So if two parties suported our current gun control laws, but one party wanted to repeal the 2nd Amendment, you wouldn't see any difference between them?

The fact that you consider yourself any kind of libertarian, while defending the NSA's domestic spying, sends streams of seltzer spraying from the Clown's nose, Mitch.

I suppose there are a few people who rank lower on the libertarian scale than you do, but most of 'em have "Darth" as a first name.

Sort of like Dean going before Pat Robertson and saying that the Dems don't believe in gay marriage?

The history of the Dems and gay marriage isn't all that pretty, and Dean exemplifies it. He all but lobbied the VT Supreme Court to rule that the marriage statue was unconstitutional, letting it be known that he and his fellow travelers would welcome a change to rewrite the rules, but only with covering fire from the Court.

What happened? The Court (composed solely of former state government lawyers) ruled the way he wanted, but set off a firestorm called Take Back Vermont. He went from publically celebrating the idea of gay "marriage" to calling for moderation, to supporting "civil unions" to actually signing the CU bill behind closed doors with no witnesses.

The result was the first time the limp and cluess RINOs in VT managed to take back the House, the governor, and very nearly the Senate in 30 years. Even MadHow learned a very valuable political lesson when even a left wing nutter state like VT wasn't ready for this.

RickDFL:

"So if two parties suported our current gun control laws, but one party wanted to repeal the 2nd Amendment, you wouldn't see any difference between them?"

Faulty analogy. To work, it'd have to be more like "if two parties believed that the Second Amendment meant literally what it says - that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right - but the GOP supports a law codifying the original definition while the DFL promises gun controllers that it's *really* a collective privilege to get their votes (while working to uphold the individual rights interpretation)".

Angryclown:

The fact that you feel yourself privileged to argue about who is and is not a libertarian - after years of tittering about what a bunch of tinfoil-hatted loonies Libertarians are, and not giving a single chirp about civil liberties until Ashkkkroft was sworn in - makes me spray it back.

But not from my nose.

And 'clown - you ARE familiar with the Clinton Administration's record on domestic wiretapping, aren't you?

Nothing is as intrusive into your private lives than filing your taxes with the IRS.

This quote says it all:

State Sen. Tarryl Clark of St. Cloud, part of the preballot Wetterling presentation, said: "Bachmann is the devil in the blue dress, and Patty is the saint."

Yes, here's where the campaign is going to go. Patty is a saint and Bachmann is the Devil. Example #5,896,758,573 of how the DFL operates. Demonize people instead of present ideas.

Thanks again, DFL! You did it again!

If I was the DFL I wouldn't go around mentioning blue dresses.

Mitch, spending these past 6 years with your head up Karl Rove's ass has apparently blinded you to the fact that some people have principles that survive from one administration to another. Angryclown condems the technically legal, but overbroad, domestic surveillance of the Clinton years only slightly less than the broader, flat-out illegal program that is going on now.

I am disappointed, though not entirely surprised, to see you manufacture phony positions for Clown to support your point.

All of that is irrelevant, however. My comment was intended neither to support the Clinton administration nor even condemn the Bushies. I'm simply suggesting that you pick one or the other side of your mouth to talk out of from now on. To back secret government surveillance of citizens is completely inconsistent with a libertarian pose. Drop one or the other.

Let me see if I understand this. Clintons perusing undeited FBI files is "technically legal, but overbroad, domestic surveillance", whereas Bush's NSA data mining phone number connections to discern patterns (which the SCOTUS has previously determined legal, as there is no Presumption of privacy in third party records) is flat-out illegal.
Curious world, that of the leftist idealogue.

Kermit, much like your intellectual superior, Mitch, you are attributing to Angryclown arguments he has not made. Unfortunately, you currently dwell on the lower half of the Stupid-to-Really-Stupid bell curve that the Clown uses to rank contributors to Mitch's comments section. Consequently, I am unable to spend any more time addressing myself to you.

It may encourage you to know that you rank only among the moderately Really Stupid. If you are able to post a few consecutive comments that are merely stupid, you could find yourself on the positive side of the Mental Mendoza line and Angryclown can resume educating you. :)

Why don't you just call me "Poopyhead"?
There is one more difference between Clinton's "technically legal, but overbroad, domestic surveillance" and Bush's "broader, flat-out illegal program": the latter is targeted at enemies of the USA. The former was targeted at enemies of the Clintons.
Fine distinction.

If anybody is an expert on stupid, it'd be the clown. He's been stuck on stupid for quite some time.

Very well, Kermit. You are a poopyhead.

That post isn't helping your ranking!

Considering the source I wear that as a badge of honor.

Kermit's Brown Badge of Courage. Do you also consider the toilet paper stuck to your shoe as a badge of honor?

Kermit blathered: "There is one more difference between Clinton's "technically legal, but overbroad, domestic surveillance" and Bush's "broader, flat-out illegal program": the latter is targeted at enemies of the USA. The former was targeted at enemies of the Clintons.
Fine distinction."

Oops! I guess that's because Bush has a lot of enemies - 70 percent of the population, anyway.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/05/federal_source_.html

Federal Source to ABC News: We Know Who You're Calling
May 15, 2006 10:33 AM

Brian Ross and Richard Esposito Report:

A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we call in an effort to root out confidential sources.

"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation.

ABC News does not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.

Well by Golly! ABC News says so, it's unimpeachable (kinda like Bush). News services would Never fabricate stories (Jayson Blair), especially about Bush (Mary Mapes). Fake but accurate! More Americans trust ABC news to tell them what to think than any other left-leaning partisan news source.

Ah, I see your defense is that the news is fabricated. Sorry, Kerm, that post put you way down on the flat end of the curve.

The bad thing about fact-resistant kooks like yourself is they never know when they're beat. The good thing is, they always get beat.

Bye Kerm, I'll miss ya! Maybe I'll send you a postcard from the reality-based community one of these days!

"...the [NSA domestic "syping"] is targeted at enemies of the USA. The [Cliton domestic spying] was targeted at enemies of the Clintons. Fine distinction."

For shame, Kermit! Don't you know that to the clown the two groups are the same?!

Hours I spent, slaving over hot code, to get my comments section working again...

...and...

...oh, never mind.

Sorry Mitch! Maybe you could write in a "reality-based community" filter. The manual one doesn't seem to be too effective.

Mitch writes -
To work, it'd have to be more like "if two parties believed that the Second Amendment meant literally what it says - that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right - but the GOP supports a law codifying the original definition while the DFL promises gun controllers that it's *really* a collective privilege to get their votes (while working to uphold the individual rights interpretation)".

This is so obviously wrong I don't see why you bother. On marriage, both parties generally support the current law (DOMA) while they disagree about whether that policy should be made permanent through a Consititutional ammendment. That is exactly the same scenario I layed out in my example. Instead you say it compares to a situation where the parties agree about the Constitutional issue, but disagree about legislation.

The point (if I dare get more abstact) is that it is perfectly reasonable to support X as a matter of current legislative policy, while not wanting to see X made a permanent part of a Constitution.

Kermit, the NSA was doing a lot more than data mining phone numbers...

The NSA conducts wiretapping outside the United States all the time, but after Sept. 11, the Bush administration directed the agency to include phone calls that started or ended in the United States, if one person was believed to be linked to al-Qaida.

Ordinarily, the agency would have to get a warrant from a special surveillance court to conduct any eavesdropping in the United States, but this new program dispensed with those warrants because, according to the administration, time is of the essence in detecting terror plots.

The New York Times disclosed the existence of this program in December 2005, and the administration quickly acknowledged those reports were largely correct. But the president and others in the administration insist he has the legal authority to do this.

Fulcrum

And FDR opened mail during WWII. The FISA laws which have been debated exhaustively here and elsewhere are outdated. They come from a time before e-mail, cell phones and flying big planes into bigger buildings.
Someone once said "The Constitution is not a suicide pact." We are at war, like it or not, and some extreme measures are called for.
Those warrants take up to three days and masses of paperwork. Should we really filter national security through a panel of judges?

You chickenhearted wingnuts can always find a threat to justify turning the country into a police state. Cowboy up, Kermit! A good thing the founders of this country weren't such pansies!

"This is so obviously wrong I don't see why you bother."

No, Rick. You are not following the example, in which both parties do NOT agree on the constitutional issue; you are 180 degrees wrong.

The analogies:
Constructionist 2nd Amendment=Traditional view of marriage.
GOP view of traditional, constructionist view of guns=ditto marriage.
DFL line to those who'd revise traditional view of 2nd Amendment=ditto for marriage.
DFL line to those who *don't* want to revise traditional view of 2nd Amendment=ditto for marriage.

My analogy is perfect.

Perhaps if you focused more on reading and less on trying to "zing" your opposition, you'd do better at this.

Kermit said, "We are at war, like it or not, and some extreme measures are called for."

Well Kermit, like it or not, we are not at war. To the best of my knowledge, Congress never declared an act of war.

And if we were at war, the wiretapping would be a moot issue. "And if war is declared, FISA allows warrantless wiretapping for 15 days, after which Congress must be consulted."

And Kermit also said, "Should we really filter national security through a panel of judges?"

The government apparently thinks so..."Indeed, the number of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants is at an all-time high. The court approved 2,072 surveillance requests in 2005, an 18 percent increase over 2004."

Fulcrum

Mitch:

Yes if you take one situation where you assume the DFL is acting hypocritically and compare is to another situation where you assume the DFL is acting hypocritically, you get a nice tight analogy. Of course you have also assumed what you are trying to prove so the whole exercise is sort of pointless.

The question is whether you can support X as a matter of legislative policy and at the same time non-hypocritically assert that X should not be a Consititutional requirement. Westover says that because Wetterling and Bachman have the same position on the legislative question of marriage, they ought to have the same position on the Constitutional issue. Since they don't have the same Consitutional position Wetterling is a hypocrit. But it is just silly to think that support for X as a matter of legislation, requires support for X as a matter of Constitutional principle.

Hey Lefties, if you don't like the NSA, maybe you should lead the charge to abolish the IRS:

http://stuartbuck.blogspot.com/2005/12/privacy.html

Stuart Buck posted this December 21, 2005, so that's the context it's in:

"Lots and lots of people have been going ballistic over the fact that NSA computers have monitored a select number of phone calls made internationally. Clearly unconstitutional, they say. Clearly illegal, they say. Grounds for impeachment, some even say.

On a different note, the year is ending soon. People's W-2 forms from work will be coming out, as will receipts from charities, etc. It will soon be time once again for the yearly ritual whereby everyone meekly and mildly registers with a government agency that monitors:

Your address, your place of employment, your salary, the names and social security numbers of your children or other dependents (plus their birth dates); the amounts you may have given to charity; the amount you spend on a mortgage and with what bank; the amount of interest you received on any savings account; the amount you gained from any stocks or investments you might have sold during the past year; any money that you gained from rentals, alimony, unemployment compensation, or IRA distributions; any money that you spent on student loan interest, health savings accounts, child care, care for the elderly, adoption, 401Ks, or moving; etc., etc., etc.

All of this takes a lot of time, of course, so I'd expect everyone to take a short breather before returning to the all-important task of denouncing the NSA for monitoring a few international phone calls made by people associated with Al Qaeda. After all, no free society can tolerate *that* sort of invasion of privacy."

Amazing how no one on the Left is screaming about that level of privacy invasion.

You are buying into the media spin by only focusing on Social-Conservative. She is a true conservative fiscal and social. She will be pigon-holed into the gay marriage thing (keeping a tradition alive) But what about keeping tax cuts and trying to control spending. As far as Clinton how can anyone defend a guy that allowed 80 men women and children to be burned alive in Waco.

Fulcrum, we are indeed at war. It was declared on us. It began in 1979 in Tehran. Congress hasn't formally declared it, because it's a political hot potato. They never declared Vietnam either. That didn't stop thousands from marching in the street chanting "Stop the War".

Yeah Fulcrum, the war we're in now has been going on since '79. There was a good deal of overlap with the Cold War, of course, which started 1945-ish and was preceded by WWII.

So when the wingnuts talk about curtailing freedoms during wartime, they're really only talking about a limited period: 1941 through the foreseeable future.

Cowards.

For the hundreth time, what freedoms have been curtailed? Has your subscription to Asian Wives been blocked?

Kermit warned: "We are at war, like it or not, and some extreme measures are called for."

It's not a recommendation I'd make to others, but you, Kermit, should read your posts.

Read the two Paul made on the top thread and then read your own tripe. The crickets chirping up there are deafening.

Kermit:

I think you need to look past 1979....

In 1953, emerging democracy led to the election of reformist Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh; under Operation Ajax, the CIA helped the Shah and conservative elements in Iran remove Mossadegh in what was widely seen as a coup d'état. Eight U.S. presidents provided the Shah with military and economic aid in exchange for a continuous oil supply and a strategic presence in the Middle East.

Fulcrum

Furthermore Kermit...exactly what do you mean by this phrase?

"Fulcrum, we are indeed at war. It was declared on us. It began in 1979 in Tehran."

Who declared this war on us?

Fulcrum

Yeah that bastard Truman and his impossible containment poilcy. Dominoes? What a joke!

"Who declared this war on us?"

Are you that obtuse?

Kermit, I am serious, who? Was it the monolithic religion of Islam? Anyone who looks Arab? Really who, I am just curious who declared war on us.

Fulcrum

Furriners, Fulcrum. All good wingnuts live in constant terror of furriners. That's why we've got National Guard stopping 'em to the south, the US of A military shooting at 'em in Iraq and Afghanistan, and President Bush protecting us from 'em by wiretapping our phones.

Clown, go check your door. The men in dark suits should be there any minute.

Fulcrum, it's radical Islam of the type practiced by Wahhaists and those who venerate Ayatollah Khomeni. It stretches from the Phillipines and Indonesia to Algeria and France. It is a fanatical belief that the Quran is the final word of God. It is the determination to create a global Caliphate and bring about world peace through the imposition of Shari'a law.
It is a war of cultures. Radical Islam cannot tolerate the dominance of the West. It really cannot tolerate any contention.
I ask if you are being intentionally obtuse because you would have to be to overlook the Iranian hostage crisis, the Khobar Towers bombing, the Beruit marine barracks bombing, Mogadishu, the bombings of US embassies in Tanganyika and Kenya, the bombing of the US Cole and Two attacks on what was the World Trade Center. There are many more, like nightclubs in Bali, resorts in Egypt, Olympic atheletes in Munich, trains in Britain, trains in Spain, the Achile Lauro (sp?) and a whole lot of dead people from Algiers to Aceh.
If you don't believe we are in a war, fine. I can't do anything about that. But know this: the people that want to kill you believe it, and that's all that matters.

So in order to wage war on religous fundamentalists we invade Iraq?

Granted, I understand the threat of Saddam providing WMDs to these groups. But can't you see that our invasion of Iraq has created more radical fundamentalists hell bent on our destruction? While at the same time we turn a blind eye to Saudi Arabia who is turing out, and funding these radicals?

I agree we do have a war on our hands, but fighting this war in a conventional warfare setting is not the appropriate route.

Furthermore, we tell the world we are trying to promote democracy, but fail to recognize the democratically elected party of Hammas?

There seems to be no coherent plan for this war, and it is costing us dearly.

Fulcrum

I dispute the notion that we are creating more radicals. Madrassas create radicals. They existed before 2003 and they are certainly not going away. Is Iraq attracting them like mice to cheese? Sure. Is that a bad thing? I don't think so.
If you read the text of the last memo intercept from Zarqawi you get a picture of near despair. Their efforts are becoming more and more futile. They cannot hold any territory. All they can do is pack cars with semtex and kill themselves, taking innocents with them and turning public opinion against them. AQ in Iraq is not Iraqi. It's primarily Iran.
I'll grant you Saudi Arabia is problematical, but it is stable. It does oppose Iran.
If there is no coherent plan for this war the fault lies with the nature of the conflict. Iraq is a battle, not the whole war. Hopefully it can be fought with non-military means in the future, but I doubt it.

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