizers. We simply cannot afford offensive imagery associated with our cause."

Gee, that would be just sooooo difficult.

And most of them looked pretty racist or bigoted to to me. The one about Jews for the ovens, for instance. How charming!

"That's all I can think of at the moment...I'd love to hear what changes you'd like to see, Rad."

Well, gee, you've seen it before, right here: pay attention to your Congressmen, not the President, who doesn't have the power you covet anyway; learn about the law and the issues from sources, not professional rabble-rousers. Jump on the people who lie, regardless of party.

And when you say, "No, that shit needs to be barred completely", you enable censorship, pure and simple. Recognize that when you pass a law it applies to you, too.

But you don't want these people plotting in the dark somewhere. That's what gave us our current President.

-----

Don't you wish Morgan Freeman was President? Yet actors are supported by a legion behind the scene. The one behind your public official wants you entertained, too, and damn the consequences.

Patrick, I'm not sure how effective those ideas would be, but I give you credit for giving the issue some serious thought. My #1 prescription: absolute term limits. It would go like this:

House of Representatives: 2 terms
Senate: 2 terms. Yes, I know this is 12 years, but once you have been seated in the Senate, you are ineligible to hold any other executive branch office.
Cabinet-level office: 4 years, spanning a maximum of two Presidential terms.

BTW: My wife is watching this "The Event" program on NBC. It's complete and total left-wing propaganda. All of the characters are cardboard cutouts, and the plot is a verbatim version of the leftist fever dream concerning Guantanamo. The worst of the bad guys is lookalike for Dick Cheney, who is the head of a vast conspiracy to suppress those Muslim freedom fighters.

When I came home from Viet Nam in late 1968 I was one pissed off muther fucker. After I got enough change together I went back to college. I worked nights as a bouncer in a college bar and I loved it when fights broke out so I could kick the shit out of some sorry ass. I didn't like anyone except those men I left in Viet Nam, the other Vets and all of their families. How could people smile and have fun when young men were having to fight for their lives in Viet Nam.

I was a democrat, because my parents were, but President Johnson changed my 2-S to a 1-A and drafted my ass. I learned to hate the democrats. The republicans were only for the rich, as my parents had taught me.

My uncles, all WWII vets and first generation Americans, and a man named Nathaniel Branden saved me from self destruction. They reminded me of freedom and the Constitution which is worth fighting and dieing for. I've worked in that direction and became a member of the Libertarian Party shortly after its birth. It has let me down over the years but it still holds most of the principles I can believe in.

Patrick, young man, you are full of shit. You are a liberal, progressive or any other name that that ilk hides behind today. All one has to do is look at who you so cowardly attack. Do those woman you so bitterly hate scare you little man. The source for your link above is a leftist - just check out his other stuff he/she puts on youtube. If those signs were truly what you believed them to be we would have heard and seen it every night on the news. Not from one lone wolf liberal on youtube.

We are doomed if we cannot get control of the government as was provided for by the Constitution.

I'm sure there will be a collapse. My only question is if it will be Atlas Shrugged, Mad Max, or some other kind of reset.

The other thing that makes a difference is technology. The death of HAM radio has an impact. But how does the advent the internet and cell technology change that?

As for Patrick -- you are a troll. And I'm sure wD will show up at some point. He's a troll as well.

I was in one of Nathaniel's weekly groups for ??? (two or three years) in the early 70's. I devoured all of his writings - still do, especially the Psychology of Self Esteem. I sat mostly silent and listened to others work. I tended to believe if I ever started my rage would over take everyone in the room. When I did work, he took it easy on me. I did learn that life offers me more than my ability to endure pain. That realization changed me dramatically.
Sadly, I took a three month leave of absence from my job in Century City to experience my newfound excitement in life, and upon my return I found out that Patricia (sp) had died and he was not holding groups. I had moved on to
Texas by the time he restarted. I did see him at a weekend intensive in Dallas when I was lived in Austin. My work was never finished and I was never quite rich enough to fly in like some did in the early 70s from New York. In hindsight, I should have focused on my phone phobia!!! with him first. I probably should have done this by email.

Cousin Dave: House of Representatives: 2 terms
Senate: 2 terms. Yes, I know this is 12 years, but once you have been seated in the Senate, you are ineligible to hold any other executive branch office.
Cabinet-level office: 4 years, spanning a maximum of two Presidential terms.

Those are good ideas, and very appropriate, too. And probably much simpler than my suggestions to implement. Since Congress is the entity that imposed a two-term limit on the President, it seems only fair that they be bound by the same restriction.

Radwaste: And when you say, "No, that shit needs to be barred completely", you enable censorship, pure and simple. Recognize that when you pass a law it applies to you, too.

Let's not get hysterical. It's your rally/fundraiser/protest march/whatever. You get to decide who's in it and what signs will be carried.

It's a privately funded event. Those organizing it do have the right to decide the message they want to communicate and those that wish to communicate something else, or do it in a manner that the organizers don't think would appropriate, they can elect to stay home and not participate or carry their signs somewhere else.

Are you telling me that if you were participating in a political protest, and you saw someone at the event carrying a sign calling Obama a "niggar [sic]," that you wouldn't object?

Dave B., I am sorry to hear about your difficulties since returning from Nam. We did let our Nam vets down in an inexcusable fashion. However, I do like to think we learned something from it, with folks now recognizing that we can still support our troops even if we don't sanction the cause they're being used for. But I understand if that's a small consolation.

I wish you all the best and commend you for having the courage to share your difficulties with us, in this often-hostile environment.

Cousin Dave, I didn't happen to hear of "The Event," so I looked it up on youtube.com and found a trailer for it. It's a whole series? I had assumed after reading your post that it was some made-for-TV movie.

Does your wife watch this show regularly? You poor man! In your place, I would consider that a good time to take my evening constitutional.

I think I did find the Cheney lookalike. The guy at 0:06 in this video, right? The one who says, "Mr. President, you're making a mistake...and everyone here agrees"?

"Are you telling me that if you were participating in a political protest, and you saw someone at the event carrying a sign calling Obama a "niggar [sic]," that you wouldn't object?"

As I have been trying to tell you - when that person is out and about, he or she is not loading weapons in the garage and planning to kill somebody instead - or supporting those who would in secret. They are out there where you can identify and choose your involvement. Wanna yell back? Go ahead. I won't shut either of you up. I spent years in the Navy to guarantee nobody else would shut you up.

So of course you want somebody else to be shut up.

I guess it's too much to expect you and others to realize that the reason people flock to quote celebrities is that they think they have no voice themselves. If you think of Rush Limbaugh as fat, or a fat-cat, or some other nasty thing, it does not change the issue he brings up. If you don't like redheads, cell-phone users don't magically consider your presence when they want to start shouting about their penile discharge in line at Target. If somebody is yelling at a rally with an offensive sign, that's what the 1st Amendment is for, especially with regard to the conduct of government, AND it doesn't relieve you of the duty to figure out what percent is signal and what is noise.

Enjoy the spectacle. Know that it isn't everything there is. And frequent thomas.loc.gov, so you can expose the liars.

Rad, yes, I do support the First Amendment. However if I'm paying for the permit, organizing the event, and have gone through all the necessary procedures to secure the space for my purposes for that particular length of time, I would consider it, for the duration, "private property." Not the space itself, but the event, and if anyone wishes to participate in my event, they abide by my rules. They're free to stand outside of it and carry whatever sick, depraved sign they want.

On the other hand, if no permit is involved and no organization, and it's just a bunch of folks converging on the spot to protest to something, it's all fair game and people can carry whatever cockamamie sign they want.

However, if I'm forced to endure whoever and whatever wants to show, and I were organizing the event, I would be sure to announce publicly or in the news or wherever, that I do not necessarily sanction all the sentiments expressed and in particular I would make sure that racially/culturally/religiously insensitive remarks are nothing I want in any way affiliated with this movement. And sentiments like that are most definitely not welcome.

You know...like the Teabaggers DIDN'T do?

I'm optimistic. I have to be. I've got seven decades of living left in front of me. Honestly, much as I love my country, I have no problem letting someone else be #1 (whatever the fuck that means). Change will happen and it will be hard. Change is always hard. And change doesn't happen until things suck so bad that not doing anything about it is unthinkable. So things will get bad. Then things will change and the pendulum will continue it's course. We live in interesting times and I'm determined to remain hopeful. Not naive, not head-in-the-sand, but hoprful.

"Rad, yes, I do support the First Amendment. However if I'm paying for the permit, organizing the event, and have gone through all the necessary procedures to secure the space for my purposes for that particular length of time, I would consider it, for the duration, "private property.""

And so you support the Minutemen speaking without interruption at UC Berkeley, etc.?

Wonderful.

Now - please notice, as I do, your continued use of the term, "teabagger".

Nice going. You diminish the effectiveness of any ideas you have with that.

Only in your mind, Rad, does it diminish what I have to say. Rush Limbaugh makes full and frequent use of the word "Feminazi," his own coinage. Yes, that truly diminishes what he has to say. It's been diminishing it so hard that he's been doing what he does for...how many years is it now?

And yes, if they pay for the space and want to make their views heard, and people want to attend, seems to me that their views should be heard? What are you afraid of if they're allowed to speak their minds? That some people might buy into their views without you screaming them down?

DaveB, thank you for your service. Patrick,Rush Limbaugh is a moron, and in no way a rep of the tea party

Only in your mind, Rad, does it diminish what I have to say.

Wow. You justify your position with a Rush Limbaugh citation?

And, after *I* take the position on free speech and introduce the Minutemen - who were improperly shouted down at Berkeley, that haven of progressive free speech (provided it's what the students want to hear) - you accuse me of wanting to suppress it?

Do you even read what you write? Man, your logic is absent.

Calling a name is just that. I'm not calling you a Rethuglican or a Dimocrat for your opinion, however petty and wrong you get.

Sometime or other, you should consider the pervasive hypocrisy of those who would have others think that theirs is the way of prosperity and reason and dignity, then use those names for those who disagree with them.

And reject it.

Sometime or other, you should consider the pervasive hypocrisy of those who would have others think that theirs is the way of prosperity and reason and dignity, then use those names for those who disagree with them.

That would require him to grow up. There is no evidence that he is willing to do so.

Which is why his first resort is always the ad hominem.

Rad, I had assumed you would have the sense to withdraw from this discussion, after your idiotic comparison. My bad.

Your analogy is idiotic. You suggest that because I would pay for a demonstration, get the appropriate permits, etc., I should have some say as to the signs that are carried at the demonstration is analogous to having the Minutemen Border Patrol speaking at a certain event, and the audience not being allowed to boo and heckle them?

No.

A more appropriate comparison would be to have someone actually mount the stage while the Minutemen were speaking and insist that they were part of the Minutemen and express a sentiment that the Minutemen might not agree with...such as "Deport anyone who is not a WASP," and maintain that that's a Minuteman position. Since the Minutemen includes members who are not Anglo-Saxon, that is not a sentiment that they would agree with.

Brian, child. Why don't you just post, "I'm horribly threatened by anyone who doesn't agree with me!" Because that's the only thing you've EVER said on this forum.

Hey, condescension. That always works. Not.