"The real "isolationists" who seek to destroy the peaceful cooperation among the people of the world are a group of people who might be called "instigationists." These are the egomaniacs and rent seekers mentioned above who instigate wars with their lying, conniving, and manipulating behavior. They typically have never participated in a war, or even the peacetime military, themselves, and are deservedly labeled as "chickenhawks" by many commentators."
The Curse of Instigationism
by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations – entangling alliances with none." -- Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address
"The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible . . . . It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world." -- George Washington's Farewell Address
Of all the Republican presidential candidates, only Ron Paul believes in and adheres to the American foreign policy philosophy of Washington and Jefferson. For this he, and all other like-minded statesmen over the past seven decades, have been misleadingly smeared as "isolationists." In this context, "isolationist" is truly Orwellian. By advocating peace and free trade, and only supporting just and defensive war, Ron Paul is advocating the maximum possible interaction between the peoples of the world.
It is the international division of labor and freedom of commerce that is in fact the very source of human civilization. All of the goods and services that we enjoy and utilize in our daily lives are the result of the efforts of hundreds, or thousands of people from all over the world who all specialize in something and, motivated by self interest, see to it that we get our bread, our beef, our beer, and everything else. It is restrictions on trade that are truly "isolationist," and nothing restricts mutually-advantageous trade among the people of the world more than war does. War leads to isolationism. People interact peacefully and beneficially in the free market; they kill each other when they are at war.
The core principle of economics is that as long as there is private property and reasonably free markets, individuals, in pursuing their own self interests, will specialize in whatever they are best at, selling those things to others, and using the proceeds to purchase things which they are not very good at producing. This is how the poorest of the poor can still survive and improve their lives. There is no "survival of the fittest" mentality attached to the free market. The poorest of the poor do not need to produce their own food, build their own houses, and manufacture their own clothing (nor does anyone else): the international division of labor allows them to rely on others to provide such things so that their lives are sustainable.
War, on the other hand, "bursts asunder" the international division of labor, as Ludwig von Mises wrote in his masterpiece, Human Action. For example, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the industrial revolution enhanced the standard of living of the average person more than the previous generations could ever have imagined. Wherever capitalism was allowed to flourish the common man enjoyed the fruits of the international division of labor as his standard of living rose while his hours of work per week declined (also thanks to the increased productivity of labor caused by capital investment under capitalism). World War I destroyed all of this, throwing country after country into an isolationist abyss by all but destroying the international division of labor. The people of the world who had benefited in countless ways from the efforts of strangers were isolated from those benefits as their living standards declined. Countries became isolated from the benefits of international trade while forming political alliances to wage war with. War being the opposite of capitalism, the end result was the death of millions and the destruction of capital on a massive scale.
Of course, there are always those who benefit from war: the monarchs, dictators, and "statesmen" who enjoy wallowing in "imperial glory," as Alexander Hamilton described it; the politically connected who enrich themselves through defense contracts; the academics and "journalists" who operate a pro-war propaganda machine for the state in return for notoriety, position, and money; and the state in general. War is the health of the state; nothing aggrandizes the state and all its functionaries more than war does. As a corollary, nothing destroys freedom and prosperity more than non-defensive war does, either. And as Murray Rothbard remarked in his essay entitled "Just War," the only truly just and defensive wars in American history have been the American Revolution and the South's defense against the invasion launched against it by the Republican Party in 1861-1865.
The real "isolationists" who seek to destroy the peaceful cooperation among the people of the world are a group of people who might be called "instigationists." These are the egomaniacs and rent seekers mentioned above who instigate wars with their lying, conniving, and manipulating behavior. They typically have never participated in a war, or even the peacetime military, themselves, and are deservedly labeled as "chickenhawks" by many commentators.
Abraham Lincoln made the strongest defense of Southern slavery that was ever made in his first inaugural address, even pledging to support its explicit enshrinement in the Constitution, while threatening war over tax collection in the same speech. Since he had no intention of freeing any slaves, and waging war over tax collection would have made him an international war criminal, he needed to invent an excuse for invading his own country (the very definition of treason under Article 3, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, by the way). So he fabricated the notion of a "perpetual union." The founding fathers, Lincoln implied, would have agreed with him that if any group of people ever attempted to leave the "voluntary" union that the founders created, the central government would have the "right" to invade those states, murder their citizens by the hundreds of thousands, bomb their cities, burn some of them to the ground, and plunder their wealth. This of course is what Lincoln's army did, all in the name preserving a seventy-year old political bargain. As for Fort Sumter, it is revealing that Lincoln wrote his naval commander, Gustavus Fox, after the incident (in which no one was injured, let alone killed) thanking him for his assistance in goading the South Carolinians into firing the first shot and instigating a war.
The Spanish-American war was purely a war of imperialism and never had any prospect of providing any benefit whatsoever to the average American. That is why the great late nineteenth-century libertarian scholar William Graham Sumner penned his famous essay, "The Conquest of the United States by Spain." The Spanish-American War turned America into an empire, just like the Spanish empire, instead of the constitutional republic of the founders. But egomaniacal blowhards like Teddy Roosevelt were able to build their political careers out of this deranged adventure.
Nor did Americans have any business intervening in World War I, the most colossal disaster of the twentieth century, if not of all centuries. All that was "accomplished," as Jim Powell writes in Wilson's War, was the strengthening of the power of the communists in the Soviet Union and the rise of the Nazis in Germany. But there was plenty of power, glory, and riches for the political class and all of its supporters. Defense contractors became rich beyond their wildest dreams; lowly government bureaucrats became powerful economic dictators; and the statist intellectual class began to think of itself as a class of grand social engineers. The so-called progressives were almost unanimously pro-war, for instance, because of their twin beliefs that: 1) government can and should be used to create heaven on earth, in the U.S. and in Europe; and 2) wartime central planning, Soviet style, could be a demonstration project for Soviet-style central planning of the peacetime American economy after the war.
After eight years of complete failure in ending the Great Depression, with has massive interventionist policies only making things worse, FDR manipulated the Japanese into invading Pearl Harbor, as Robert Stinnett documents with great care in his book, Day of Deceit: The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor. Entering the European war, in FDR's mind, would be the Mother of all Government Spending Programs which would surely end the depression and at least divert the public's attention away from his abysmal failures. After all, the reputation and legacy of Franklin Roosevelt was at stake. (The war did not end the depression; it only ended unemployment because of the conscription of more than ten million men when only some five million Americans were unemployed in the late 1930s).
The Instigationist cabal was responsible for lying America into the disastrous Vietnam War, which caused the senseless and needless death of 55,000 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese. Then of course there is the latest "victory" of the instigationists, the War in Iraq, which even the CIA admits was based on a lie – that Saddam Hussein had "weapons of mass destruction" that threatened the U.S. Thousands of American soldiers have died in vain there, while hundreds of thousands more were maimed for life and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed. It was all for nothing as far as the average American taxpayer is concerned.
Think about the sick history of instigationism the next time you see a smirking and smarmy William Kristol, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, or any other political hack urging the invasion of Iran, Syria, North Korea, or any other faraway place where they believe American bombs should be dropping.
http://lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo219.html
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Ron Paul – Civil Liberty's Last Hope
Ron Paul – Civil Liberty's Last Hope
Russia Today
Profile Muslims. Bring on the drones. Did we learn anything else from last night's GOP debate on CNN? Well, once again, it appears as if Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul is the only candidate that wants to protect the liberties of Americans.
Speaking from DAR Constitution Hall in Washington DC Tuesday night, Paul and his peers discussed the topics of national security and foreign policy. While it's been no secret that some of the more hawkish candidates are crazy for increasing defense spending and upping the American military presence overseas, Texas Congressman Ron Paul once again managed to separate himself from the rest of the pack by coming off as perhaps the only candidate truly committed to keeping liberty and freedom in place for Americans.
Right from the get-go, Paul used the allotted time to introduce himself to the audience by saying that the issues on hand last night were of great importance to the country. According to the congressman, America's wars – which he deemed "needless" and "unnecessary" – not just add to the deficit of the country but also undermine the prosperity and liberty of America.
Perhaps most detrimental to those ways of American life, however, is the Patriot Act. While Newt Gingrich rallied to extend the legislation longer and Rick Perry and Herman Cain also offered their support for the controversial bill, Paul put himself apart from his fellow candidates by condemning the act.
"I think the Patriot Act is unpatriotic because it undermines our liberty," Paul said. "I'm concerned, as everybody is, about the terrorist attack . . . Terrorism is still on the books, internationally and nationally, it's a crime and we should deal with it." Paul added, however, that the framers of the Constitution warned the country not to "sacrifice liberty for security," yet "Today it seems too easy that our government and our congresses are so willing to give up our liberties for our security."
"I have a personal belief that you never have to give up liberty for security. You can still provide security without sacrificing our Bill of Rights," added Paul, to which the candidate was met with a round of applause.
According to former House speaker Newt Gingrich, however, there can be a happy medium where Americans only lose some of those liberties.
"We'll try to find that balancing act between our individual liberties and security," said Gingrich.
While Paul went on to say that that establishing such a tyrannical regime over the American people could be an efficient way of curbing crime, it would also be a great way to end freedom.
"You can prevent crimes by becoming a police state," Paul said. "So if you advocate the police state, yes, you can have safety and security and you might prevent a crime, but the crime then will be against the American people and against our freedoms."
According to other candidates, however, those sacrifices are necessary for the protection against terrorism, something they made out to be a constant threat. "The terrorists have one objective that some people don't seem to get. They want to kill all of us," said Herman Cain. To handle that threat, Cain proposed that "we should use every mean possible to kill them first or identify them first."
Cain neglected to specify what he did actually want to do first – kill suspected terrorists or identify them – but others made it clear that in-depth analyses of alleged terrorists wasn't really necessary for the safety and security of American citizens. Instead, rather, the government should just go after Muslims.
When quizzed by moderator Wolf Blitzer on how to deal with ethnic profiling, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum said that such a practice was crucial in the War on Terror, and that the government should not just continue to profile people, but specifically go after Muslims.
"The folks that are most likely to be committing these crimes," Santorum suggested should be the target of profiling. "Obviously Muslims would be someone you'd look at, absolutely."
Similarly, Cain proposed what he called "targeted identification." While he would not come out and say that Muslims specifically need to be profiled (although he has attacked them in the press repeatedly), he did declare that "If you take a look at the people who have tried to kill us, it would be easier to figure out exactly what that identification profile looked like."
To Paul, however, none of these tactics for a war on terror seem like an appropriate response.
"That's digging a hole for ourselves," said Paul. "What if they look like Timothy McVeigh? You know, he was a pretty tough criminal."
"I think we're using too much carelessness in the use of words that we're at war. I don't remember voting on – on a declared – declaration of war. Oh, we're against terrorism. And terrorism is a tactic. It isn't a person. It isn't a people. So this is a very careless use of words. What about this? Sacrifice liberties because there are terrorists? You're the judge and the jury? No, they're suspects."
Paul added that the executive powers established through the Patriot Act and other War on Terror legislation has made American citizens "vulnerable to assassination," hinting at the reason execution of two US men with alleged al-Qaeda ties that were killed by drone strikes overseas.
The War on Terror isn't the only unnecessary according to Paul, either. Responding to Texas Governor Rick Perry's support of the War on Drugs, Paul said, "That's another war we ought to cancel . . . And that's where the violence is coming from."
"I think the federal war on drugs is a total failure."
"So the drug war is out of control," added Paul. "I fear the drug war because it undermines our civil liberties. It magnifies our problems on the borders. We spend – like, over the last 40 years, $1 trillion on this war. And believe me, the kids can still get the drugs. It just hasn't worked."
http://rt.com/usa/news/paul-war-security-liberties-061/
Re: Why Is Immigration Illegal Anyway?
Ta dah!
My grandfather was a LEGAL immigrant (Eire)
On Nov 25, 7:48 pm, plainolamerican <plainolameri...@gmail.com> wrote:
> It doesn't
> --
> so true ... just follow our immigration laws ... we love those who
> want to be Americans
>
> On Nov 25, 9:22 am, GregfromBoston <greg.vinc...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Why does the law make it illegal to migrate here?
>
> > It doesn't- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
Re: A muslim author/philosopher challegens Americans at Ground Zero (video)
The bottom line is quite simple for any argument as it
relates to Arab , Israeli relations. The Arabs are a culture of hate
for Jews and never intend to make peace with them. History proves Edip
Yuksel wrong time & time again. One need only read the 1928 Muslim
Brotherhood Manifesto. If it had not been for the Western countries
during WWII fighting for the worlds freedom the Arabs would be slaves
to the Germans, even with the Brotherhood having assisted them in war
crimes against the Jews.
relates to Arab , Israeli relations. The Arabs are a culture of hate
for Jews and never intend to make peace with them. History proves Edip
Yuksel wrong time & time again. One need only read the 1928 Muslim
Brotherhood Manifesto. If it had not been for the Western countries
during WWII fighting for the worlds freedom the Arabs would be slaves
to the Germans, even with the Brotherhood having assisted them in war
crimes against the Jews.
On Nov 26, 10:22 am, Keith In Tampa <keithinta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Good Morning from Tampa Florida Edip,
>
> I have ony watched a portion of your video, and seen only a smidgeon of
> your writings.
>
> I'll take your challenge, albeit I would like for the stakes to be a
> little higher. How about we debate, "*mano-y-mano*", and the loser cover
> all expenses of the winner?
>
> I am prepared to come to New York, or for you to come to Tampa Florida.
> If you come to Tampa, I can arrange for public broadcasting on cable
> television, but either way, our debate will be broadcast on You-Tube.
>
> Put your money where your mouth is.....
>
> Respectfully,
>
> KeithInTampa
> KeithInTampa@gmail,com
>
>
>
> On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 2:45 AM, Democrat <edipyuk...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Edip Yuksel chellenges fellow Americans at Ground Zero.
>
> >http://www.edip4president.com/challenge/- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
Re: Showdown at Neocon Central
No matter how you slice it MJ, only a small minority agree with
Ron Paul, the greater majority don't. Though his views may resound for
some like you they are not in sync with the reality of the world as it
is today. Ron Paul has no chance of ever being nominated.
Ron Paul, the greater majority don't. Though his views may resound for
some like you they are not in sync with the reality of the world as it
is today. Ron Paul has no chance of ever being nominated.
On Nov 25, 4:47 pm, MJ <micha...@america.net> wrote:
> ""I've spent years studying this stuff," he adds, and one could well believe he had indeed spent years learning how to start out with a libertarian premise –"It's desperately important that we preserve your right to be innocent until proven guilty"– and coming out the other end with a purely authoritarian conclusion. This, as I've pointed out in the past, isBizarro Conservatism– a doctrine that preaches the preciseoppositeof what the traditional "less government," pro-individual rights conservativesused tobelieve."Showdown at Neocon CentralNewt Gingrich vs. Ron PaulbyJustin Raimondo, November 25, 2011
> The Republican "national security"debatesponsored byNeocon CentraltheAmerican Enterprise Instituteand theHeritage Foundationcaptured perfectly the intellectual and political bankruptcy of the Republican party when it comes to foreign policy. Here the party's panderingdemagoguery, reflexiveultra-nationalism, and visceralhostility to libertywas on full display in all its exhibitionistic belligerence. It was only natural, therefore, that the first question was asked by disgraced former US Attorney GeneralEdwin Meese, who was forced to resign as Reagan's AG as a result of his complicity in obtaining big defense contracts for a phony "minority"-owned company. Here is his "question":"At least 42 terrorist attacks aimed at the United States have been thwarted since 9/11. Tools like the Patriot Act have been instrumental in finding and stopping terrorists. Shouldn't we have a long range extension of the investigative powers contained in that act so that our law enforcement officers can have the tools that they need?"What a set up forNewt Gingrich! And he certainly took advantage of it: naturally he was given the first answer –with poor Herman Cain having outlived his usefulness and been unceremoniouslydumped, Newt is the "mainstream" media'snew darling. That's because he can always be counted on to reiterate the neocons' favorite talking points, and on this occasion he did not disappoint:"BLITZER: Speaker Gingrich, only this weekend there was an alleged terror plot uncovered in New York City. What do you think?
> "GINGRICH: Well, I think that Attorney General Meese has raised a key point, and the key distinction for the American people to recognize is the difference between national security requirements and criminal law requirements.
> "I think it's desperately important that we preserve your right to be innocent until proven guilty, if it's a matter of criminal law. But if you're trying to find somebody who may have a nuclear weapon that they are trying to bring into an American city, I think you want to use every tool that you can possibly use to gather the intelligence.
> "The Patriot Act has clearly been a key part of that. And I think looking at it carefully and extending it and building an honest understanding that all of us will be in danger for the rest of our lives. This is not going to end in the short run. And we need to be prepared to protect ourselves from those who, if they could, would not just kill us individually, but would take out entire cities."In less than 200 words, Newt managed the wholesale bifurcation of American law into two parallel tracks, one that acknowledges how "desperately important" it is to "preserve your right to be innocent until proven guilty," and the other which recognizes no such necessity – and, in fact, negates it.
> Oh, isn't he glib – isn't heclever? With a mere sleight of hand he has obviatedtheConstitutionand upended the legal and moral traditions of two hundred years. What an achievement! He smiles agreasy, easy grin,well-pleased with himself. The audience dutifully applauds.
> "I've spent years studying this stuff," he adds, and one could well believe he had indeed spent years learning how to start out with a libertarian premise –"It's desperately important that we preserve your right to be innocent until proven guilty"– and coming out the other end with a purely authoritarian conclusion. This, as I've pointed out in the past, isBizarro Conservatism– a doctrine that preaches the preciseoppositeof what the traditional "less government," pro-individual rights conservativesused tobelieve.
> Newt'sclash with Ron Paulover this issue defined the parameters of the subsequent hour or so: this was the firstPaul-centricdebate, preceded by hisrise in the pollsand his increasingly important role as theideologicalcatalystof this GOP presidential primary. Once again, as in the economic sphere – with even former Federal Reserve board memberHerman CainechoingPaul's callto audit the Fed – the Texas congressman set the tone of the discussion with his ringing defense of the Founders' concept of what freedom means:"I think the Patriot Act is unpatriotic because it undermines our liberty. I'm concerned, as everybody is, about the terrorist attack. Timothy McVeigh was a vicious terrorist. He was arrested. Terrorism is still on the books, internationally and nationally, it's a crime and we should deal with it.
> "We dealt with it rather well with Timothy McVeigh. But why I really fear it is we have drifted into a condition that we were warned against because our early founders were very clear. They said, don't be willing to sacrifice liberty for security.
> "Today it seems too easy that our government and our congresses are so willing to give up our liberties for our security. I have a personal belief that you never have to give up liberty for security. You can still provide security without sacrificing our Bill of Rights."Newt thought he'd won by making a dramatic pause and intoning:
> "Yes. Timothy McVeigh succeeded. That's the whole point."Looking like a Halloween pumpkin left out in the rain, Gingrich went into novelist mode,scaring the childrenwith the specter of "losing a major American city" and bringing his fist down hard on the podium as he thundered"I want a law that says, you try to take out an American city, we're going to stop you!"Paul's answer wasperfect:"This is like saying that we need a policeman in every house, a camera in every house because we want to prevent child-beating and wife-beating. You can prevent crimes by becoming a police state. So if you advocate the police state, yes, you can have safety and security and you might prevent a crime, but the crime then will be against the American people and against our freedoms. And we will throw out so much of what our revolution was fought for. So don't do it so carelessly."In short: why not just set up a dictatorship and be done with it? Paul is too polite to point out that Newt would make theperfectdictator, strutting about the stage and puffing out his chest like a peacock on parade – so I will.
> I thought I detected an elegiac note in Paul's remarks, a sadness in his voice as he pleaded with his audience not to throw away the Founders' gift "so carelessly." As if he fears that they probably will, anyway.
> There is reason for pessimism: we are, after all, living in a time when a half-bakedprofessionalbloviatorlike Gingrich is considered a conservative "intellectual." With the help of the "mainstream" media – which would like nothing more than to see the singularlyunattractiveandbaggage-ladenGingrich up againsttheir heroObama – the Newtster is having his moment in the sun. It will, however, be a brief moment – and he's not really running for president anyway.Everyone knowshis campaign has been a vanity project and moneymaking operation from the outset.
> Quietlygaining traction, the growth and development of the Paulian movement occurring largelybeneaththe media's radar, the Paul campaign has achieved tremendous gains for the peace movement in America. No matter how it ends, it has created a new chapter in the history of the foreign policy discourse in this country: anti-interventionism is no longer considered the exclusive preserve of the "radical" left. For the first time since the 1930s, the anti-imperialist tendency in American conservatism is in the ascendant: theOld Rightisback, more organized andintellectually coherentthan ever.
> This is a development the neocons have longfeared, and the viciousattackson Paul coming fromthose quartersare bound to increase in number and intensity as the campaign succeeds in becoming theconservative alternativeto thesupposedly"inevitable" Mitt Romney.
> Gingrich's job in all this is to act as the "moderator," the Deep Thinker who polices the discussion, always on the lookout for any deviation fromneoconservative orthodoxy. His role-playing is underscored by thepost-debatespeculationover whether he imperiled his rising star by taking a "soft" stand on immigration.
> It may seem passing strange that someone so concerned about a nuclear bomb being smuggled into a major American city would take such a lax attitude about policing our borders. But that's the Newtster for you: he can think up an argument foranything– even taking$1.6 millionfromFreddie Macwhile at the same timeclaiming to be in favor of abolishing it! I tell you, the man's a genius – and if you don't believe that, then just ask him. After all, he's "spent years studying this stuff."
> There's nothing new in Newt's stance on immigration: he's been saying the same thingfor years. He said at the debate he's "willing to take the heat" on this issue because the neocons – who see America as a "universal nation," like Rome, Great Britain, and the other great empires of the past – have always been for amnestying so-called illegal aliens. On the other hand, Paul echoes the concerns of the Republican base in wondering why, when we've lost control of our own borders, we're so concerned aboutsecuringthe border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
> Every conservative aspirant but Paul has had his moment in the media spotlight as the rightist "alternative" to the Inevitable Romney – not, you'll note, on account of any actual votes being cast, except in widely variable polls of oftentimes dubious provenance, but largely due to the amount of media attention lavished on them. Cain waspropelledinto the spotlight, and just as quickly abandoned: Perry wasonce hyped, and he too fell by the wayside – not to mentionBachman(andPalin) before them.
> Now it's Paul's turn – but his rise is coming about in quite a different way, which is why it may prove more lasting than the others. That's because his steadily rising poll numbers are due entirely to his own efforts, and the efforts of his supporters: theantiwar libertariancertainly has not gotten a push from the "mainstream" media. Quite the opposite: it got to the point where Jon Stewart was able to write an entirecomedy routinearound how deliberately the media was ignoring Paul.
> The media Establishment'scurrent lineon Ron Paul is that he is preparing a third-party run: that way, they don't have to even discuss the prospect that he could mount an effective challenge to Romney. Yet the new GOP primary rules, which giveproportional representationinstead of "winner take all," are conducive to Paul's steady-as-it-goes come-from-behind campaign strategy – and Iowa, where organization and dedication count most of all, is now in Paul'ssights. Independentscan votein the New Hampshire primary, and the momentum of a Paul victory in Iowa could bring in an influx of antiwar voters and give him a breakthrough victory in the "Live Free or Die" state.
> Both Paul and the foreign policy issue have gotten short shrift this election season, at least so far – but so what else is new? Insofar as the latter is concerned, inattention to what would seem to be an important issue has been the norm formany years. That's why the American people woke up, one day, to find themselves in possession of aworld empire, without having any memory of having voted on it or consented to it in any way.
> This election, however, may turn out different. It's a long way to Election Day, 2012 – and in politics, a year might as well be a century. A lot can happen: for example, Israel couldstrike at Iranand drag us into a war that all the GOP candidates but one would reflexively support. Not that the Israelis would eventhinkof trying to influence the outcome of the election through such a ploy – or would they?http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/11/24/showdown-at-neocon-central/
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
Re: Showdown at Neocon Central
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
Re: A muslim author/philosopher challegens Americans at Ground Zero (video)
Good Morning from Tampa Florida Edip,
I have ony watched a portion of your video, and seen only a smidgeon of your writings.
I'll take your challenge, albeit I would like for the stakes to be a little higher. How about we debate, "mano-y-mano", and the loser cover all expenses of the winner?
I am prepared to come to New York, or for you to come to Tampa Florida. If you come to Tampa, I can arrange for public broadcasting on cable television, but either way, our debate will be broadcast on You-Tube.
Put your money where your mouth is.....
Respectfully,
KeithInTampa
On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 2:45 AM, Democrat <edipyuksel@gmail.com> wrote:
Edip Yuksel chellenges fellow Americans at Ground Zero.
http://www.edip4president.com/challenge/
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
Forbes Top 20 Richest 1% Living In America: 17 Of The Top 20 Are Democrats! Surprised? They ARE The Big Liars … The Party Of Wall Street …The Party Of GE … The Party Of Communism, And The Party Of The Banking Cabalists!
WordPress.com
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
**JP** AAJ K COLUMN 26 NOVEMBER'2011
Kashif Chatha
Sheikhupura
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "JoinPakistan" group.
You all are invited to come and share your information with other group members.
To post to this group, send email to joinpakistan@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com.pk/group/joinpakistan?hl=en?hl=en
You can also visit our blog site : www.joinpakistan.blogspot.com &
on facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Join-Pakistan/125610937483197
Re: Thank Our Troops By Bringing Them Home
Thank Our Troops By Bringing Them Home
----
trying to civilize the middle east is folly
----
trying to civilize the middle east is folly
we don't need their oil or the security of israel
choose sides carefullly
On Nov 24, 5:54 pm, MJ <micha...@america.net> wrote:
> Thank Our Troops By Bringing Them HomeNovember 23rd, 2011
> by R. Lee Wrights
> BURNET, Texas (Nov. 24) -- Once again, we re entering a season of thanksgiving and joy, when Americans gather with their friends and families to give thanks for their blessings and prosperity, enjoy the camaraderie and warmth of being with those they love, and pray for peace and a better world. It saddens me to know that hundreds of thousands of Americans once again won t be able to be with their families at this special time of year. For far too many of the men and women of our Armed Forces serving in far-off lands, this won t be their first holiday season away from home -- nor will it be their last. Sadder still is that for some of those brave souls serving their country, this could be the last holiday season of their lives. That should not be.
> In the spirit of the season, there are a multitude of organizations and thousands of people who unselfishly endeavor to make the holidays a little brighter for our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines away from home. I ve been a recipient of their graciousness, and it did make my holiday a little better. Yet while I greatly admire and respect their sincerity and efforts, nothing they can do -- nothing anyone can do -- can truly make up for being separated from your family and loved ones on any occasion, for any reason.
> Nothing can replace the precious memories lost by a young father or mother who can only see their child celebrate their first Thanksgiving and Christmas via a Skype call. Nothing can ease the pain of parents who wonder whether their son or daughter will be home for Thanksgiving or Christmas next year -- or will even live to see it. No electronic marvel, no taped messages aired on TV and radio, no CARE package however lovingly wrapped, no sumptuous meal of turkey with all the trimmings, however fondly prepared, can substitute for actually being home for the holidays.
> On this Thanksgiving, I not only will give thanks for the service and sacrifice of the members of our Armed Forces, but I will also renew my promise to support our troops by bringing them home. The greatest gift our nation can give to the brave men and women who have pledged their lives in our nation s defense is to honor that commitment by never again sending them into harm s way capriciously, unnecessarily, for political gain or to line the pockets of those who profit from their sacrifice. America is indeed the home of the brave and we should bring the brave home so that they can enjoy the blessings of liberty in the bosom and safety of their families.http://www.independentpoliticalreport.com/2011/11/lee-wrights-thank-our-troops-by-bringing-them-home/
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
Muslim Bagheads must think they own the NYC subway, too?
Let's have a "Foot-Stompers" parade at prayer time on the subways. Pipe in John Phillip Sousa to stomp by.
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
Re: Ron Paul vs. the Rest of the GOP Presidential Field on Foreign Policy
so you see RP's foreign policy as ignorant ... we see your
interventionist policy as imperialist
interventionist policy as imperialist
do you want to be happy or do you want to be right?
On Nov 24, 9:48 pm, Keith In Tampa <keithinta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dr. Paul clearly made his bed during the last debate, sealing his fate as a
> crackpot. Paul's political career is doomed, even his chances as a cabinet
> member and sharing his fiscal insight will be no more.
>
> .
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 24, 2011 at 6:47 PM, MJ <micha...@america.net> wrote:
>
> > *Ron Paul vs. the Rest of the GOP Presidential Field on Foreign Policy
> > * Brian <http://reason.com/people/brian-doherty> Doherty<http://reason.com/people/brian-doherty>| November 23, 2011
>
> > Without Ron Paul in the mix, last night's debate would have been more a
> > bidding up of hostility to foreigners (except Israel) than any actual arena
> > of opposing ideas on the future of American foreign policy.
>
> > Paul started off talking of "needless and unnecessary wars" making us less
> > safe and beggering our coffers; probably slipped by using Timothy McVeigh
> > as an example of how normal legal procedures can deal with terrorism (and I
> > wish he'd have challenged Ed Meese on the factual significance of these
> > alleged 42 terror assaults that Patriot Act has stopped; aren't they in
> > fact mostly ginned-up nonsense such as Jacob Sullum blogged about<http://reason.com/blog/2011/11/23/is-the-government-catching-terroris...>earlier today?) since it allowed Gingrich to claim that the real goal are
> > legal procedures that make sure nothing bad ever happens. Paul had a good
> > rescue by stressing the threat to liberty of priviliging stopping crimes
> > above any other concern, but I wonder how resonant such concerns are.
>
> > Paul reminded us that we might not want to give the president the sole
> > power to assassinate Americans on his say so; that Israel can likely make
> > the most intelligent decision on their own as to whether to start attacking
> > Iranian alleged nuclear site and we should neither be dictating such
> > decisions nor committing to help with them; that trying to buy friendship
> > overseas with foreign aid doesn't always work; that foreign aid isn't
> > necessary for overseas development and in fact is often more like making
> > poor people here support rich people over there; and kept reminding his
> > fellow alleged fiscal conservatives that foreign policy has real financial
> > costs that they are never thinking of.
>
> > Paul also last night hit the drug war as "another war we ought to cancel,"
> > at length, concluding "the federal war on drugs is a total failure" with
> > specific hat tips toward the absurdity of federal assaults on states with
> > medical pot; and that meddling in the Middle East is what gins up terror
> > against us in the Middle East, with his usual calls to empathetic
> > understanding, considering what we would think/do if other countries did to
> > us what we blithely do to other countries--"it's just looking for trouble,
> > why don't we mind our own business?"
>
> > Paul's most summational quotable quote, applicable to not only foreign
> > policy but so much about the current plans and ambitions of the U.S.
> > government: "It's a road to disaster. We better wake up."
>
> > Here's the Paul-centric highlights clip from last night:
>
> > *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZAW2spbZys&feature=player_embedded
>
> > *In other Paul observations and news:
>
> > *Paul as the only voice last night against racial profiling<http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/162771/ron-paul-the-only-candidate-to...>in the name of the war on terror.
>
> > *AEI sums up the debate<http://www.aei.org/article/foreign-and-defense-policy/republican-hope...>it co-sponsored, giving as much attention to Jon Huntsman's wan
> > anti-nation-building comments as to Paul's concerted assault on the roots
> > of GOP and American foreign policy.
>
> > *Glenn Greenwald from *Salon* attacks the nature and character<http://www.salon.com/2011/11/23/what_endless_war_looks_like/singleton/>of the interlocutors at the debate, and hat-tips to Paul's rare sense:
>
> > It was like a carnival of war criminals, warmongers, torturers, and
> > petty tyrants: Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese, best known for his 1980s
> > war on pornography, was dredged up to demand that the government be vested
> > with more Patriot Act powers (because he's a believer in individual liberty
> > and small government); there was long-time supporter of Ahmad Chalabi<http://www.aei.org/article/foreign-and-defense-policy/regional/middle...>and a war
> > on Iran <http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/pletka_danielle>,
> > Danielle Pletka; Iraq War propagandist and torture<http://washingtonindependent.com/39988/more-on-wolfowitz-and-torture> regime
> > architect<http://washingtonindependent.com/39988/more-on-wolfowitz-and-torture>Paul Wolfowitz; and Fred Kagan of the mighty
> > Kagan warrior family<http://www1.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/10/16/neonepotism/index....>.
> > But remember: as the supremely "objective" CBS' Bob Schieffer made clear in
> > his snickering, scornful interview on
> > <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXvHPkRHBvk&feature=feedu> Face the Nation<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXvHPkRHBvk&feature=feedu>this weekend, it is Ron Paul who is crazy and bizarre for suggesting that
> > U.S. aggression played a role in motivating 9/11 and for being worried that
> > bellicose actions against Iran are making things worse and may lead to war.
>
> > *From Paul's campaign web site blogger Jack Hunter, a set of media stars giving
> > Paul props<http://www.ronpaul2012.com/2011/11/23/paul-vs-romney-tweets-from-last...>for schooling Romney last night on the myth of defense cuts.
>
> > *The Christian Science Monitor from a few days ago collecting examples of
> > major media now taking Paul seriously<http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/President/2011/1120/Ron-Paul-s...>,
> > in a story that was front-page linked on Drudge. While I don't follow
> > Drudge meticulously, various Paulistas believe this might have been his
> > first big-time positive play for Paul on that site, which they see in
> > itself as a further sign of Paul's reputational rise.
>
> > *In a poll commissioned by Paul-supporting superpac RevolutionPAC, Paul
> > actually is winning in Iowa<http://www.revolutionpac.com/2011/11/new-iowa-poll-places-ron-paul-fi...>with 25 percent. Here's why they think their poll is better than others:
>
> > The TeleResearch survey is the first to incorporate disaffected
> > Democrats and Independents who will not vote to reelect Obama and will
> > instead crossover to participate in the Iowa Republican Caucus, as well as
> > likely Republican caucus-goers.
> > Survey sample size is approximately 2,900, with almost 700 likely
> > Republican caucus-goers. Indiana's TeleResearch Corp., which has been
> > polling voters for more than 18 years, reports that the margin of error is
> > less than 3%.
> > Factoring in both Republican caucus-goers and disaffected Democrats and
> > Independents who've indicated that they will participate in the Iowa
> > Republican Caucus, Ron Paul leads at 25%, with an approximate 4-point
> > advantage over Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain.
>
> >http://reason.com/blog/2011/11/23/ron-paul-vs-the-rest-of-the-gop-pre...
>
> > --
> > Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
> > For options & help seehttp://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
>
> > * Visit our other community athttp://www.PoliticalForum.com/
> > * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
> > * Read the latest breaking news, and more.
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
Re: Why Is Immigration Illegal Anyway?
It doesn't
--
so true ... just follow our immigration laws ... we love those who
want to be Americans
--
so true ... just follow our immigration laws ... we love those who
want to be Americans
On Nov 25, 9:22 am, GregfromBoston <greg.vinc...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Why does the law make it illegal to migrate here?
>
> It doesn't
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
Re: Showdown at Neocon Central
Israel could strike at Iran and drag us into a war that all the GOP
candidates but one would reflexively support.
----
it's somewhat hard to believe that the gop will heed the israeli needs
above that of America ... but it's true
candidates but one would reflexively support.
----
it's somewhat hard to believe that the gop will heed the israeli needs
above that of America ... but it's true
On Nov 25, 3:47 pm, MJ <micha...@america.net> wrote:
> ""I've spent years studying this stuff," he adds, and one could well believe he had indeed spent years learning how to start out with a libertarian premise –"It's desperately important that we preserve your right to be innocent until proven guilty"– and coming out the other end with a purely authoritarian conclusion. This, as I've pointed out in the past, isBizarro Conservatism– a doctrine that preaches the preciseoppositeof what the traditional "less government," pro-individual rights conservativesused tobelieve."Showdown at Neocon CentralNewt Gingrich vs. Ron PaulbyJustin Raimondo, November 25, 2011
> The Republican "national security"debatesponsored byNeocon CentraltheAmerican Enterprise Instituteand theHeritage Foundationcaptured perfectly the intellectual and political bankruptcy of the Republican party when it comes to foreign policy. Here the party's panderingdemagoguery, reflexiveultra-nationalism, and visceralhostility to libertywas on full display in all its exhibitionistic belligerence. It was only natural, therefore, that the first question was asked by disgraced former US Attorney GeneralEdwin Meese, who was forced to resign as Reagan's AG as a result of his complicity in obtaining big defense contracts for a phony "minority"-owned company. Here is his "question":"At least 42 terrorist attacks aimed at the United States have been thwarted since 9/11. Tools like the Patriot Act have been instrumental in finding and stopping terrorists. Shouldn't we have a long range extension of the investigative powers contained in that act so that our law enforcement officers can have the tools that they need?"What a set up forNewt Gingrich! And he certainly took advantage of it: naturally he was given the first answer –with poor Herman Cain having outlived his usefulness and been unceremoniouslydumped, Newt is the "mainstream" media'snew darling. That's because he can always be counted on to reiterate the neocons' favorite talking points, and on this occasion he did not disappoint:"BLITZER: Speaker Gingrich, only this weekend there was an alleged terror plot uncovered in New York City. What do you think?
> "GINGRICH: Well, I think that Attorney General Meese has raised a key point, and the key distinction for the American people to recognize is the difference between national security requirements and criminal law requirements.
> "I think it's desperately important that we preserve your right to be innocent until proven guilty, if it's a matter of criminal law. But if you're trying to find somebody who may have a nuclear weapon that they are trying to bring into an American city, I think you want to use every tool that you can possibly use to gather the intelligence.
> "The Patriot Act has clearly been a key part of that. And I think looking at it carefully and extending it and building an honest understanding that all of us will be in danger for the rest of our lives. This is not going to end in the short run. And we need to be prepared to protect ourselves from those who, if they could, would not just kill us individually, but would take out entire cities."In less than 200 words, Newt managed the wholesale bifurcation of American law into two parallel tracks, one that acknowledges how "desperately important" it is to "preserve your right to be innocent until proven guilty," and the other which recognizes no such necessity – and, in fact, negates it.
> Oh, isn't he glib – isn't heclever? With a mere sleight of hand he has obviatedtheConstitutionand upended the legal and moral traditions of two hundred years. What an achievement! He smiles agreasy, easy grin,well-pleased with himself. The audience dutifully applauds.
> "I've spent years studying this stuff," he adds, and one could well believe he had indeed spent years learning how to start out with a libertarian premise –"It's desperately important that we preserve your right to be innocent until proven guilty"– and coming out the other end with a purely authoritarian conclusion. This, as I've pointed out in the past, isBizarro Conservatism– a doctrine that preaches the preciseoppositeof what the traditional "less government," pro-individual rights conservativesused tobelieve.
> Newt'sclash with Ron Paulover this issue defined the parameters of the subsequent hour or so: this was the firstPaul-centricdebate, preceded by hisrise in the pollsand his increasingly important role as theideologicalcatalystof this GOP presidential primary. Once again, as in the economic sphere – with even former Federal Reserve board memberHerman CainechoingPaul's callto audit the Fed – the Texas congressman set the tone of the discussion with his ringing defense of the Founders' concept of what freedom means:"I think the Patriot Act is unpatriotic because it undermines our liberty. I'm concerned, as everybody is, about the terrorist attack. Timothy McVeigh was a vicious terrorist. He was arrested. Terrorism is still on the books, internationally and nationally, it's a crime and we should deal with it.
> "We dealt with it rather well with Timothy McVeigh. But why I really fear it is we have drifted into a condition that we were warned against because our early founders were very clear. They said, don't be willing to sacrifice liberty for security.
> "Today it seems too easy that our government and our congresses are so willing to give up our liberties for our security. I have a personal belief that you never have to give up liberty for security. You can still provide security without sacrificing our Bill of Rights."Newt thought he'd won by making a dramatic pause and intoning:
> "Yes. Timothy McVeigh succeeded. That's the whole point."Looking like a Halloween pumpkin left out in the rain, Gingrich went into novelist mode,scaring the childrenwith the specter of "losing a major American city" and bringing his fist down hard on the podium as he thundered"I want a law that says, you try to take out an American city, we're going to stop you!"Paul's answer wasperfect:"This is like saying that we need a policeman in every house, a camera in every house because we want to prevent child-beating and wife-beating. You can prevent crimes by becoming a police state. So if you advocate the police state, yes, you can have safety and security and you might prevent a crime, but the crime then will be against the American people and against our freedoms. And we will throw out so much of what our revolution was fought for. So don't do it so carelessly."In short: why not just set up a dictatorship and be done with it? Paul is too polite to point out that Newt would make theperfectdictator, strutting about the stage and puffing out his chest like a peacock on parade – so I will.
> I thought I detected an elegiac note in Paul's remarks, a sadness in his voice as he pleaded with his audience not to throw away the Founders' gift "so carelessly." As if he fears that they probably will, anyway.
> There is reason for pessimism: we are, after all, living in a time when a half-bakedprofessionalbloviatorlike Gingrich is considered a conservative "intellectual." With the help of the "mainstream" media – which would like nothing more than to see the singularlyunattractiveandbaggage-ladenGingrich up againsttheir heroObama – the Newtster is having his moment in the sun. It will, however, be a brief moment – and he's not really running for president anyway.Everyone knowshis campaign has been a vanity project and moneymaking operation from the outset.
> Quietlygaining traction, the growth and development of the Paulian movement occurring largelybeneaththe media's radar, the Paul campaign has achieved tremendous gains for the peace movement in America. No matter how it ends, it has created a new chapter in the history of the foreign policy discourse in this country: anti-interventionism is no longer considered the exclusive preserve of the "radical" left. For the first time since the 1930s, the anti-imperialist tendency in American conservatism is in the ascendant: theOld Rightisback, more organized andintellectually coherentthan ever.
> This is a development the neocons have longfeared, and the viciousattackson Paul coming fromthose quartersare bound to increase in number and intensity as the campaign succeeds in becoming theconservative alternativeto thesupposedly"inevitable" Mitt Romney.
> Gingrich's job in all this is to act as the "moderator," the Deep Thinker who polices the discussion, always on the lookout for any deviation fromneoconservative orthodoxy. His role-playing is underscored by thepost-debatespeculationover whether he imperiled his rising star by taking a "soft" stand on immigration.
> It may seem passing strange that someone so concerned about a nuclear bomb being smuggled into a major American city would take such a lax attitude about policing our borders. But that's the Newtster for you: he can think up an argument foranything– even taking$1.6 millionfromFreddie Macwhile at the same timeclaiming to be in favor of abolishing it! I tell you, the man's a genius – and if you don't believe that, then just ask him. After all, he's "spent years studying this stuff."
> There's nothing new in Newt's stance on immigration: he's been saying the same thingfor years. He said at the debate he's "willing to take the heat" on this issue because the neocons – who see America as a "universal nation," like Rome, Great Britain, and the other great empires of the past – have always been for amnestying so-called illegal aliens. On the other hand, Paul echoes the concerns of the Republican base in wondering why, when we've lost control of our own borders, we're so concerned aboutsecuringthe border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
> Every conservative aspirant but Paul has had his moment in the media spotlight as the rightist "alternative" to the Inevitable Romney – not, you'll note, on account of any actual votes being cast, except in widely variable polls of oftentimes dubious provenance, but largely due to the amount of media attention lavished on them. Cain waspropelledinto the spotlight, and just as quickly abandoned: Perry wasonce hyped, and he too fell by the wayside – not to mentionBachman(andPalin) before them.
> Now it's Paul's turn – but his rise is coming about in quite a different way, which is why it may prove more lasting than the others. That's because his steadily rising poll numbers are due entirely to his own efforts, and the efforts of his supporters: theantiwar libertariancertainly has not gotten a push from the "mainstream" media. Quite the opposite: it got to the point where Jon Stewart was able to write an entirecomedy routinearound how deliberately the media was ignoring Paul.
> The media Establishment'scurrent lineon Ron Paul is that he is preparing a third-party run: that way, they don't have to even discuss the prospect that he could mount an effective challenge to Romney. Yet the new GOP primary rules, which giveproportional representationinstead of "winner take all," are conducive to Paul's steady-as-it-goes come-from-behind campaign strategy – and Iowa, where organization and dedication count most of all, is now in Paul'ssights. Independentscan votein the New Hampshire primary, and the momentum of a Paul victory in Iowa could bring in an influx of antiwar voters and give him a breakthrough victory in the "Live Free or Die" state.
> Both Paul and the foreign policy issue have gotten short shrift this election season, at least so far – but so what else is new? Insofar as the latter is concerned, inattention to what would seem to be an important issue has been the norm formany years. That's why the American people woke up, one day, to find themselves in possession of aworld empire, without having any memory of having voted on it or consented to it in any way.
> This election, however, may turn out different. It's a long way to Election Day, 2012 – and in politics, a year might as well be a century. A lot can happen: for example, Israel couldstrike at Iranand drag us into a war that all the GOP candidates but one would reflexively support. Not that the Israelis would eventhinkof trying to influence the outcome of the election through such a ploy – or would they?http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/11/24/showdown-at-neocon-central/
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.