Tears of frustration...

OTOH, how nice not to know who HC is!

Never burp a 'Pepsi' or eat a Pizza from `Pizza Hut.

These crooks get triple-size egos from crack cocaine.
They are manic, numb, authoritarians, and `Killers.
Can't there be `
`
A non-partial`Walking Carrion Exposure Committee?
I was refused a Trial By Jury - See Arthur James's v.
Versus the dead (he died) District of Attorney trial.
The open court records ate in The Commonwealth.
Visit Chambersburg, PA and cops in Waynesboro.
The Waynesboro magistrate and cops were nice.
The magistrate takes cute Bank Mug Shots too.
Poor Amerasian Kim Doan's family and career.
I was jailed after proving Banker Fraud there.
Nothing much ever changes. Ay, in war we say:
`
'It Don't Mean Nothing. I wrote about this before.
It may be on Chris Floyd's (sister sight) AFP or PFP?
That means`
`
Atlantic Free Press.
`
I think politicos can't read.
We can't understand a word.
Words are void of humanity.
Words need animation/life.
Dead letter politicos are ill.
We NO understand because:
`
They gibber lies and total absurdity.
GOPS cause me to upchuck yogurt.
I believe in post-death a`wake up.
Then ? Maybe it be too late `gin.

I'm with ya.

My Dad thinks Newt has a good track record. My younger sister chooses to not vote and says that earns her the right to complain. Voters can't complain in her world. My older sister I don't know about. So Dad and I talk politics without name calling. It's refreshing.

Restrictions on voting based on levels of knowledge?

Well intended perhaps but it is slippery slope thinking.

alsoknownas: I didn't write a thing about restricting voting. This is a personal responsibility people should take on and don't.

Phyllis: Many who have experienced Newt's off camera side can tell you that he doesn't have a good track record. I'm one of those people. It's not often that you can find a candidate where peers from both sides of the political aisle who worked with him in Congress can say "Newt? NO." I knew him at a time when if you weren't useful for his intentions, he was rude right off the bat. Not a great person to be around.

Myriad: Nice to forget HC now... ;)

The failure of American politics is not rooted in the people who are elected, but the people who do the electing.

I can’t count how many times I have written those words in various forms during the last two years, Sandra…but it is considerable. A variation on that theme is: The reason so many politicians disappoint us by selecting self-interests over the interests of the citizens…is because we choose our politicians from among the humans in our midst…and we humans are, for the most part, self-absorbed. And give us some power (as election to office does), we become, as Lord Acton mentioned, corrupt.


People who brag about preferring to keep their heads in the sand, or just say "they're all crooks," are not equipped to decide who will make decisions for any of us. That simple. Ignorance is not bliss, in an age when all the information about candidates is easily available to us - ignorance is dangerous. We've been paying dearly for ignorant choices, especially this past year. We can't afford ignorance in 2012.

AMEN!

In 1980, I decided that Jimmy Carter was a failure and deserved to be taught a lesson. I voted for Ronald Reagan. My thoughts were: It will help teach Carter a lesson and what harm can come from Reagan being in office for a few years. And all politicians are all the same anyway.

Boy, was I ever wrong! It is a mistake I will not make again. I can only hope so many progressive individuals who seem determined to make that mistake this next election will not make it either.

Ms Sparks refers to people who keep there heads in the sand, but that couldn't possibly be you fRANK, could it?

Therefore, fRANK, at this point, not knowing who will be running in opposition you will weigh the facts that as an agnostic who has adopted obama as your personal lord and savior, you will weigh the facts that:

obama, a war criminal and guilty of genocide has launched more drone attacks in two years, killing more civilians than bush the lesser did in eight years; and

that despite promises to close Guantanamo, it remains open, and Bagram holds four times as many "detainees" as Guantanamo ever did;

and that obama has shredded the Constitution in a manner previously undreamed of by the nation including dispensing with habeas corpus and posse comitatus; and

obama who inherited two wars, Iraq (which thinking people, which doesn't include you, know isn't close to being over) and Afghanistan, we have now morphed into these overt and covert wars: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Nigeria, (Kenya, Uganda Burundi), Syria, Colombia, Mexico, Honduras; and others, yet to be revealed;

and obama despite promising a most transparent presidency has instead presided over a presidency that may be the most secretive in history; and

despite promising not to be beholden to special interests, appointed dozens of corporatists into his administration, including those who caused the initial economic collapse; and

so much more malevolence that he should be running from the criminal court in the Hague instead of the presidency.

And were obama to declare martial law and blanket the country with drones, you'd still vote for him and blame the whole affair on, your slogan detour, "professional liberals."

you, mr ex-strip-club manager are going to "carefully" weigh these facets, before pulling the lever for your lord and savior, right?


As I've oft pointed out, when Teddy Roosevelt said:

"and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him (the president) when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."

"Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star", 149
May 7, 1918

and there is NO-ONE more base, servile and morally treasonable than you, fRANK.

-R-

there = their

Thanks for this reasoned piece.

rated.

O.K. you're on.

Your words: " Be a truly informed voter.Or just don't vote. If you choose to remain ignorant about what's going on in this country, you may have been given the right to vote, but have you really earned it?"
'
That's a restriction. "Truly informed" one must be or you say don't vote.
Who is going to decide? You? Others who agree with you? The better educated only? Only if you have "earned it"?
Again... who decides? You?

I think your response to me is disingenuous and this approach leads to elitism and control. You're wrong.

AKA: Do you know the difference between a restriction and a verbal challenge? I have no power over people to restrict them, but I can certainly challenge people to do something. It's their choice whether or not they do it.

Frank: Thank you for your comment. Mr. Carter was (and is) a decent and thoughtful man who would not be seen as an effective leader for one reason: he analyzed the problems we had and were walking into and spoke up. The actual turning point of his adminsitration was not the gas crisis nor the Iran hostage situation - It was a nationally broadcast speech in which he said out loud something very much like what I stated in my post, that too many people don't want to hear: We are responsible for who we elect and what issues are faced in this country, by our votes. In tough times we are responsible for pulling together, not tearing things apart. Voters balked when he said that, and elected Reagan to, as you said, "teach Carter a lesson." In doing that they opened the door to every problem we now face, including handing over the keys to the first President to double the national debt, and to condone deregulation that have caused us so many problems from utilities to Wall Street. When we don't pay attention to what is going on, things get messy.

Markinjapan: "People with the least to say use the loudest words." You are a case in point.

BTW: I'm not trying to divide out progressives from conservatives here - the majority of voters on all political sides do not know enough about who and what they are voting for, or how the government works. I am a moderate. There have been times I wished there were a conservative candidate I could vote for without hesitation. But it's been years since I've seen one. I have been just as hesitant about progressive candidates for decades. The last time I voted Democratic without a qualm was for President Carter: I had already met him, talked with him and Mrs. Carter, and got a sense that what he said he meant, and he meant it all with good reason, even on the things I disagreed with. I had no qualms about President Obama, and still don't. He has done more to actually deliver on his intentions than any other president in a very long time. I'm glad he's around.

Sandra, Ted Frier just blogged about Obama being the true conservative in this contest. He was using the word "conservative" in its true spirit...rather than the hell some extremists have made it. Here is a link, which I hope prints out in its entirety. If not, look at recent posts. Here it is http://open.salon.com/blog/ted_frier/2011/12/27/barack_obama_is_the_real_conservative#comment_2752312 try cutting and pasting.

I highly recommend Ted's essay.

Ahhh...didn't print out entirely. Gotta look it up in RECENT's.

No need to talk down to me. You're quite mistaken that you can out smart me.
Your "challenge" reeks of the restrictions imposed on many to disenfranchise them.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 legislated that a sixth grade education was sufficient to establish the literacy needed to vote. It was needed to remove the restrictions long imposed that some people are just not informed enough to vote.
Your "challenge" is nothing more to me than a thinly veiled form of elitism, just as has been used in the past to keep some out of the voting booth.

Then to you I am an elitist who is speaking down to you. Which tells readers here how easily people can form a wrong opinion by not knowing the person or issues they're talking about. And it drives home the point how much worse that can be if they don't know who they're voting for.