I like this approach

[jbour13]

Originally Posted by Sigaba

Three quick points. First, you may be well served to take Afchic's recommendation to heart. Thoughtful disagreements are welcome here--high-horsed grandstanding not so much.

Second, sarcasm is an impoverished response to thoughtful irony. (Do you really believe that a quiet professional would be anything but thoughtful and fair in his evaluation of anyone's character or performance? While it seems that neither the Columbia University or the NYU library systems have a single copy of Chosen Soldier, the most casual reading of that work will suggest the opposite conclusion.)

Third, if Senator Obama's supporters are so intent on Americans making economic sacrifices in the years to come for the sake of "change," "hope", and getting America "back on track", what is wrong about expecting them to lead by example?

That just happened.......

Well said sir!!

[dividebyzero]

Originally Posted by Sigaba

Three quick points. First, you may be well served to take Afchic's recommendation to heart. Thoughtful disagreements are welcome here--high-horsed grandstanding not so much.

Second, sarcasm is an impoverished response to thoughtful irony. (Do you really believe that a quiet professional would be anything but thoughtful and fair in his evaluation of anyone's character or performance? While it seems that neither the Columbia University or the NYU library systems have a single copy of Chosen Soldier, the most casual reading of that work will suggest the opposite conclusion.)

Third, if Senator Obama's supporters are so intent on Americans making economic sacrifices in the years to come for the sake of "change," "hope", and getting America "back on track", what is wrong about expecting them to lead by example?

Perhaps I've been misunderstood. I didn't feel like my response was "high-horsed grandstanding" or off-the-cuff sarcasm, so please accept my apology if it was interpreted that way. I have nothing but the utmost respect for the QPs, servicemen and women (and their family members) who post here, and don't intend to convey anything otherwise in my posting.

As far as me "getting my bearings" with regards to who's posting here, I registered in August 2007 and lurked for well over a year before posting. I guess I'm the odd man out given that I'm an Obama supporter, as I've noticed there's a plurality of McCain supporters here. I respect the reasons that many of you have for wanting McCain, and I won't try to dissuade anyone from those. My point is: if this were the other way around, and this was from a small business owner who supported Obama, I'd think the objections I raised would have been resoundingly agreed with.

As far as "Chosen Soldier" goes, no, NYU doesn't have a copy. I bought my own last year, found it a fascinating read, re-read it several times and now it's resting on my bookshelf right in front of me.

Again, I mean no disrespect or condescension. If I'm still coming off as a jerk, I'll retreat for another year or so.

[echoes]

Originally Posted by SF_BHT

I was just lectured and told to remove my McCain sticker from my Personal truck at the embassy today by a Senior State Official. I was polite and listened and then told him to Kiss my Ass and go away. He sent an e-mail to my Agency Head. I told him that you could not bring politics into the office and he could not talk to me any more and walked out. Next week could be fun here.

B,

Hope you gave them, "The Look!"

Holly :-)

[Warrior-Mentor]

Originally Posted by dividebyzero

"We strolled thru the parking lot and found twenty Obama bumper stickers on our employees’ cars. We have decided these folks will be the first to be laid off. "

Wow, being laid off for professed support for a political candidate sounds downright un-American to me, regardless of what side of the aisle they're on.

Getting laid off is certainly a "CHANGE."

After all, it's what they asked for...

[USANick7]

Originally Posted by dividebyzero

Perhaps because if there's reason to lay off any employees, criteria such as performance standards, reliability, and how they interact with other employees should take precedence over one's personal opinion over who should lead the country?

First: You do realize that it was a joke correct...

Second: What exactly do you see about Obamas tax plan that takes into consideration "performance standards, reliability, and how they interact with other employees."

It sounds to me that your own candidates method for redistributing wealth fails your own standards by which producers should be gauged...

Can you explain this contradiction?

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by dividebyzero

"We strolled thru the parking lot and found twenty Obama bumper stickers on our employees’ cars. We have decided these folks will be the first to be laid off. "

Wow, being laid off for professed support for a political candidate sounds downright un-American to me, regardless of what side of the aisle they're on.

Is the idea un-American as promoting an individual in the military based solely on his color or ethnicity?

Or how about allowing an individual free room & board to the finest college in America based on his color?

How about free money because people really don’t like to work? That just smacks of American.

Maybe if I was a Hispanic businessman I get a contract not because of my work but because I’m Hispanic? American?

Do not profess your idea of un-American to me, ever.

Team Sergeant

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by dividebyzero

"We strolled thru the parking lot and found twenty Obama bumper stickers on our employees’ cars. We have decided these folks will be the first to be laid off. "

Wow, being laid off for professed support for a political candidate sounds downright un-American to me, regardless of what side of the aisle they're on.

I have to agree with TS.

Who decides fairness at this business, the owner, or the People's Workers Committee?

They wanted change, now they have it.

Assuming that the story was true, what criteria would you use to react to an evolving business situation that some of your employees helped create?

Is affirmative action fair? Is a wrong done to favor one group fair to the others?

Is taxing those who work harder and longer to benefit those who choose not to, or who do not work at all fair?

How about taxing those who studied to get better grades, and who spent the extra four years or more at college to benefit those who dropped out in high school to live at home and deal drugs on the side? Is that fair?

How about grades? Should those who work harder to get an A really not get a B and the balance of the grade go to those who choose not to work harder for it? Maybe the minority should automatically get one letter grade higher, and those who are not minorities be docked a letter grade to make up for past inequities?

There is no such thing as fairness. What is fair to one is perceived as not fair to another.

Life is tough. It is tougher if you are stupid. And voting for a candidate who wants to rob from those who have worked to succeed in order to support those who do not (frequently through their own sloth) is a bad idea.

The trouble is, as soon as 50% of this nation, plus one, discover that they can vote themselves money from the public till, and are willing to do so, the game is over. They will do so till the nation and the economy collapse. We are just now seeing the tip of that iceberg.

Ther money that we are spending today is our children's debt and burden to carry. When the social security and Medicare/Medicaid debt comes due, it will break them. And no on has the balls to tell Grandma and Grandpa that. Least of all the Dims who helped create this idiocy, and who refuse to address it.

In the end, someone always has to pay. Is that not fair? Look at nature.

TR

[KClapp]

Originally Posted by dividebyzero

I guess I'm the odd man out given that I'm an Obama supporter, as I've noticed there's a plurality of McCain supporters here.

I believe you will find that it is not as much support for McCain as it is being very much against Obama. I learned to detest Marxism (in whatever form it might manifest itself) and was trained to fight it. I will continue both.

[SF_BHT]

Originally Posted by dividebyzero

Perhaps I've been misunderstood. I didn't feel like my response was "high-horsed grandstanding" or off-the-cuff sarcasm, so please accept my apology if it was interpreted that way. I have nothing but the utmost respect for the QPs, servicemen and women (and their family members) who post here, and don't intend to convey anything otherwise in my posting.

As far as me "getting my bearings" with regards to who's posting here, I registered in August 2007 and lurked for well over a year before posting. I guess I'm the odd man out given that I'm an Obama supporter, as I've noticed there's a plurality of McCain supporters here. I respect the reasons that many of you have for wanting McCain, and I won't try to dissuade anyone from those. My point is: if this were the other way around, and this was from a small business owner who supported Obama, I'd think the objections I raised would have been resoundingly agreed with.

As far as "Chosen Soldier" goes, no, NYU doesn't have a copy. I bought my own last year, found it a fascinating read, re-read it several times and now it's resting on my bookshelf right in front of me.

Again, I mean no disrespect or condescension. If I'm still coming off as a jerk, I'll retreat for another year or so.

I support McCain because He is the lesser of the 2 evils. Neither is perfect but Obama is a closet socialist or Marxist and if you are a history buff read about Hitlers and Stalin ans Mussolini's rise in the early years. You will find some amazing similarity's in their rhetoric and social programs. That is why I can not stand him. I have fought for years to protect this country and will not vote in a socialist type of president.
This is why you see us not liking BHO

[USANick7]

Originally Posted by USANick7

First: You do realize that it was a joke correct...

Second: What exactly do you see about Obamas tax plan that takes into consideration "performance standards, reliability, and how they interact with other employees."

It sounds to me that your own candidates method for redistributing wealth fails your own standards by which producers should be gauged...

Can you explain this contradiction?

Dividebyzero when you get a chance I would genuinely like an answer to my previous question posted above.

[SF_BHT]

Originally Posted by echoes

B,

Hope you gave them, "The Look!"

Holly :-)

I gave them something better. I filed a complaint...... That will tie them up for weeks to resolve it.

[echoes]

Originally Posted by SF_BHT

I gave them something better. I filed a complaint...... That will tie them up for weeks to resolve it.

B,

Honestly, good for you for standing up for what is right, if only more folks would, IMVHO.

(...and the WT 101 bottle will be shipped to you in time for Christmas!)

Holly

[HQ6]

Originally Posted by JumpinJoe1010

I heard this on a local radio show. If he (Obama) believed in fairness, the $100 million dollars he pulled in for his campaign this month, should be divided in half . Then John McCain should get his portion.

Moreover, how about spending some of that money paying for the programs he claims to support... or the illegal aunt Dems only believe in the redistribution of OTHER people's wealth.

Yesterday was our big Fall Festival party at the school where I teach. As a surprise for the kids and parents, I spent my own money to buy the materials to make festive picture frames and spent the last week of my (and my mother's) free time building them. I took my Kodak camera and photo printer to the school so I could take pictures of the kids during the costume parade and print them on the spot for the parents. One of the other teachers (an Obama supporter) said, "You should charge $5.00 a piece for those." I commented that I was just doing something nice for the parents and students. Besides some of our kids are on DSS subsidy and can't afford an extra $5.00, which I pointed out to her. She said, "You shouldn't spend your own money on this stuff." I just smiled and said, "Well, for now at least the redistribution of my wealth is my choice."

It floors me how Obama supporters are all about redistributing the wealth until it becomes a reality... which hits THEM in the pocketbook. My sister, an Obama supporter, just realized that if Obama drops the floor for the privileged upper class any more, she and her husband will be included in that group even though their income is only about par for the course in Los Angeles. When she called to bitch, I just laughed and said, "Did ya already vote??"

[Pulsar]

While actual Socialists deny Obama as being one, I think it would be interesting to do a quick review.

The top 5 percent that earn wages in America will have their income tax rates raised from 35 percent to 40 percent.

Part of this measure is to create social equality. In the "Communist Manifesto," Karl Marx wrote: "a heavy progressive or graduated income tax." Obama's tax plan has been accurately described as a form of class warfare. Punish those on the top and reward those on the bottom. I don't believe the government should force those that are financially successful to pay more. It sounds like Obama prefers a socialist-capitalist system.

We can then go further back to what Obama said in 2001: "If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court. I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order as long as I could pay for it I’d be o.k. But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that."

In "Dreams From My Father," Obama writes "To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist Professors and the structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy. When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet or set our stereos so loud that the walls began to shake, we were resisting bourgeois society's stifling constraints. We weren't indifferent or careless or insecure. We were alienated."

Even worse, in his second memoir "The Audacity of Hope," he mentions: "The arguments of liberals are more often grounded in reason and fact," and "Much of what I absorbed from the sixties was filtered through my mother, who to the end of her life would proudly proclaim herself an unreconstructed liberal."

It didn't just end there, he continued to embrace other people that followed this same ideology. Even the unrepented domestic terrorist William Ayers described himself by saying: "I am a Marxist." Jeremiah Wright, his reverend for 20 years, has been described by analysts with his black liberation theology as being rooted on Marxist ideas.

I could go on and on, but if looks like a duck, walks like a duck...

[USANick7]

Originally Posted by HQ6

Moreover, how about spending some of that money paying for the programs he claims to support... or the illegal aunt Dems only believe in the redistribution of OTHER people's wealth.

Yesterday was our big Fall Festival party at the school where I teach. As a surprise for the kids and parents, I spent my own money to buy the materials to make festive picture frames and spent the last week of my (and my mother's) free time building them. I took my Kodak camera and photo printer to the school so I could take pictures of the kids during the costume parade and print them on the spot for the parents. One of the other teachers (an Obama supporter) said, "You should charge $5.00 a piece for those." I commented that I was just doing something nice for the parents and students. Besides some of our kids are on DSS subsidy and can't afford an extra $5.00, which I pointed out to her. She said, "You shouldn't spend your own money on this stuff." I just smiled and said, "Well, for now at least the redistribution of my wealth is my choice."

It floors me how Obama supporters are all about redistributing the wealth until it becomes a reality... which hits THEM in the pocketbook. My sister, an Obama supporter, just realized that if Obama drops the floor for the privileged upper class any more, she and her husband will be included in that group even though their income is only about par for the course in Los Angeles. When she called to bitch, I just laughed and said, "Did ya already vote??"

This is an excellent point. It would seem that study after study conducted on the topic of voluntary giving demonstrates that conservatives give a far larger share of their time and money to charity. And not just to religious institutions. It has also been noted that the type of institutions given to by conservatives, tend to be those that work on the behalf of the homeless, hungry, destitute etc. While liberal donations tend to favor arts.

There is one reason, and one reason alone, someone supports socialism...it is because they presume that they will personally gain through the labors of another.