Politics! Do we dare?

[broncbuster07]

I recently made a comment on another thread that got a few folks riled up. The thread was about all the school shootings our country has dealt with in recent months. I was trying to be funny and said " It's Bush's fault!", and you'd be amazed at the longwinded, defensive rebuttles I received!

I don't know if it's possible, but I wanted to start a thread about politics and give everyone a chance to have their voices heard. I feel there must be guidelines, however, or this could really get out of hand. I will list some issues that are important to me. After each one, I will tell how I feel about that issue. Whoever posts next will do the same thing. There will be no quoting and no comments directed toward other members. Please, each post should list the issues that are important to you and your view on those issues, that's it! If anybody quotes another member or directs a comment toward another member, the thread will be deleted. I hope this goes well, because I really want to hear everyone's opinion.

1. The War in Iraq- I feel like we are doing the right thing by fighting this war in Iraq. The extreme Muslims of the world are out for innocent blood as we experienced on 9/11/01. They will kill anyone who does not believe as they do or anyone who helps an infadel. I know we have lost many troops over there, and that is one reason why we can't quit. Their lives can't be lost in vain.

2. Immigration- I live in Texas, where illegal immigrant population is extremely dense. I am a caucasion and English is my first language, but I have also learned Spanish and speak it fluently. I have several friends that are from Mexico, both legally and illegally. My sister is married to a Hispanic man and I love him like a brother. I assure you that I am not racist toward any race, but I do think something must be done and fast. ILLEGAL is the key word here, folks. They are the ones who are coming across our borders in droves from their third world nations and sponging off of our tax dollars. Yes, I understand that they work harder than most Americans do, but they aren't paying taxes. They can qualify to recieve SSI in their old age without ever paying a cent into Social Security. It's not gonna work much loger, do the math! So, I think we must deport all ILLEGALS that are here now, and shut down our borders. We can still allow LEGAL immigrants who are willing to earn their way into our great country, but to do nothing is to allow the eventual colonization of our great country. MARK MY WORDS

3. ABORTION- this is of most importance to me! I am pro-choice! I think a woman should have the right to choose whether or not she will have sex with a man. I think that a woman should be able to choose whether she will keep her baby or put him/her up for adoption. But more importantly, I believe that an unborn baby should have the right to live long enough to make his/her own decision to live or to die. The only way that abortion should be implemented is if the mother's life is in danger. Otherwise, we have to stop killing babies in this country!!!

4. Marriage- the definition of marriage is "The legal union of a man and woman as husband and wife." according to the American Heritage Dictionary. Webster defines it as "the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law". Sounds pretty cut and dry to me. Noboby's rights are being violated here, any man is allowed to marry any woman and any woman is allowed to marry any man. WE ALL HAVE THE SAME RIGHTS!!

That's my most important issues. Maybe I'll post some more later on. I voted for Bush both times and I would again if I could.

 

[eggzettera]

Some of you may be old enought to recognize this speech:

This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity, my only event of today, to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.

It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours.

Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet.

No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason.

Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.

"Among free men," said Abraham Lincoln, "there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the costs."

Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire.

Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.

Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.

For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.

This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all.

I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered.

We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this, there are no final answers.

Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is not what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.

We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others. We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.

Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution.

But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.

RFK

Like Forrest Gump - "that's all I have to say about that".

 

[Buff Hooligans]

Do we dare? No. Please.

 

[chickbea]

Whee! This is bound to be loaded...

 

[Frozen Feathers]

Yup...I'm not going there...
Okay I will say I disagree with everything...but that's as far as I'm taking it.

 

[speckledhen]

The fact that you were kidding when you said it, bronc, and (I did know you were trying to be facetious) it started a rumble again proves that politics isn't a suitable subject for a chicken forum. Need I say it again? IT IS A CHICKEN FORUM, people. Note the title of this section??? I am tired of this today and I'm locking it. PLEASE do not start another one.