Maybe : Your Political Rhetoric, Your Political Affiliation, Your Belief System, Needs To Change...

Excellent topic that needs discussing, S&F from me.

I couldn't agree more that we have to get past the left vs. right rhetoric and find a way to agree on some real solutions to the problems facing our nation. I also very much agree with LadySkadi in that we first have to know where it is that we want to go before we attempt to get there. Furthermore, I definitely believe that in the end, it has to be about doing the right thing and not playing the game, otherwise it's a futile effort.

On the other hand, I'm not so sure that I believe that greed is a good thing, at least not the way that I understand the meaning of the word. I see nothing wrong with having an intense desire to acquire something and I even recognize the fact that society may directly benefit from those desires.

For me, the word "greed" goes beyond the state of intense desire as it includes an undeniable element of selfishness and that's where I see the problem. I truly believe that generosity and compassion are more favorable attributes for society to seek that of greed. There are many people with intense desires to gain knowledge who devote their entire careers to the betterment of mankind as opposed to the attainment of personal wealth and society benefits as much if not more from these individuals than from those who are "greedy."

I think that one of the biggest dilemmas we face in our attempt to acquire a functioning government is to eliminate the constant flow of disinformation and fear mongering. Everything from "death panels" and the "headless corpses" in the Arizona desert right up to the "$200 billion a day" Asian tour for the president. IMO, these types of baseless accusations originate from people who definitely have no idea what to do so they turn to their age old tactic of divisiveness in order to distract people from the truth.

This type of behavior makes me sick and I find it hard to address here on ATS without losing points in the process. Point deductions for Ad Hominem attacks are a bitch but sometimes I just can't stop myself from pointing out the idiocy of some of the statements being made. If someone is going to go on a rant here on ATS, they owe it to their audience to at least educate themselves with respect to the subject of their rant and to not make outrageously ignorant statements.

Being a retired union leader, I guess that I will always have a little tilt towards the democratic party at least in principle. I will always favor the working man/woman over the corporate giants but more than anything, I am against corruption and dishonesty regardless of the political affiliation.

How to best flame this and boost your response total to a good thread...

Well first let me use the unique superpower... My common sense is tingling....

Your to polite way to polite SKL

Ill offend them...

I see it as get OFF your dumb @$$3$ and watch out for your fellow man.

The tactic of divide and conquer is being played quite well on the masses. They want you to line up so the control measures can be used...

Few realize what makes us great...



our strength is in our diversity.....

I will use an example of late...

Let us say your were drafted and stuck in a war zone... Your squad was under fire and you get hit... your main artery is hit... the core-man starts sewing you up quickly as he saves your life...

Later on you find out the same man who saved you and several buddies is up for discharge... For being gay....

did it affect his ability to sew you up?

Truth of the matter it does not. The military has absolutely nothing to do with your sexual preferences... your only job is to follow orders to the best of your abilities...

now how does this translate.... easy... as an american it does not matter what your preferences are.... your job is to preform your given function to the best of your ability. how else someone lives their life is none of your or mine businesses...

This is my opinion not skls...

He is trying to say it is either the american public changes or as a country we die...

Did I get it right?

reply to post by ripcontrol


I think you absolutely got it right. What someone does with their personal time is their business and theirs alone unless they are harming others in the process. DADT is just another form of "divide & conquer" that needs to be abolished, like yesterday. I believe that DADT, like most anti gay rhetoric, is a byproduct of organized religion.

When people have no logical argument to put forth in a debate, they commonly resort to their religious beliefs because they know that at some point, they can end their debate by stating that "it must be true because it's in the Bible." I think that they subconsciously know that it very hard to hold an intelligent debate with someone that uses religious beliefs as a foundation of fact.

Anyway, I wouldn't care if the medic was purple with pink polka dots and flaming gay to boot, so long as he/she did their job to the best of their ability. That's all you can ask of anyone and that's all that should be expected.

Originally posted by Flatfish
Excellent topic that needs discussing, S&F from me.

I couldn't agree more that we have to get past the left vs. right rhetoric and find a way to agree on some real solutions to the problems facing our nation. I also very much agree with LadySkadi in that we first have to know where it is that we want to go before we attempt to get there. Furthermore, I definitely believe that in the end, it has to be about doing the right thing and not playing the game, otherwise it's a futile effort.

Of course.

"Playing the game" is what politicians, Law Enforcement, and Intelligence Agencies want.

Nothing is further from my mind, I hate people who play games, I would rather eliminate them.

Or, if they play games, you walk away and ignore their game playing.

It gives them nothing to do for a while and they get bored easily.

Trust me, been there, done that, it makes their time wasted.

Originally posted by Flatfish
On the other hand, I'm not so sure that I believe that greed is a good thing, at least not the way that I understand the meaning of the word. I see nothing wrong with having an intense desire to acquire something and I even recognize the fact that society may directly benefit from those desires.

Greed is never a good thing.

But neither is not making the money you deserve.

There is a fine balance between earning what you deserve and being a greedy jerk.

The majority of the elite are nothing but greedy jerks walking over everyone and screwing them.

Originally posted by Flatfish
For me, the word "greed" goes beyond the state of intense desire as it includes an undeniable element of selfishness and that's where I see the problem. I truly believe that generosity and compassion are more favorable attributes for society to seek that of greed. There are many people with intense desires to gain knowledge who devote their entire careers to the betterment of mankind as opposed to the attainment of personal wealth and society benefits as much if not more from these individuals than from those who are "greedy."

I can concur with you about this as far as selfishness goes and those people who are benevolent. I do however see through false benevolency when rich and greedy people are trying to do nothing more than buy public sentiment. This in order to mask the public perception throug seemingly benevolent things which makes the public falsely believe someone is benevolent, when in fact the elite usually have done everything in the world to put the public into the poor house.

In other words, it is a ruse, propaganda, through a rich person's means, to buy empathy.

This is nothing more than someone buying public perception to assuage guilt, hatred of the elite, and self-loathing of those elite who do not comprehend why the poor hate them so much, usually through having bought up many businesses and closing the doors when merging them, or putting their competition out of business to make more money.

Originally posted by Flatfish
I think that one of the biggest dilemmas we face in our attempt to acquire a functioning government is to eliminate the constant flow of disinformation and fear mongering. Everything from "death panels" and the "headless corpses" in the Arizona desert right up to the "$200 billion a day" Asian tour for the president. IMO, these types of baseless accusations originate from people who definitely have no idea what to do so they turn to their age old tactic of divisiveness in order to distract people from the truth.

And this sort of disinformation is far more damaging to the nation and her psyche.

The problem is that this is not just conspiracy theorists doing it but famous people.

Spreading ignorance just for rhetoric to score higher listener ratings.

Originally posted by Flatfish
This type of behavior makes me sick and I find it hard to address here on ATS without losing points in the process. Point deductions for Ad Hominem attacks are a bitch but sometimes I just can't stop myself from pointing out the idiocy of some of the statements being made. If someone is going to go on a rant here on ATS, they owe it to their audience to at least educate themselves with respect to the subject of their rant and to not make outrageously ignorant statements.

Do it with facts, books, and references and tear those idiotic statements apart.

I do it quite successfully.

While I most certainly hate the Government lying in our name, I do not condone conspiracy theorists who will lie about the Government, Law Enforcement, or Military, as that shows a lack of honor, honor being something I rarely find within the confines of this website.

This is why I do not walk with Conservatives, nor do I walk with Liberals, not Republicans, not Democrats.

They both claim the same of each other and deny they are doing the very thing they claim others do.

Which is lie.

This is as well why I walk the middle ground looking for the truth lost in the middle of stupidity.

Truth : The First Victim, The Last to Be Un-Buried, Never to Rest...

Few people know how to not spew political rhetoric defending ignorance.

And too few people know how to actually think without standing by a political party.

Far too few people know how to lead themselves which is what this thread is about.

Originally posted by Flatfish
Being a retired union leader, I guess that I will always have a little tilt towards the democratic party at least in principle. I will always favor the working man/woman over the corporate giants but more than anything, I am against corruption and dishonesty regardless of the political affiliation.

I am all for the working man and woman but I do not support unions.

I do not support corporate America because they do not support good pay, fair treatment, or reasonable work ethics, they instead expect more for their money, less than hospitable work environments, and expect you to work like a dog.

Sorry, corporations need to have worker concentrated ethics, without needing someone to tell them.

reply to post by ripcontrol


Well, I may be too polite, to you, but my point still comes across.

Divide and conquer is always being used whether we know it or not.

Too few people know how to lead themselves to recognize it.

Especially when it is used and detrimental actions come from it.

A Corpsman who knows how to sew might have been a Boy Scout and got the Sewing Merit Badge.

Or it might have been his Military training that taught it to him.

Perhaps even mom thought he needed to know it for some reason.

I could care less if a soldier were gay, lesbian, or heterosexual.

It does not affect their job in any way whatsoever.

Their sexual orientation only makes people who are ignorant fear them.

Biblical teachings about sexual orientation have nothing to do with homosexuality being evil.

It had to do with procreation and continuation of the race.

If too many men were into men, or too many women were into women, an entire race could die off.

This is back when an entire race was made up of less people, of small tribes, too few to stymie.

And back then if a race were to stagnate due to a lack of new births there were no more men for warfare.

Now that certain areas of the world are almost overpopulated?

We as a society need to adapt to changing desires of the population.

And quit being ignorant enough to persecute each other.

This does not mean I necessarily support abortion either, I still see it as murder.

I believe abstinence is the best form of not getting pregnant and practicing responsibility.

Originally posted by Flatfish
reply to post by ripcontrol

 

I think you absolutely got it right. What someone does with their personal time is their business and theirs alone unless they are harming others in the process. DADT is just another form of "divide & conquer" that needs to be abolished, like yesterday. I believe that DADT, like most anti gay rhetoric, is a byproduct of organized religion.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell was nothing more than a means of making heterosexuals comfortable with homosexuals being in the military, and because of ignorance propagated thought patterns, it both worked, and in a sense was necessary because of anti-homosexuals who would beat a homosexual in blanket-parties with other anti-homosexuals and conformists who went along with the ignorant peer pressure for fear of being treated as if they were homosexual, or a homosexual lover.

Typical military bureaucratic thinking to solve one problem by creating another problem.

It might hinge upon religious tendencies but ultimately it belongs wholly to ignorant tendencies.

Few religious leaders explain the entire reason why "God" frowned upon homosexuality and lesbianism.

Because according to the Bible, God wanted the people to procreate and "multiply", meaning give more births, make more people so that the populace would not die off, would not stagnate, and ultimately so the tribes of the Hebrews would flourish.

Originally posted by Flatfish
When people have no logical argument to put forth in a debate, they commonly resort to their religious beliefs because they know that at some point, they can end their debate by stating that "it must be true because it's in the Bible." I think that they subconsciously know that it very hard to hold an intelligent debate with someone that uses religious beliefs as a foundation of fact.

What is funny is that people will defend that book, defend that book, but they truly have no understanding.

The Bible is not even complete, not just due to lost passages, but due to political agendas.

This is due to the Roman Catholic church for the most part and propaganda.

What is left out is just as important as what was put into the canonization of the Bible.

While I know people know how to read few people see what is right there in black and white.

During the time of Jesus, the Romans controlled all of Israel, either under the client-state (Puppet Government), under Herod the Great and his son Herod Antipas, or through direct control of it, but the death of Jesus was under the rule of Pontius Pilate, a Roman Prefect, brought about because the Jews did not like Jesus's claim of being "King of Kings".

Why?

This would upset the Roman's who allowed the Pharisees to control Israel through the Puppet Government.

In other words the Pharisees were getting kickbacks to control their own people for the Romans.

Something the Romans always tried to do first so as to keep the conquered people in check.

This was done to keep from wasting manpower through having the conquered lands filled with soldiers.

So, the Roman Catholic church, had many things to cover-up by leaving elements out of the Bible.

So, few people who argue, based upon knowledge of the Bible, actually know what they are talking about.

Unless they have studied it in depth and through at least one other language than English.

Like Greek or Hebrew.

Originally posted by Flatfish
Anyway, I wouldn't care if the medic was purple with pink polka dots and flaming gay to boot, so long as he/she did their job to the best of their ability. That's all you can ask of anyone and that's all that should be expected.

As everyone should be.

For some reason this is appropriate...

2012 'none of the above"

lets just date a president...

sounds like a plan