Liberal Americans

I'm still tryin to figure out if I'm a conservative, moderate or liberal or a mixture of all three. Let me list some of my beliefs. You more learned folks can make your accessment.

I love everything about America.
I was in the Marine Corps
I retired after 40 yrs. as a police officer with the rank of capt.
I believe the federal gov. should stay out of states rights.
I don't believe in foreign aid until the hungry and homeless in this country are taken care of.
I've only voted once, when I was 18yrs.old, for JFK.
I believe people over 65, with an income within a certain level, should not have to pay any type of taxes and receive all medical services and prescription free.
This is just to name a few....Thanks for your input! Oh, I'm 66 yoa and I'm from Georgia

Edited on November 19, 2008 at 1:16 PM Quote

How about Liberal Canadians?!?!?!

Quote

Us Canadains should start our own thread vella LOL

Quote

awww i feel luvd :)

Quote

That's the beauty about Liberals.. we love everyone!

Quote

I mean.. how fitting... We're already making an effin rainbow! :D

Quote

Quote

Do you live in Canada yet paris?

Quote

*waves*

Do you have room for a Socialist (an actual Socialist rather than the version some people seem convinced is invading American culture)

;)

Quote

Aww well we still love ya.. and it isnt the most difficult thing in the world.. just have to follow a process.. simple enough

Quote

Well I'm here.

What's the first order of business? Should we confiscate the guns or the money first? :~)

Houston, you sound like a mixed bag but you're welcome here cuz liberals are very accepting of others. :~)

Quote

Actually, this is true sox. We tend to enjoy full and frank exchanges of views and are quite happy to have open discussions. Some conservatives are like that too, but seem sadly underrepresented on these threads, and when they do pop their heads up they get bitten because they aren't American citizens...

Quote

Yeah, Wicca we are a young country, yet we feel we have it all figured out and when some "foreigner" starts mouthing off we whip out our "exceptionalism" and start waving it around.. lol

For the record, I have some conservative inclinations. I do believe in an armed citizenry. Not that we should all have weapons, I don't even own a gun, but I like the idea that the government has a little something to fear if they get any crazy ideas. Can I still be in the club?

Quote

helllloooooo!!!! :)

Quote

I don't know if I'm classified as "liberal" I don't really care for labels but, I'm a nice person. I think. :)

Quote

Comrade Darcy!

Quote

Jen here checking in! LOL!

I am one giant Liberal and proud of it!!

Quote

Houston wrote:I'm still tryin to figure out if I'm a conservative, moderate or liberal or a mixture of all three. Let me list some of my beliefs. You more learned folks can make your accessment.

I love everything about America.
I was in the Marine Corps
I retired after 40 yrs. as a police officer with the rank of capt.
I believe the federal gov. should stay out of states rights.
I don't believe in foreign aid until the hungry and homeless in this country are taken care of.
I've only voted once, when I was 18yrs.old, for JFK.
I believe people over 65, with an income within a certain level, should not have to pay any type of taxes and receive all medical services and prescription free.
This is just to name a few....Thanks for your input! Oh, I'm 66 yoa and I'm from Georgia

About all of that sounds fine to me. I peg you as a realist who is far-minded about how things should be.
I continue to be what the Europeans call a Social Democrat or close to America's version of the Green Party, both of which are moderately Socialist in their policies.

Edited on November 19, 2008 at 5:41 PM Quote

scarlettohall wrote:I don't know if I'm classified as "liberal" I don't really care for labels but, I'm a nice person. I think. :)

I'd place you squarely in the 'nice' party Jo.

You have your own beliefs and live by them, but you don't clobber anyone for having different views. :-)

Breath of fresh air, that.

Quote

Liberal Canadian here! Woohoo! Parteeeeee!

Quote

I'm stealing the JFK quote for my facebook! :)

Quote

A very liberal Scottish guy just joined the thread.....smile......

Quote

sox05 wrote:Yeah, Wicca we are a young country, yet we feel we have it all figured out and when some "foreigner" starts mouthing off we whip out our "exceptionalism" and start waving it around.. lol

For the record, I have some conservative inclinations. I do believe in an armed citizenry. Not that we should all have weapons, I don't even own a gun, but I like the idea that the government has a little something to fear if they get any crazy ideas. Can I still be in the club?

I don't necessarily agree with armed citizenry, but understand its importance to some Americans. I'd be happier with national standards in firearm registration, licensing and regulation though.

Quote

auroral wrote:A very liberal Scottish guy just joined the thread.....smile......

*grins*

Why hello there.

Quote

JFK..........The greatest president of the 20th century! In my humble opinion.

Quote

Houston wrote:JFK..........The greatest president of the 20th century! In my humble opinion.

I agree, he has to be near the top.... his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis will always be remembered... some saw it as too confrontational but in hindsight, it was the correct way to handle it!!!

Quote

ooh finally a thread I can feel at home in, hehehh :)

Quote

lol Ally

for now at least

Quote

I was in the military when the cuban missile thing happened. If you were military at that time, you loved JFK for his stance and backing down the Russians.

Quote

Oh i think i am safe here :)
I am Canadian living in the US ( PERMANENT RESIDENT) so i am legal lol. Sometimes a person don't know where they belong on these threads lol. I am very liberal. Hope its ok that i am here :)

Quote

Wiccabasket wrote:

auroral wrote:A very liberal Scottish guy just joined the thread.....smile......

*grins*

Why hello there.

Hiya!.....smile.....

Quote

wow... the most relaxed politics thread ever...

*sits back on a comfy chair*

Quote

Hiya, I am 'naturalised' British, I came from Germany originally and live in England now. I am liberal with leanings towards Labour.

If that's not too extreme, can I join you, too, please?

:)

Quote

ohhh no a conservative =o burn him at the stake!!!

Quote

UFOz8MyGoat wrote:ohhh no a conservative =o burn him at the stake!!!

You've got the wrong thread, son. We are not interested in doing that to anyone here.

Quote

yes my daughter it was a joke =)

Quote

Glad we got that cleared up nephew, happy to see you're not bitter :)

Edited on November 20, 2008 at 12:30 PM Quote

How Bout That Axis of Evil?

According to the IAEA
"Iran has now produced roughly enough nuclear material to make, with added purification, a single atom bomb... The report concluded that as of early this month, Iran had made 630 kilograms, or about 1,390 pounds, of low-enriched uranium."

This is just the most recent report confirming that the three so called "Axis of Evil," countries have only gotten worse during the Bush administration. These states (Iraq, Iran, and North Korea) that President Bush said "pose a grave and growing danger," have only grown more dangerous because of the failed policies of the Bush administration. al Qaeda has a strong hold in Iraq where it didn't before, North Korea has tested a nuclear bomb, and now Iran seems one step further.

Ok, so this is scary. Obama is going to need the support from all of us to try to clean up the mess that was left for him...

Edited on November 20, 2008 at 4:27 PM Quote

I misread Darcy's quote as:

According to Ikea...lol...

..thought the Swedes had joined in! rofl!!

Quote

I thought this was as good a place as any to post this blog entry from my friend Robin. He has recently gone out to SF to spend six months with his girlfriend, and what he wrote was terrifying (from an English woman's point of view).

"The emergency room
The waiting-room had comfier chairs than a British one, and a couple of snack machines that accept credit cards. There was a television in one corner of the ceiling showing a cheap reality programme. Television isn't even an escape from reality any more.

The young man behind the counter had a religious symbol round his neck. He took R.'s details and asked if she had medical insurance. She doesn't. He gave her a card for a financial adviser.

We waited, eating burritos, until a woman called out R.'s first name. We went in to an office and R. told her what was wrong. She has had chest pains intermittently for ten years. Once, when she was poor enough for state medical care, a doctor told her it was probably nothing to worry about, but apparently a real diagnosis would have cost too much. American state medical cover, I suspect, is the reason I've seen two or three double amputees per day since I've been staying here, more than I see in a month at home. Cutting off legs is either cheaper than treating certain conditions properly, or becomes necessary when conditions go untreated for a long time.

In the last week, R.'s chest had become more painful than ever. That day, which was two days ago, it was making it hard for her to breathe, which qualifies it as an emergency, so the hospital was obliged to stablise her condition. Stabilise, not fix.

We waited again and ate more burrito. I was prepared for this to be the several-hour wait that you could expect from the NHS once they'd decided you weren't in immediate danger. It was only about half an hour. The same woman took us to a curtained-off booth and said she'd be back with a gown.

We heard the doctor before we saw him. His name was Tom - that's all his name badge said - and we found out later that he wasn't a doctor but a physician's assistant. American hospitals have the power to keep you in against your will, and Tom was telling the woman in the next booth that this would happen to her, to her great distress. He spoke to her as though she were a petulant five-year-old and he were bad with children.

"That's what happens when you check in to a hospital that has no record of you, with an injury like that." I think it was a bloody knee.

He came in to R.'s booth a few minutes later and asked her the questions she'd already answered.

"How old are you?"

"27."

"Pfffff." (A word I've never heard before, only seen as an internet onomatopoeia.) "So it's not your heart, is that what you're worried about?"

"No." She hadn't said anything of the kind.

Sits down. Sighs. "This is an emergency room. We deal with bad stuff here. Now if this has been goin' on for a week, if it was bad you'd have called as a week ago, wuncha?" I noticed he was chewing gum. Probably. It might have been tobacco.

He prodded her half-arsedly with a stethoscope.

"Okay, we're gonna get you a breathing treatment and send you home." He said 'breathing treatment' in the same tone as he might have said 'lollipop'.

He sauntered out. R., in tears, gathered her things and said we were leaving. "Where d'you think you're goin', honey?" Tom demanded as we passed him on the way out of the ward.

R. got a complaint form from the charge nurse, who took her into another room and asked what had happened. The charge nurse said it wasn't the first time Tom had been complained about.

"Who?" asked another nurse conversationally.

"Tom."

"Who?"

"Tom C—." (That's not a swear word; it's my attempt to look journalistic by omitting Tom's real surname, which is Crawford.)

"Who?"

"The jackass."

"Oh."

They said R. didn't have to leave, and sent in another doctor, who I think was actually a doctor this time. He was pleasant and seemed to listen to what R. said. He prodded around and said she needed a mammogram, but they wouldn't give her one. The nurses took blood and urine tests, did an X-ray, and gave her a breathing treatment, which turned out to be a plastic pipe that you suck nasty-smelling smoke out of.

R. left with a diagnosis sheet, not entirely unlike a printed Wikipedia article, of costochondritis or chest wall pain, and instructions to get a mammogram, which she can't afford. It said to come back if the pain was prolonged or caused difficulty breathing.

Yesterday the director of the hospital called R. about her experience with Tom. According to her, and various pieces of gossip, there have been several complaints, he's been given a severe talking-to, and they are not sure what to do about him.

This morning R. was worse, and her neck had swollen up so that she also had trouble sleeping and eating. We went back, and she eventually got a prescription for some painkillers and antibiotics. They said again that she needed a mammogram and again that they didn't do them.

If R.'s pay were doubled so that she could afford medical insurance tomorrow, the company might pay for a mammogram but wouldn't pay to treat anything nasty that showed on it, because it would be a "pre-existing condition"; if she lost her job and home and went back on to state care, they would say the same.

R. will probably be billed upwards of ten thousand dollars for all this. The hospital can't take legal action if she doesn't pay, which is just as well.

The U.S. is the wealthiest country in the world, and the only one in the developed world that dares treat its people this way. Barack Obama's medical plans, if he gets round to them, will probably make things cheaper, but R. and tens of millions like her will still be at the mercy of "the market", i.e. rich b**tards who don't want to help."

Quote

If R has breast cancer (which is possible), it is likely to be too late for any treatment to be effective, and she cannot afford this treatment anyway. It's horrific that people can be living like this in one of the richest countries in the world, yet this tale is not unusual.

Words fail me.

Quote

That's how it is here...if you're poor you just die. Sad but, true.

In the state I live in people have a bit of an advantage..charity hospital in which they (doctors, nurses, etc. etc.) are very good at their jobs.

Quote

I've lived with this uncertainty and anger about it my whole adult life, Wicca. You only have temporary health and economic security in this country if you're not part of the upper class and that temporary security is gone as soon as you become seriously ill enuf to lose your job and with it your health care coverage. The only exceptions for those below the upper class is if they have a high-income spouse who can replace their lost income from a job loss and get health insurance for them. Or if one had well-off parents who could help financially.

But the three reasons we have this system is, first, the successful scare tactics that the insurance industry and Repubs have used to call serious health care reform socialism. The second reason is that too many Americans focus on some "undeserving" people getting free health care from the govt. without working instead of having a system that provides THEM lifetime health security, talk about voting against your own self-interest, since no one can be sure they'll never lose a job or get seriously ill. Thirdly, too many people don't want to support a so-called Socialistic health care system because they think it will cost them too much in taxes as individuals or in their small businesses and, God forbid, keep them or their children from achieving their personal American dream, namely becoming so rich they can lord it over everyone they know.

Usually that's about as likely to happen as them winning the multi-million dollar lottery, but that doesn't stop them from basing their politics on their fantasies. Fantasies are fine with me as long as they don't bring the rest of us who down who choose to think realisticly instead and make us suffer with them.

Edited on November 20, 2008 at 7:38 PM Quote

^^ which all makes me wonder why there are people in my country, that want to change to the system you have!!

Quote