Well on religion alone, Maher is an unabashed atheist and he dislikes anything having to do with religion(especially organized religion) and he doesn't want them pushing their religion on everyone else (that's fair enough and on that point I agree) but at the same time he pushes his atheism on everyone. He also calls out Republican talking heads for stoking partisanship and racism but he does the exact same thing, it's just he's a liberal so it's ok when he does it.
Miles, guns are legal in America which is probably why we have more gun violence and your numbers mean NOTHING because they do not relay how LEGAL gun owners handle their weapons as opposed to just some thug who wants to do a drive by.
Despite what anyone may think, we were going to Iraq 9/11 or no 9/11. Both Bill Clinton AND Al Gore escalated their stance on Iraq in the late 1990's and early 2000's. They may not have decided to overthrow Saddam but there was going to be a military action taken against Iraq no matter what.
As for Capitalism, are there more poor people in America or in China, India, and Brazil? I'd say we're pretty fair off.
The numbers do mean something though. The numbers indicate quite clearly that gun crime in America is significantly higher than anywhere else in the world. Just look at the difference between America and Japan where guns are not easily obtained. It's immense. I do agree that those in legal possession of firearms are probably less likely to commit offences, but I don't know the statistics for that.
The war on Iraq we have debated in the past and I think we have the same views we have always had really.
In terms of Capitalism, it seems that quality of life has been stagnating for many years now in the US and is now being hit hard because of years of letting the markets just do what they want. It does need serious reforming. Of course, the quality of life is decent compared with most places, but it is slipping for many people week by week. There is no obvious recovery in sight and national debt is at horrifying levels. It's a topic that has sparked my curiosity in the last few months and I'm following things more than I should. A lot of doom and gloom stuff. I should stop.
Miles, that tells about gun crime, it doesn't tell about how many gun oweners there are (it just uses population in general which means felons, violent criminals, mentally unstable, etc), it also doesn't tell about how many of the guns used in crimes were legally owned or not (which is a huge issue)...so you only see the bad things guns do in what you posted, you don't see how responsible the vast majority of LEGAL gun owners are and you don't see where guns are used to stop crime.
Yeah I'm actually for gun laws as in making sure we try to keep them in the right hands but I badly want to own a gun, almost to the point where I would want to just ask some people if they know where I can get one I'm sure I could. That would lead to trouble but I live alone in an apartment in a nice area but it's 300,000 thousand people here and I live by 2 schools where there are people scheming there every night. It's kind of nerve racking sometimes I've had a crackhead (literally, a complete fucking crackhead) sneak in my house when I was checking my mail after I got home at like 11 at night and try to rummage my dresser. Other times I've had some complete fcking strangers knock on my door hella late at night probably because they smelled weed at like 2 am. I've probably had 3 nerve racking moments in my time living here where I've really wanted a gun and almost felt like I needed one. It would be better to own one I would never support
Last edited by amat; 10-17-2009 at 06:09 AM.
Like I say, I just don't understand gun ownership. I don't think humans are particularly rational creatures and in those less lucid moments they can be stir fry crazy. The fact that criminals, mentalists, and pschopaths can readily get access to guns and cause damage is bad in itself. The US produces guns for its domestic market and that is always going to lead to guns getting into the wrong hands. It doesn't matter how many responsible people there are who legally own guns. If there are NO guns in a society then there is NO gun crime. Whence countries like Japan and Korea where gun crime is next to zero. I'm not bashing Americans here, but it's just an aspect of US society that I struggle to get my head around.
Amat does make a fair point about the loonies that he seems to come across. If I lived in an area full of psychopaths perhaps I would think differently and might want a gun too. But I don't and even in England have rarely seen situations where I thought "I could do with a gun here". Being a tall, scary foreigner is usually enough out here. Nobody has guns and I have never really experienced much violence. I have yelling matches with illegal bongo truck food sellers, but that's about as far as I go.
Oh believe me Lyle, if I had a gun he would have had some explaining to do...a lot. All I had was a knife, my voice and the element of surprise lol. When you live alone especially at times of night like this that same situation replays a lot along with others but that more then others lol. If I had a gun then I'm not so sure the situation would have played out the same way, given the circumstances I wouldn't have shot him. But walking down the hallway to see who the fuck is in your house, yeah that's a time where I wanted to have a gun and ANYTHING restricting that at least in this country is bullshit. I'm ALL FOR safe gun laws. I wouldn't even be opposed to making people seeking gun licenses take tests and prove they are responsible enough to own a weapon. However, you can't try to eliminate guns it's pretty much what this country was founded on. OK I know that's not exactly correct, but in a metaphorical sense.
If you take away guns, believe me all those country houses with no one within 2 miles would be knocked over quick, as would every other place otherwise indefensible without guns. Michael Moore is a fool for attacking guns.
I usually enjoy a good documentary. I really don't take Moorer serious though. His movies speak to important topics but are regularly slanted with half truths and omissions. He has an agenda and isn't really concerned with providing an objective, well researched and 100% accurate story. One can learn something from his movies but it is really sad how many people take his documentaries as gospel.
Most bad government has grown out of too much government. Thomas Jefferson
Show me one specific instance of Bill Maher being hypocritical.
And Clinton passed legislation that specifically prevented any US military invasion of Iraq. He knew it was coming the next time the GOP won an election, knew it would be a disaster and actually passed legislation preventing the US using military force to change the regime in Iraq.
Bill Maher, either you agree with him or he thinks you're a moron, and that is hypocritical and when he gets called out on it he gets his feelings hurt or he tries to lamely play it off with a joke.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGxa2xytwTw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HECI4QK_mXA
Oh really?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENAV_UoIfgc
I'm not watching videos, you need to explain a specific instance of him being hypocritical. That's where your actions contradict your words. Here's an example of somebody being a hypocrite :
The right-wing American commentator Rush Limbaugh has blamed the National Football League Players Association, the media and "race hustlers", such as Al Sharpton, for his being ousted from a bid to purchase the St Louis Rams.
Limbaugh was quoted on Bloomberg.com as having said on his talk radio show that unfair media coverage and pressure from Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, two black clergyman and civil-rights leaders whom he called "race hustlers", had contributed to the failure of his interest in the Rams.
The Guardian
16 October 2009
"So Much for the Post-Racial America. That's how Rush treats people — in the Martin Luther King aspiration that the content of one's character is what matters, not the color of one's skin. Yet, in the media narrative, he's somehow the one who's got a race issue — and the guys who trade on race, live and breathe it 24/7, are held up as our public conscience."
Andrew McCarthy
National Review
October 16th, 2009
As I explained on my radio show, this spectacle is bigger than I am on several levels. There is a contempt in the news business, including the sportswriter community, for conservatives that reflects the blind hatred espoused by Messrs. Sharpton and Jackson. "Racism" is too often their sledgehammer. And it is being used to try to keep citizens who don't share the left's agenda from participating in the full array of opportunities this nation otherwise affords each of us. It was on display many years ago in an effort to smear Clarence Thomas with racist stereotypes and keep him off the Supreme Court. More recently, it was employed against patriotic citizens who attended town-hall meetings and tea-party protests.
These intimidation tactics are working and spreading, and they are a blight on our society.
Rush Limbaugh
The Race Card, Football and Me
Wall Street Journal op-ed
October 16th, 2009
"He's a racist"......."He's an angry racist."
Rush Limbaugh on Professor Henry Gates
2009
"She's a bigot. She's a racist."
Rush Limbaugh on Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor
2009
"The biggest reverse racist in history."
Rush Limbaugh on Barack Obama
2009
"Just as he is ACORN, just as he is Van Jones, he is racism."
Rush Limbaugh on Barack Obama
2009
"How do you get promoted in a Barack Obama administration? By hating white people."
Rush Limbaugh on the Obama administration
2009
"You know, racism in this country is the exclusive province of the left."
Rush Limbaugh
2009
"We're witnessing racism all this week that led up to the inauguration. We're being told that we have to hope he succeeds. That we have to bend over, grab the ankles, bend over forward, backward, whichever, because his father's black, because this is the first black president."
Rush Limbaugh
2009
"The days of them not having any power are over, and they are angry. And they want to use their power as a means of retribution. That's what Obama's about, gang. He's angry, he's gonna cut this country down to size, he's gonna make it pay for all the multicultural mistakes that it has made, its mistreatment of minorities. I know exactly what's going on."
Rush Limbaugh
2009
".....an outpost of racism and liberalism."
Rush Limbaugh on the NFL
2009
"They're moving to the back of the bus. They're saying, 'I can't use that drinking fountain? Okay. I can't use that restroom? Okay.' That's the modern day Republican Party. The equivalent of the Old South. The new oppressed minority."
Rush Limbaugh
2009
"Obama’s America, white kids getting beat up on school buses now. You put your kids on a school bus, you expect safety but in Obama’s America the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, 'Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on,' and, of course, everybody says the white kid deserved it, he was born a racist, he’s white."
Rush Limbaugh
2009
"You let George Bush's Navy gun down three black teenagers out there on the open sea and I guarantee there would be hell to pay.... If only President Obama had known that the three Somali community organizers were actually young black Muslim teenagers I'm sure he wouldn't have given the order to shoot."
Rush Limbaugh
2009
You bring up two other very big hypocrits Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. They have outrage at WHITE PEOPLE for using racist terms when they themselves have used and continue to use horrible racist terms including the word nigger but I guess that's ok for them to use as they are black but that is the dumbest fucking idea ever "You can't use that word only WE can use that word".....bullshit.
Kirkland you obviously hold yourself and your views in very high regard, but Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are racists, not in my opinion but judging them by their own standards and that makes them hypocrits and yes Rush Limbaugh has every right to be angry at them for ending his run at being in a group to buy the St. Louis Rams because they used a quote that was unconfirmed. Your quotes prove nothing...at least to me, I've heard those quotes in context and I see nothing to prove you correct.
Do you think Henry Louis Gates was in the right when he accused that police Officer of racism? After hearing the details of what happened the majority of people in America would be more on Rush's side than yours.
Sonya Sotomayor did say some very strange things regarding race. It seemed as if she couldn't say something positive about her being hispanic without first bashing white people and their "life experiences".
I'll let the quote art speak for itself.
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