You are listening too: C&L Premiere: Rickie Lee Jones sings “Have You Had Enough?”
LIBERAL AND A CONSERVATIVE are we so different... YOU BET!
It seems to me Carolyn that you are trying to pick a fight with me. I am not mean-spirited. I don't want to fight with you and one of the reasons I responded to Adam's original post was that he sounded calm and reasonable. I think we had an enjoyable worthwhile discussion. You seem to enjoy the nonproductive name calling angle and it doesn't really interest me. I didn't bother to read your cut and paste writings from other people. I'm sure they are very well thought out and interesting, but I more want to know what YOU think in your own words.
Perhaps, if you would have
read the "cut and paste" articles you may have learned a little... I use that
method because there are a hellava lot of people out there in this big world
of ours who have educated themselves in certain subject matters and can say
what I feel so much better than I. But NO you don't wish to enlighten yourself
by reading "cut and paste" words of wisdom from other people... But don't feel
too
bad... your leader George W Bush doesn't wish to bother himself with other
people's words either.
Speaking of your own words, I don't appreciate being called a bigot. As
Yosemite Sam says, "Them's fightin' words!" But, like I said, I don't want to
fight, I want to talk and learn, and maybe teach...to a few open-minded types
(thanks, Adam).
Maybe, you in particular, may not be the full fledged bigot but many upstanding conservatives are. But honestly now, if you see a person that may not look like you or share your world view... tell me that you don't think less of them... We are all bigots to a point... black, white, yellow, red, religious, non-religious, irrational or rational. Unfortunately it's par for the course, part of our evolutionary trip through existence. It just is a matter of how severely we are damaged by this human phenomenon and how hard we fight not to allow it to take over our being.
To clarify my thoughts on the "America Dream", of course even if you work your fingers to the bone you may not succeed, but you absolutely will not and SHOULD not if you don't even lift a finger.
I really had to laugh at your "YOU MAY NOT
SUCCEED"... look at the statistics man, the percentage of successes are
miniscule... When I was a kid it took ONE PAYCHECK to raise a family...
now two wages are not enough... nof said!
Well that is sad for you to constantly come up
conservative. I am so glad my "conditioning" tilted towards liberal... I don't
know why that is, oh here's an idea, maybe it's because I walked a mile in a
liberals shoes... I was raised in a family with limited funds... so you see I've been there and
done that. I know what it feels like to not have enough food to eat or
enough fuel to heat your home. I know what it feels like to be shunned
because your clothes are wrinkled and worn-out. I know what it feels
like
to pretend you are not hungry and only eat half of your ten cent sandwich at
school so maybe, just maybe no one will suspect that you are poorer than a
church mouse, because in a conservative world, this is something to be ashamed
of...
click here if you want to know one of the meanings of
"poorer than a church mouse"... And I know what it's like to come
home from school and see a big SHERIFF'S notice hanging on the door of your
rented house because your mother ran out of money before the rent was paid. We
lived on a fixed social
security income (that my mother was getting THANKS TO A LIBERAL PRESIDENT) and
received a check once a month due to my father's death, he left Mom with six kids to
raise. I guess you might have labeled her lazy, since she could not work
outside the home and was part of a government entitlement program.
There are many Liberals who did not walk in my shoes, it doesn't take experience to make someone empathetic. A liberal doesn't exclude, like conservatives, liberals believe we are ALL in the same boat, with similar problems. Not so for a conservative, REMEMBER KATRINA... and Mama Bush's statement. Forgive me for this "cut and paste" but...HERE'S THE ACTUAL QUOTE:
“And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were
underprivileged anyway, so this — this [she chuckles slightly] is working
very well for them.” Now, I'm sure she didn't mean anything vicious by it, but that’s kind of the
point. Anybody who says that the flood is actually working out well for the
poor in New Orleans because it allowed them to come to Houston doesn’t have
any appreciation for what the working poor goes through in our country. From
this site:
donklephant.com
ALSO SEE MY PAGE I MADE ABOUT THIS THOUGHTLESS STATEMENT: CLICK HERE
Please don't label me as thinking that all the poor are lazy and all dems are commies. That's a broad statement that of course isn't true. I want to show the poor where the lake is and teach them to fish, not give them one of my fish every time they are hungry. I'll help them on the way, but if they continue to refuse to fish, well.... I think the level of help in that journey is the real issue when talking about the poor. It's a matter of finding the balancing point. In my view I see libs as wanting total wealth redistribution - take it all from those who have it and give it to those who don't. I imagine your view of conservatives is that we don't want to give a single penny. Well, of course, neither is true. Both sides want to help their fellow man. We just have to figure out how much.
That is the difference between you and me, you always
assume, there is a lake nearby stocked with fish. There are
generational poor and poverty is not their fault, it's kind of a miserable way of life
for them... Oh, we have come a long way
thanks to the help of liberals who took the chance of losing their power by
supporting the civil rights movements... But we have a long way to go, and the
way I see it... the conservatives fight tooth and nail to stop those
advancements and turn back the clock... They refuse to see the big picture and just pour money into
building more prisons.
Every child should be important in our school
system but they are not. The cracks these children fall through are big
and wide. If they don't make the grade the system just looks the other
way and they grow up to live their lives with almost no resources... In a
country as rich as ours, we should
treat each and every child like he is a winner no matter how laborious this
task may be. In the long run, we would have a society with hardly no
crime and a productive one to boot and maybe you would see more happy
faces with smiles of kindness instead of grimaces of unfulfilled emptiness.
There again, if you would have read the "cut and
paste" portions you would not need to ask me about my so called RANT. I
cried a million tears watching the killing spree unfold on that Amish
farm in Pennsylvania. All those little children murdered with LEGAL WEAPONS. They (the Amish) may forgive BUT I DON'T. If the
rifle and gun lobbies weren't so "successful" in their quest to allow weapons to be
bought and sold like so many pieces of candy... Those little ones might still
be alive. I don't blame the crazy crackpot who pulled the trigger, I
blame the NRA!!!
WHAT A JOKE... there is not a demand... there is only
one side being presented... The capitalist idea has been confiscated by BIG
CORPORATIONS who want to narrow down our newspapers, TV shows and media as a
whole into one BIG CONGLOMERATE controlled by their one sided ideas... IDEAS
really isn't the right word PROPAGANDA is more like it, they want control of
the masses so they can manipulate them for the sake of greedy profits... If that isn't
fascism, I don't know what is.
I hope, Carolyn, that we can discuss this more. If we really want to make America a better place we have to start talking substance.
I do want to make America better but I have no
power, except for my vote and THE LIBERAL
DEMOCRATS
will get that little itty bitty power... The money people can do more but with attitudes like yours "THE WHY
SHOULD WE "THE HAVES" SHARE WITH THOSE "HAVENOTS" In
other words, MY WORDS, I believe this is how they might choose to look at the
redistribution of their wealth..."I am not worried about
America because my part of town is
beautiful with green grass (taken care of by a havenot)
I have clear blue clean lakes
stocked with fish (taken care of by another havenot)
and a big mansion of a house
(cleaned and cared for by more havenots) Therefore, I
live in a beautiful America, so why worry...?"
Just be careful that the HAVES don't need to cross the street for some reason (maybe to find a havenot to work in one of their factories for as little as they can pay them...) They may then, get a whiff of the impoverished ghettos on the unbeautiful side of town.
I know I am generalizing but since the Republicans have been in office the ranks of the poor have grown, more and more middle class people have fallen into poverty because of piddling wages. And if the conservative corporations continue to control all the power in our government, we will fast become a two class America with only a handful at the top and many slaves at the bottom for the "top ones" to play with.
No I don't want to fight with you, but I know there
is NO WAY that I can change your mind. You are conditioned mi amigo, just
like the rest of us. For you and your conservative friends to see this world
without rose colored glasses it would take a catastrophic event... like
perhaps, a global warming that dries up your lake that is now stocked with dead
fish. Thank you for encouraging me to rant.
Happy to live in America where one can express dissent and not have a contract put out on your head... that is for now, anyway. Carolyn
PS: A friend of mine, read my post of the other day and asked me
WHAT'S THE POINT, ENLIGHTEN ME. I will tell her there is no need to
enlighten her, she has got it right, there really is no point, just a so called "rant" from me to
vent some of the anger and sadness I feel living in this NEO-CONSERVATIVE America
of today, with all its misery.
One last conservative action in pictures...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
reply to my post of
LIBERAL AND CONSERVATIVE...
It's the same ole, same ole... I think I will tell this conservative that there is no way he will ever take off his rose colored glasses and look at the world as it really is... He might just SCREAM at such a site, so he should keep em on and just go on his merry delusional way... Carolyn
Sorry I've not written in a while. Let's continue our discussion.
You're right. I should have read some more of your cut and pastes, so I did. There are some valid points that I could would like to dig into more deeply, but as a whole, I mostly disagreed with a lot of it. Please remember, just because I don't agree doesn't mean I'm ignorant of your message. I think that probably holds true for Geo. Bush as well. I assume you are not an angry teenager and understand the difference between "not listening" and "not agreeing". Try to pursuade me that your ideas are better than mine. I'm listening.
Regarding bigots, I had to look up a dictionary definition of the word to make sure that we are talking about the same thing. According to Wikipedia: A bigot is a prejudiced person who is intolerant of any opinions differing from their own. I am certainly not a bigot in any way. I take people as they come. Just like everyone though, the more I come in contact with them, the more I form an opinion about them. I am very tolerant of other opinions. I welcome them! It's much more interesting talking to those with differing opinions than robots who just repeat back what they think I want to hear.
I am concerned about your prejudices and bigotry though. You assume later in your post that I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth and wanted for nothing. You don't seem to want to accept and understand my opinion on things. NEVER MIND ALL THAT! I don't want to get into name calling. Let's get back to a discussion on issues.
Ok, so what are you saying when you say that now two wages are not enough to raise a family and the chances of "success" are miniscule. Should we just give up? Should government raise the minimum wage? If so, how much should it be? How about $10...well, why not $30? Hell, why not $300 an hour. That would be great! But who pays for that? Do you think money just magically appears in corporations' coffers? If they had to pay $300 an hour minimum wage, don't you think they'd pass that on to the consumers? And who are those consumers? Why, gee, it's the people they are paying $300 an hour. Now that money doesn't seem like as much. Like I said before, it's all a balancing act. If we could start with as much fairness as possible and rely on people's natural ablilities to succeed or fail, then that's as close as we can hope to be to utopia.
I'm sorry your father died. I have a lot of empathy for your predicament growing up and your family was certainly a worthy recipient for social aid. I don't want to take that away. I want to stop cheats of the system who put a bad taste in the mouths of those funding it. My only question about your family and mother would be: did you grow up on farm? I ask that because I'm curious why you had 5 siblings. If on a farm I could see you would need the labor. Otherwise, it seems a bit irresponsible to have so many kids with no life insurance to provide for them if something catastrophic happened like it did. This may shock you, but I shouldn't have to pay for your family's lack of planning. It's not about bigotry, it's about responsiblilty. Before your head explodes, think calmly about what I've said. I don't want to NOT help people, I just don't want to be taken advantage of. I want people to be responsible for themselves first. If they can't I want to help. If they refuse to, than that's a different story.
Regarding the second ammendment, I read what you pasted, and although that link quoted a lot of case law supporting armed citizens only in relation to a militia, I would bet that there are other cases to the contrary. Regardless of the case law, I am arguing the idea. I believe the second ammendment gives us our last and final guarantee of the remainder of our rights. Without the threat of an armed citizenry, the government would have no fears in abolishing all of our rights as they saw fit. As far as the Amish tragedy, the gun was not the important part of the story. He could have just as easily slashed their throats with a knife. It's horrible and tragic and I'm a little shocked you are blaming the NRA. You might as well blame the Chinese for inventing gun powder.
Well, that's all the time I have to write right now...I'll continue later. Hopefully you're still interested in talking.
Thanks,
snakelips
Thinkingblue
By
snakelips Yesterday at 1:34 am EDT