Why doesn't THAT surprise me?? :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

How old do you THINK I am?

(No insults required in your answer.... just your opinion.)

 

Okay... I could be wrong, but it looks to me as if Haggard kisses a kid in the front row....

What does it look like to you??????

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmNjfpoRZpE

 

Two people I know on other forums have watched it and say no, he bobs his head forward, but doesn't kiss the young fellow.

I apologize for thinking Haggard kissed a young boy... I think I was influenced by a poster on another forum who has written over and over again that homosexuals tend to be pederasts.

I don't believe that, when I think about it.


But I can see how repeating something over and over again gets the thing into someone's mind.

(which of course is one reason it's so serious that Haggard made so many hypocritical statements that hurt people.)

 

Hmmm, 12 replies to this thread and and 7 of them are from the original poster. Makes you wonder if he's trying to make something out of nothing. :wink:

 

The original poster is a woman.



I'm Karen.

Nothing? Could be, but Haggard got a lot of people to vote because of the negative things he said about gays... only now it turns out that HAGGARD IS GAY.

That's hypocritical... to say the least...

Isn't that something?

 

:roll: And all these replies of yours to you're own thread would be what?

 

You mean like this one?

Discussion?

 

Okay - now that I have some time, I will delve further into this one.

As far as your age - the reason I asked will be clear soon enough. :wink:

I somewhat agree with this, although in the loosest sense. My personal Civil rights and freedoms were not abridged, as I am not a lawbreaker. As to Bush saying that he and his party are the only ones who can keep America safe, I haven't seen that quote - can you provide a link? :wink:

The war is certianly still about fighting terrorists - what do you think those Insurgents are? Most of them came over from other countries, once the government of Saddam was ousted - they are slowly being weeded out. After all, these terrorists in the Middle East were terrorists before we invaded Iraq - they just were terrorists somewhere else, and weren't so active.

As far as the "propped up" democracy in Iraq, I agree - it is being supported by the U.S. It is very similar to when we fought for our independence from England, and a little country known as France came over to help us to overcome them. The major difference between then and now is that the technology is far greater now, causing more destructive bloodshed.

Here's where your age is gonna come into play. :wink:

There is a reason why the richest 2% get tax cuts, and you know it. The wealthy Americans and the Corporations are the ones who EMPLOY the rest of the country, and are the ones who are paying the taxes - remember that the top 2% of wage earners are paying 50% of the tax. The Democrats would sooner give tax breaks to people who pay little or no tax, solely because it would get them more votes, due to the fact that it would impact (however slightly) more people.

I wonder if you complained when Clinton gave tax breaks back in the 90's when the budget was supposedly "in the black".

I will, however, gladly put my faith in a party that will help 2% of the country FOR A REASON, than a party that will "help" 12.5% of the country FOR A VOTE.

Back in the 1970's, when Carter was still in office, we were in the middle of a major recession, and an oil crisis. When Reagan came into office, the first thing he did was implement tax cuts. Although the result of those tax cuts took time to come to fruition, they led directly to the major expansion of the economy that we enjoyed in the 1990's. Then, a little thing called the "internet" came about in the mid-1990's. This caused a huge upswing in the market, due to the "dot coms" ruling the roost. In 1998 (6 years into the Clinton administration), we saw our first budget that was "in the black". While this "balanced" budget was somewhat caused by smoke and mirrors (as there was still a huge national debt at the time), it did help the economy to strengthen.

Then the bubble burst. The economy tanked, and people lost a lot of money very quickly. Interest rates began climbing, and the problem got worse. This, coupled with the increasing cost of oil, started dragging the economy down at a rapid pace. This all occured prior to 2000.

Think of this in personal terms. Suppose you owed credit card debts of nearly $50,000, and had been steadily increasing your debt for thirty consecutive years, seldom earning as much as you spent. Suppose you were paying well over $200 per month in interest on that debt. Then you get to a good year. For the first time in three decades, you actually earn a little more than you spend. But instead of paying off some of your debt, and reducing your interest payment, you start trying to figure out how to spend more money. That's exactly what Clinton and the legislators did. They offered tax cuts (which negated the whole surplus), and were counting on continued low interest rates, and a continued strong economy. But that strong economy that they were hoping for was already on its way down.

One interesting thing to note is that the deficit in 2002 was around $165 billion - a non-Social-Security deficit of more than $320 billion. That was $400 billion down from the surplus just two years ago. What happened?

- about $30 billion is due to Sept. 11-related spending
- about $60 billion is due to tax cuts that have already taken effect
- about $160 billion is due to the economy's depressed state
- about $150 billion represents the disappearance of one-time factors that swelled the 2000 surplus.

Note where most of the deficit came from - things that were already taking shape BEFORE Bush came to office. The tax cuts were just a small portion of the increased deficit, and other than the Sept. 11th funding, were probably the only thing that was worth the added deficit.

_______________________________


Sorry for the thread hijacking. Haggard is a gay drug user. There - we're back on topic. :wink: :lol:

 

While waiting for GolfHobo to reply, and admitting right off the bat that your answer was thoughtful and too hard for me to grasp in its entirety with only one and a half readings... I want to say that I LOVE your last line, very polite and nice.

And, I'm not a law breaker either. I mean, major not a law breaker. Yet the loss of civil rights frightens me because what I have already experienced.

Civil rights aren't for criminals (though the way that lawyers have turned around criminal law to favor criminals is ... worrying).

Civil rights are to protect the innocent who are wrongly accused... and that could be anyone.

What upsets me about hypocrites who preach one thing and do another, is that they create division, when what we need is to find our areas of similarity and unity.

It's like gossip... it's so easy to win friends by having the best gossip... Haggard was that way, but in a BIG way...

(I don't know why I think I can reply to a complex issue when I can't grasp all of your complex post to GolfHobo.)

If someone can sway people against people, then clearly it's important to retain protections for the innocent, to protect them from "gossip" and hypocrisy.

 

While this is true, there are some that want to apply civil rights to people who aren't even citizens of this country. They tend to want to do the same for illegal Mexicans who cross the border.

That is what they do when they are applied CORRECTLY - most times they are not.

I agree 100%. But creating division seems to help strengthen some people's causes - just like the gay marriage issue does (on both sides of the arguement).

I don't agree that civil rights should be applied this way - it is up to the INDIVIDUAL to see through the "hype", and come to their own conclusion. It isn't up to the government to eliminate the "hype", because where does it end? When you have the government eliminating gossip and hypocrisy, who decides what is gossip and hypocrisy, and what isn't? That is a slippery slope that we shouldn't go down.

Maybe I have too much faith that people are smart enough to see through it.