Wookie, to be fair, 50% of that was going to be given back to the people in the form of social security. That is, until Bush pissed the money away.



blujay, that's really hypocritical. I wholeheartedly agree with that passage of scripture, but not with you. Why? Take note of the following:



It is impossible to be ashamed of someone and follow this counsel at the same time. You can't love someone if you don't wholeheartedly accept them, what they do, and what they've done. Christ was a perfect example of this. He only showed the adultress the utmost love, kindness, and respect after saving her from being stoned. blujay, the way your attitude is, you would have been the one throwing the stones. Sorry to say it, but it's true. You need to spend less time pointing fingers at people.

And where did you come up with that figure. I have never heard of any planned massive one time payout to Social Security recipients. That would have been horrible anyway. How did Bush "piss the money away"? It would have been illegal for the government to keep the money and for the first time in our country's history, tax rebates were sent to the tax payers, where the money came from.

Clinton set aside 2.5 trillion dollars to save the failing social security system before he left office. This was just over half the ten-year projected surplus. In 2000, Bush gave a speech in Chicago in which he stated that he would not touch the 2.5 trillion dollars set aside for social security. Did he keep this promise? No. That is why I state that he "pissed it away". He literally killed any chance of social security being saved right then and there when he dipped into the funds (and exhausted them) in 2001. Now he talks big about "privatizing social security", whatever the hell that means, but it's just a result of his poor actions.

And for clarity, it wouldn't have been in the form of a big payout. The money was going to fund social security itself.

Freelancer, you point out the example of the adultress, but you didn't show how the story ends.

John 8:7-11

Jesus did not simply say that he did not condemn her, and leave it at that. He told her to stop sinning.

You seem to say that we should accept what everyone does, no matter what, and ignore their wrongdoing. But that's not what the Bible says.

Luke 17:1-4

I Timothy 5:20

Titus 2:15

Revelation 3:19

One can be ashamed of something a person does and still love that person. Indeed, to ignore sin and to not preach against it is negligent of a Christian's duty. Love is not simply acceptance; it also requires that one gently rebukes those that sin, in order that they may be lead away from sin and closer to God.

Except that is all rhetoric, too. It is illegal for the federal government to take more money than it spends. There is no such thing as a Social Security Trust Fund. Clinton didn't set aside any money because he had zero authority to do so. All of the money collected, whether it be income or payroll tax, goes into the general fund. Social Security recipients are paid out of the general fund.

Just to reiterate, that money could never have legally been set aside for any purpose, let alone SS. A new law would have to be passed.

About your privatization question, it is basically a system which would allow the individual to actually invest the money that would otherwise go to the government. The pluses being that the money would actually be an investment where as now it is just a tax and people would have more control over those funds. The big minus is that it will be expensive to implement as there will be less revenue coming to the government which still has to pay current recipients. I personally like the idea of having some control over my SS money.

Point taken. Though, I do have one qualm with this rationale. Explain to me how you would fund traditional SS without being able to save surplus money. Assuming that the budget is always strictly balanced, this will leave SS underfunded. Surely there must be some legal way to finance traditional social security, or in other words, to integrate surplus money into unarguably underfunded necessary government programs. If you can do that, you'll have won me over.

blujay, you make a good argument with scripture. Jesus' last sentence to the adultress undeniably exhibits distaste for sin without condemnation.

However, and hopefully I will be able to explain my point of view, I wouldn't want to love someone who thinks what I do is a sin, who belittles me by their smug holier-than-thou attitude, who looks down on me like I'm some poor lost soul who can't find his way. Regardless of whether or not it is possible for such a person to love me, I wouldn't want to love them back, because that's not what love is about for me.

I have to agree with Wookie06 here. While Bush campaign promise said he was going to help people invest for future Social Security pay-outs with the 2.5 trillion dollars, he didnt. But like Wookie said, it's not something that was entirely legal or illegal because it was all part of the general fund. However, like I said in my response to Obi, the reason we had budget surpluses was because Clinton was skimming off Regan's defense programs and not allowing the House to add much more to the budget.

Now you are really on to something. See, here is the problem: Social Security "deposits", the money withheld from people's paychecks, are never invested. It is just another tax that the government collects. If you think about it, it would be immoral for the government to invest the money anyway. Too many ethical conflicts. Investments are usually not guaranteed and, even if they did invest, how would they decided who to invest in.

There are more recipients than payees at any given time so you can't simply collect from current payees and pay the recipients and balance it. As it is now, SS is the biggest drain on our federal budget. I hate to sound pesimistic but without major reform this system CANNOT be fixed. It will either remain the biggest drain on our federal budget or we give people ownership of their Social Security fund.

Now, I'm not the sharpest knife in the kitchen (waits for THAT to be quoted) so I'm not going to profess that I know the answer to the issue. I just know what I'm doing. Planning for my future on my own and if I just get lucky enough that SS is still around when I'm an old fart I'll collect that too!

It was Bush that wanted to focus on Iraq. Here's some cites about diverting troops:

From The New Yorker
By then, some of the most highly skilled Americans were being diverted from Afghanistan. Richard Clarke noted in his memoir, “The U.S. Special Forces who were trained to speak Arabic, the language of al Qaeda, had been pulled out of Afghanistan and sent to Iraq.” Some C.I.A. paramilitary teams were also transferred to Iraq.

An article from USA Today. Pretty much the whole thing is relevant.

From The Guardian
The fact that the Pentagon pulled the fighting force most equipped for hunting down Osama bin Laden from Afghanistan in March 2002 in order to pre-position it for Iraq cannot be denied.

From The Information Clearing House
U.S. intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because intelligence matters are classified, said that as much as half of the intelligence and special forces assets in Afghanistan and Pakistan were diverted to support the war in Iraq.

There ya go.


There's a big distinction. He apparently had more faith in Bush than you did. Kerry was expecting Bush to consider his other options.
How do you know what Kerry knew at the time? How can somebody know full well that something will probably happen? That's an admission that he didn't know that Bush would rush into Iraq.


It's true


It's up above.


As someone else said, the Bush Administration has admitted that Saddam didn't have WMD's. It wouldn't do them any good to make that up.


Speculation.


I wasn't talking about him blocking the flu vaccine, I was talking about him blocking prescription drugs from Canada.


His tax cuts aren't working as well as he promised.


All right, but then he had nothing to do with the terrorists taht attacked us. If he was a terrorist in his own country, than so are the leaders in several other countries. We didn't go after any of them.


It's not hypocrisy. It's that Kerry was wrong.


No you haven't. You've used speculation, strawmen, and opinions.


He didn't mention it during the debate, it was part of the speech where he said the "voting for it before voting against it". Since you're the one who originally brought up the quote, you can cite it yourself.
If you aren't interested in finding cites for yourself, then you aren't interested in a factual debate and your arguments are meaningless.


The lower taxes was supposed to encourage spending and create jobs. It did a little, but not enough.
The low interest rates did help people get houses. Bush said that home ownership is at a record high, and he actually was right.


Please do find them.


Assuming that's true, it would still have been no threat to us.


There are others who are worse than him.
Clinton does regret not taking out Saddam, but the first Bush also had the chance and didn't take it either.


Very true.


But her lifestyle isn't being discussed, her identity is.


But elsewhere it is said that what the president does economically takes four years to implement. Clinton was in office 8 years, and the economy was going strongest during his second term. Recession occurs naturally, so it's not really anyone's fault that it happened. 9/11 made it worse.


You don't know much about homosexuality, do you?


Being ashamed of your gay child is bigotry. Saying someone should be ashamed of his or her gay child is also bigotry.


She is campaigning for them, so they can say "gay people love us too!"


Kerry was saying she would probably say she didn't choose to be a lesbian. The point was even some people in the Bush camp agreed about that. Even if you call it bringing her sexuality up for political purposes, I see nothing wrong with it.
Secondly, Edwards didn't bring it up at all. The moderator did. But I guess I shouldn't expect you to change and let facts get in the way of your rhetoric.


So deficit spending is the only good way to spend?


Why? It's not like he's the only one who's presided during war.


Cite?


Yeah? Once my boss told me to sweep the store I was working in. I thought she really meant "Take the money from the cash register and go home." I don't know why she got so mad!


A friend of mine once saw a documentary that said the Holocaust didn't happen. That must make it true.
Sorry, but you offer no cites and no arguments based on facts. I'm not even going to bother with the rest of them until you offer some good reason to.


Your arguments are no better than wild guesses. Go away.


How about you shut up or quit being an *******? Your post is demeaning and valueless itself.


Holy carp! <3
I've never seen anyone say that before, but it's awesome!


What I find truly interesting is that he knew that that would be impossible, and said it anyway. It's impossible not to sin.
Your other quotes I would need to see in context. I might look them up.


Mwa ha ha!

I understand your point, I truly do.

But it's just one more thing to deal with. One more headache. The government really can't expect me to have my own social security fund (for various reasons I'm willing to discuss on request). Investing the money is the last thing I'd do. Private social security sounds very risky to me. Besides, it shouldn't be my responsibility. What's next? Are they going to privatize the transportation department? If I need a road paved to location X, I'm going to have to pay for it myself? Then what? Completely privatize education? Then what after that? Privatize the Whitehouse? The Supreme Court? The House of Representatives? Wow, they could have advertisements for various corporations on the floor of the house after each bill reading!

No offense, but this trend of privatizing everything under the current conservative reign is getting to me. We're headed for lasseiz faire capatilism as not only a form of economy, but government. But enough of my ranting.

Pros as I see it: You'll have a whole bunch of new jobs created. Every destitute business major who hasn't yet made a big break will set up social security portfolios, and once again, make a living by simply manipulating money and contributing nothing to society. But that's a tangent for another day.

You know, if you actually particpated in a discussion rather than swamping us with talking points and partisan citations I might have more respect for you new found views. Parotting rhetoric earns you little respect. Formulate your own concepts and relay them in a conversation and then, when challenged on issues, provide your reference. Just my advice to you. Anyway, I would take the word of the Allied Commander over the crap you cited any day.

I have quoted because NY Times is a subscription site. Here is the link as well:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/19/opinion/19franks.html?oref=login&pagewanted=all

dry gear, I know you feel like your arguments are being ignored, and I apologize that I have not addressed them. It's just that we're both on the same wavelength.. I know that I think very similar to you on most subjects, so I trust you to carry on the fight for those arguments you're invloved in, and I know you trust me. What we're responding to here is nearly mutually exclusive, so it's kind of an amicable double-blind trust thing going on. :p

I'll just simply address this portion of your last post. It would have to be a system that allows a certain ammount of control by the worker but with regulation by the government. In other words, "We're taking this money out and these are you're options."

In short.

Sure. That and that most people don't feel like rereading [figuratively] most of the thread and a half dozen [+] links everytime he posts.

i like tuna

Most of the cites I listed are respected. You quoted an op-ed piece anyway. You only don't like it because it disagrees with you. I don't parrot rhetoric either, I look things up for myself.
Just because I disagree with you doesn't mean what I say isn't true.
Anytime you are presented with something that doesn't fit your view, you claim it's partisan and stick your fingers in your ears, going "lalalala"

So why don't you take your condescending "advice" and shove it? I don't need to listen to someone who gets his news from Fox and claims other people don't think for themselves.

It's fine, I don't expect you to unless you disagree.

Freelancer, there are different kinds of love. You seem to be referring to a romantic, male-female type. I would agree with you that that kind of love would not work if one of the two people was ashamed of the other person's lifestyle. But that is not the kind of love that Paul was referring to, nor is it the type of love I was referring to. I am talking about Godly love, also referred to as agape love; the kind of love the Lord commands us to have for everyone.

Also, your comment of, "who belittles me by their smug holier-than-thou attitude, who looks down on me like I'm some poor lost soul who can't find his way," is not in line with the Bible's teachings. In Phillipians chapter 2, Paul said:



I believe that there is a balance to be achieved between being humble and preaching against sin without being arrogant. When one is speaking against sin, especially when one is speaking to a single person about a sin that person has committed, one must keep in mind that we are all sinners, and that we all have equal access to forgiveness and salvation through Christ.

You claimed he removed all of the special forces in Afghanistan. That New Yorker article does not support your statement. Some SF were removed. Is adjustment of troop deployment not a normal part of military operations?



Let's look at the whole article, shall we?



As you can see, the article also mentions the other point of view. As I said, redeployment of troops is a normal part of military operations. Claiming that not making any changes to deployments would have resulted in the capture of bin Laden or other people in Afghanistan is speculation, which you criticized me for earlier. There is no way you can draw a conclusion about what should have been done.



The Guardian article you linked is an opinion piece; it is even labeled "Comment." Why are you citing it as fact?



Again, that does not support your claim that all of the SF were removed from Afghanistan.

I am beginning to tire of people who have no training in military operations or strategy criticizing people with decades of military experience. It is easy to look back and see mistakes that were made; would you have done better? Can you prove that someone else would have done better? Can you even make a convincing argument to that effect? In my opinion, you can't.

You're really arguing that the war in Iraq shouldn't have happened. Unless you argue that point, you cannot complain about troop redeployments, which are a necessary part of military operations. Unless you suggest that we should have had zero SF in Iraq, and 100% of the deployed SF in Afghanistan.



What other options? More sanctions? More time waiting for UN inspectors to be lead around by the nose? Another seventeen UN resolutions for Saddam to defy? Or is the option you prefer simple inaction? Again, I think your hidden argument is that the war in Iraq should never have happened.



I don't, for certain. However, it was obvious that Bush was preparing for war with Iraq. Only a fool would think otherwise.



You mean to say that one cannot know that something is very likely? That's an admission that...what? Huh?





That's the only link you posted that supports the argument. And it was an interesting read; thanks for posting it. I think the claim that there was "no plan" for the peace is somewhat of an exaggeration, but it may be true that there was not enough time and effort put into planning for postwar ops. As for why, I don't know. Perhaps it was thought that a delay would give Saddam more time to prepare for the invasion. That's speculation, of course, so who knows.



That's true. The point I was making is, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The weapons could conceivably have been hidden before the invasion, although personally I would think that our spy satellites would have noticed that. However, we know that Saddam had weapons scientists who were intentionally misleading the UN inspectors.







Read your own arguments.









First you argue that, "He hasn't done anything to change it." Then when I point out your lie, instead of admitting it, you say that, "His tax cuts aren't working as well as he promised." That's a big difference. Now how about citing his promise about how well his tax cuts were going to work? And cite evidence that shows they aren't working as well as he promised. (I wouldn't bother, but since you are so fond of demanding citations....) If you are able to do that, you'll have to convince me that I should hold Bush guilty for not being able to perfecly predict the effects of a tax cut, and convince me that Kerry has not made similar mistakes in the past.





Thank you for conceding that point. As for yours, that is also a valid point. In response to that, I would point out Sine's excellent post, which details reasons for removing Saddam from power in Iraq at this time.





Well then, do you criticize the Bush administration for making the same mistake that Kerry made? If you do, that is hypocrisy.







I think that if you want to claim a specific reason that Kerry voted against it, and if you want to demand citations from others, that you should be willing to cite this example. As for myself, I have spent much time on this post alone, and I'm not personally interested in digging up the example on the Internet. If that makes my arguments meaningless to you, that's ok. I don't expect to change your mind or anyone else's. But that doesn't mean that I don't care about facts.





That is a strawman if I have ever heard one. This "it's not what they do, it's who they are" argument is itself a strawman. If you spend a little time thinking about what the words "lifestyle" and "identity" mean, you'll figure that out.



I know that it is immoral and wrong. I also know that there is no sin that God does not provide a way to avoid committing. We don't always take advantage of that way to avoid committing it, though.



No, that is not true. Shame does not equal bigotry. Allow me to repeat myself, since you seem to have ignored what I said:





That argument doesn't really make any sense to me.





While the post you refer to wasn't the most polite, I will warn you here: Your posts were worse. If you don't conduct yourself in a decent manner, you won't be allowed to participate. Your condescending attitude is not welcome.





You neglected to mention Freelancer's follow-up to that comment:





Of course Jesus knew that to completely stop sinning is not possible for us. That is not the point. The point was to stop committing adultery, and to focus on living a holy life of self-sacrifice and service to the Lord. I encourage you to look up those quotes.

blu, I won't take issue with most of what you posted, but this bugs me. You mind telling everyone exactly how to stop being homosexual? Because thousands of people would like to know how to suddenly stop being gay; people who believe that it is immoral and wish to stop.

Is opening that can of worms really worth it? Hell, he's already made his views pretty clear.

I know, Avenger, I know. But to basically say "Hahah, god told me how to stop being gay, but I won't tell you!" that's just too much. And it's cold. Like I said, there's thousands that would like to know.

Freelancer, I don't profess to know everything. This isn't an issue I've had to deal with personally in my life; I have a few friends who have had to deal with it, but I only know some of their stories. Certainly if there was some simple, push-the-button solution that I knew of, I'd share it with you; but that's not how things work. I do know that God works in many ways; some strange, some subtle. And I know that if one seeks His kingdom first, that He will provide. If you dedicate your life to the Lord, He will help you through whatever you are going through.

You're a piece of work. Your "respectable" cites are more credible than an op-ed by the former commander of the region in question specifically addressing the issues raised? Amazing.

Avenger, I don't see it as Freelancer starting trouble. The way blu phrased...it was kind of cold and....not very sincere. But ya, lets digress.

I like how Sine was ignored.

Look who's talking. Campaign ads on TV are not exactly what we like to call "proof".

Well, the reason I did, at least, is because all he talked about was the middle east. I don't care about the middle east. I care about America, and I want the candidate that is going to focus on America. Not the middle east. Domestic issues hold a lot more water wtih me.

Note, I've only read the first page, but I'd just like to say that SAJN_Master, you have once again made a mockery of yourself...

"Kerry wouldn't have launched a war on Iraq, even though he supported it at the beginning...I know this because he told me so in the debate!!! WHAT MORE PROOF DO YOU NEED??!?!?" ...

Simply being homosexual is not a sin.

Acting on that IS a sin.

Therefore, if you don't wanna sin, don't **** a guy.

Easy enough?

Acting on homosexual tendencies is a sin... hmmm.. can I get a *coughbull****coughcough* ?
And what, the solution is to be celibate? Yeah, that's a really good one there, buddy. We all know how well that works.

well, this thread has sure gone downhill...

Yeeeup

...you say that as if the thread started out any better.

It didn't.

Ignore this...apparently it didn't go through the first time...

Sine gets ignored cause if someone ever has something to say, the know reading Sines comments will make them think twice.

Or we already wore out Sine's post the first time it was made. He still hasn't told us why we should support an administration that lied about their reasons for invading Iraq (by his own admission), or one that has apparently failed to establish the democracy that the whole deceitful operation hinged on.

The real question is, are you thinking for yourself or just spouting off media inspired propaganda?

(and I'm not for either, it's the people behind the president that count anyways)

I just want to throw this out, as far as the homosexuality thing goes:

No one is without sin. So does that mean that parents should be ashamed of their children no matter what, because they sin?

Bull****? How? I'm pretty sure the act of homosexuality is a sin... I guess you just like labeling things as bull**** to make your point seem more valid?

And yes a homosexual person can be celibate and abstain from homosexual sex. Just because you think thats "too hard" doesn't change the fact that it's entirely possible.