GO REPULBLICANS!!!

Looks like the republicans regain control of the house! This is great news, and I hope those damn democrats are crying their eyes out.

I work and Massachuetts, and its amazing that the most democratic state in the country actually went Republican, how sweet it is...

Not that I am a total republican, but I am really sick of some of these games the darn librals play.

I think this is a bad thread
Just another way to segregate people.
What about the democrats on our forum?

LNCPapa

YES REPUBLICANS ROCK!!!!!
I was so happy after I heard this morning that The Republicans control the House and the Senate...I personally believe this is a great thing for us her in America....And about segragation I dfont think so cause you're only expeiriencing what us Republicans felt when the democrats took total control 7...8...years ago....

Being in the UK i always wondered what the difference was between Republicans & Democrats??? Anyone care to explain??

Here in the UK, we have our different political parties, but nowadys they are all too much like the same thing...(except for the raving loony party)!!!

Very briefly, the main difference between Democrats and Republicans is that the Democrats favor big and expensive government, while Republicans favor smaller and less invasive government.

And I'm a Republican from MA too, and am SOOO happy O'Brien wasn't elected. :D

democrats: favor taxs, large governments, liberal (legalize abortion, pot, teaching spanish in our grammer schools), tree hugers, peace freaks, poor, minority, immigrants, unions

republicans: middle class, rich, less taxs, strong military, high morals, old school, close of the boarders, war against drugs, non-union

Basically, democrates gear towards the poor, students, elderly, and immigrants for votes. They have more of a liberal stance on important issues, and absolutly no morals. Democrats are the reason why we have so many issues here in the USA with illegal aliens, welfare, and unions (which nowadays are very much corrupt). Republicans are more church minded, old school. This election was a landmark election, which now puts the Republicans in total power here in the USA, which hasn't happened in the last 100 years. This was very significant, more than most people know. Basically, republicans and democrats share parts of the senate and house of reps. Whichever is the majority obviously would gear things towards their party.

Anyhow, I could go on forever. These are my opinions, and I hope it helps u understand a bit if your not from the USA.

O- BTW

Where from ma are u from?

I was born in Springfield, and am looking for a new house in the suburb area.

OBRIAN was horrible. MA is going to go though alot of changes, changes that are a long time comming.

I don't like either parties... They are all just lost in their own identity as the other.

How can you have a republican in a democracy? How can you have a democrat in a decmocracy that is actually a democratic republic?

All these questions and more...

I don't even vote for this (and more) reasons. But if I did, I wouldn't favor parties, just individuals.

Originally posted by TS | Crazyace
democrats: favor taxs, large governments, liberal (legalize abortion, pot, teaching spanish in our grammer schools), tree hugers, peace freaks, poor, minority, immigrants, unions

republicans: middle class, rich, less taxs, strong military, high morals, old school, close of the boarders, war against drugs, non-union

Basically, democrates gear towards the poor, students, elderly, and immigrants for votes. They have more of a liberal stance on important issues, and absolutly no morals. Democrats are the reason why we have so many issues here in the USA with illegal aliens, welfare, and unions (which nowadays are very much corrupt). Republicans are more church minded, old school. This election was a landmark election, which now puts the Republicans in total power here in the USA, which hasn't happened in the last 100 years. This was very significant, more than most people know. Basically, republicans and democrats share parts of the senate and house of reps. Whichever is the majority obviously would gear things towards their party.

Anyhow, I could go on forever. These are my opinions, and I hope it helps u understand a bit if your not from the USA.

VERY VERY subjective. Anyone who reads this (or this thread) should take it with a few grains of salt.

I think it's healthy to have both parties involved - I never said I wanted it to be all democratic either. Without both parties involved there is less balance in decisions. I think that balance is a necessary part of our political processes.

LNCPapa

And one more thing.... Rick, you're the man :) You get my vote you pasty guy!

Originally posted by Rick
VERY VERY subjective. Anyone who reads this (or this thread) should take it with a few grains of salt.

I was going to write something similar. This is the type of topic which often instigates a flame war. Hopefully peoples political views can be discussed without it degrading into a flame war.

Originally posted by TS | Crazyace
Basically, democrates gear towards the poor, students, elderly, and immigrants for votes. They have more of a liberal stance on important issues, and absolutly no morals. Democrats are the reason why we have so many issues here in the USA with illegal aliens, welfare, and unions (which nowadays are very much corrupt). Republicans are more church minded, old school.
Do you think there will be less issues with these things when republicans are deciding? And why? I don't understand how being "old school" helps here.

I find myself agreeing more with Republican views than Democratic views, but I also heavily disagree with both. Usually I find that I may like an idea that the Republicans have which the Democrats oppose, but I also find problems with the idea or its implimentation.

The Republicans pretty much want to keep everything the same way forever and the Democrats want to give everything to everyone and then put huge taxes on it.

The way I see it, the only thing that is good about either party controlling the majority is that things get done faster, whether these will be good or bad for the country is another can of worms entirely. It just speeds up the process because there is less squabbling.

I don't like Bush because:

His father -George Bush- was in the oil business since the 50's, and was a member of the Skull and Bones secret society. This membership was used by his critics as evidence of elitism.

His grandfather, Prescott Sheldon Bush was a banker.

Do a little research, and you will find connections to very interesting people.

This should already tell you where his interests are, but never mind.

Go here and click on "The Full Harvard Watch Memo" (if you are a Bush apologist, then ignore the omissions in the Boston Globe):

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~skomarov/harvardwatch/

Of course, we know that the White House would never lie to the american people, right? Those stories about some president *cough* Nixon *cough* are figments of some slanderous reporters. Let's forget that Ford's pardon was pretty much the result of blackmail.

Bush apparently is also saying that the UN is full of it, since this looks like our government is already taking steps:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20021104/ts_nm/usa_ships_iraq_dc_2

Of course, this should surprise no one since we are 100% sure that Saddam wants to throw nukes to the U.S. Good thing that Russia is broke and China is afraid (ahem): Russia doesn't have enough money to keep its scientists, so many of them went to arab countries (duh!). Even though some guy in CNN said that they are not building refrigerators, well, do we have to make a list of all the countries that didn't like us? -Starting with Russia, the list is quite long. Even with western-oriented leaders like Yeltsin or Putin, there is still resentment to be found.

China didn't even make a decent attempt when the U.S. bombed their embassy in Serbia. An accident (?), but they did nothing -not even a diplomatic gesture. Then the thing with the spy plane. The U.S. released a list of actions to undertake if they didn't release the crew. Oppose the Olympics, take a stand with Tibet, and so on. Lo and behold, a little later the crew was released. Dude, China knows they can't mess with the U.S.

On the other hand, the arabs and the jews (ME) have a fanatical hate toward each other, and Bush wants to go in and start a conflict that most likely will not be confined to Iraq. Russia will sell weapons to the arabs, just like they sold weapons to the vietnamese. We have to remember that America sold weapons to Afghanistan toward the end of 1986, during the conflict with the soviets.

These two countries are waiting for a moment of distraction to stop being "2nd class world powers". China has no problem murdering their own students (Beijing, 1989), much less Americans -directly or indirectly.

Back to America, we can see the actual social trends, and the middle class will eventually disappear. Knowing Bush's background, he cares probably as much as Reagan did. I'm no fan of Springsteen, but he did the right thing by criticizing the republicans during Reagan's presidency.

Most americans didn't want Bush anyway -lost the popular vote.

By the way, what can you say about a guy who couldn't even write his autobiography? ("A Charge to Keep" -written with Karen Hughes). I hear that in England they also make fun of him.

I dont really like Bush that much myself either. Try reading A Pale White Horse and you'll learn alot about 'ole Bush. His father being head of the CIA for all those years gives you just a bit of a clue of where I am heading with this, but I won't go any further. So some reading on it.

I personally believe there should be more than 2 parties.

I think regular average americans should get elected (those that have a high enough I.Q. that is)

There are many issues between the parties but not voting is the worst thing you could do. It's more entertaining to play in a football game than watch it, correct? And if you dont play, then don't *****!

In closing, to be honest I voted for Gore. Now, I would never even cast a vote for another democrat for as long as I live! I have done alot of reading and listning, and that is my stance. Before you pick a side, learn about the parties and what they stand for.

Now in response to what Running said. I'm going to have to politely disagree that China is afraid of the US, I wouldn't say they are scared about anything really (I know thats kind of an ignorant comment but..). China has the most troops of any country in the world in its military, I think that its probably a good thing that China is on the opposite side of the world than the US, if either country could just send troops by land to the other country I think something might have flared up at some point. Fortunately for the US, their military can defend its own borders not necessarly because of some overwhelming power (China could overwhelm anyone with ground troops) but because we only have Mexico and Canada as a land route into our country, no way any country could get large quantities of men over here before the US could shoot down or sink any ships.
What the problem is for the US now is we have many enemies, and many of those enemies are working on getting ICBM's over here with nasty payloads, whether it be biological, chemical, or nuclear. Thats why the US is/was working on being able to intercept missles over the ocean before they hit a major city, or any city for that matter.

China has the most troops of any country in the world in its military, I think that its probably a good thing that China is on the opposite side of the world than the US, if either country could just send troops by land to the other country I think something might have flared up at some point.

You're right about the ground troops, but let's take a look at 1996. China, fearing Taiwan's independence, conducted military tests 90 miles north of Taiwan. 4 years later, Chen -an independence advocate- wins the taiwanese election. However this time China only resorts to verbal intimidation. Why? Bush mentioned that America has interests in Taiwan, we are going to defend them, and the chinese need to understand that. In the eyes of China, Taiwan is little more than a rebellious province. Why not go in, like the russians are trying to do in Chechnya?

We can speculate, and if China takes some sort of definitive action against the U.S, I'll change my views. However I still believe that they want nothing to do with America. That's what I meant with a "good" thing, since it prevents a big military conflict.

There is one thing US has to fear bout China....China has 16 ICBMs that can be launched and hit US targets in half and hour and the US cant do anything about it...except run. However 36 Hours later, 20 B-2 bombers will be over China airspace and kill 1/6 of the world's population....

Wow it is kind of funny to keep reading this thread and see how it has moved from Republicans rock, to China vs. USA

Good points made by all I must add.

See now poert it is now a civilized conversation/debate, that kind of stuff is encouraged here. Running made some good points and since I was the original one to disagree with him I think its good that I acknowledge them instead of taking a different tangent and flaming him on it.
Building on that - China doesn't want to deal with Taiwan militaristically (I'm sure there is a spelling error somewhere) because we are backing Taiwan, they don't want a conflict, the US doesn't either - the US has the most mobile military in the world right now, so even though we have to move halfway across the world its still not worth it to China to "take" Taiwan because they know they would have to fight the US for it.
Of course this is all my opinion and I am by no means an expert in this field.

Originally posted by SNGX1275
What the problem is for the US now is we have many enemies, and many of those enemies are working on getting ICBM's over here with nasty payloads, whether it be biological, chemical, or nuclear. Thats why the US is/was working on being able to intercept missles over the ocean before they hit a major city, or any city for that matter.

Heh...I'd have to say the U.S.'s #1 threat are domestic bombings, or hijacking a plane and knocking down a few skyscrapers. We really don't have much of a defense against that, despite what 'advances' we are making in the realm of plane security. Bomb in the spare laptop battery over a crowded metropolis, etc, etc.

Originally posted by Top_gun
There is one thing US has to fear bout China....China has 16 ICBMs that can be launched and hit US targets in half and hour and the US cant do anything about it...except run. However 36 Hours later, 20 B-2 bombers will be over China airspace and kill 1/6 of the world's population....

The US doesn't really have much to fear from them. I think they're smart enough to realize what happens to a country or organization after they specifically target the US. I.e. - Japan -> Pearl Harbor -> 2 nukes, Al Qaeda -> 9/11 -> entire world culled of the terrorists, so called 'War on Terror.'
I also think it will take a little bit longer than 36 hrs. Shrub has to convene Congress, wait until they say yes, plan out a strategy (knowing the US' blunt tactics of course they'd carpet bomb & nuke the sushi out of all the major cities), consolidate the bombers, outfit them with weapons, launch them, then the 36 hours would start. And of course we have Chinese spies to tell us all about their plans months ahead of time, and all this is even if we don't detect the missiles launching by satellite (which we will, up to the minute) and prepare the Star Wars Missile Defense system, plus what ever SAM's we have going on the west coast.
Besides, I'm sure Taiwan isn't worth bombing us. It's like throwing a rock at an already enraged bull.
Anyway...

US Threat:

I agree that our biggest threat is within. I personally disagree with the Iraq movement, because I don't thing they are a threat to us. They are a threat to Saudia Arabia, and for some reason, we kiss thier *** even though they wont let us use their airspace to bomb IRAQ. I dont understand this, and never will.

BUSH has a personal agenda vs. Iraq, because they tried to assasinate his father. He needs to just forget about, what are the chances that Iraq can reach the USA with anyhing? Sadam and Osama are not friends, they are actually enemies!

BUSH needs to concentrate on within, and get rid of all illegal aliens..

The core of either party's ideals does not revolve around taxes or government size. I find it very discouraging as an American when people make up there mind to vote for one party of the other just because of party lines; they both have their good and bad qualities and their good and bad people. Personally, I think the terms "Conservative" and "Liberal" poorly describe both parties. Here is my opinion and comparison of how I view the parties:

Republicans
---------------------------------
1) Side with the religious right, strongly oppose abortion
2) Generally oppose government control: a.k.a. Microsoft, Enron, etc... they are more trusting in the "open market"
3) Believe that individuals who have proven themselves by hard work should be rewarded as such
4) Believe that incentives for corporations and wealthy individuals will provide for a stronger economy for all (Reagan's trickle down economics) this in turn will help the poor.

Democrats
---------------------------------
1) Don't tend to take sides on religious(christian) basis, believe in individual's right for an abortion possibly euthenasia
2) Believe in social programs to help people in need directly
3) Favor government control to promote a fairer playing field. They don't trust big business to typically play fair in the open market.

I don't know a good political comparison of the Republican party for you guys in Europe. The Democratic Party would side somewhat with Socialist countries like Sweden, Germany, etc. with social programs but to a MUCH lesser degree. I wouldn't call them socialist. I tend to side with the Democratic Party on social issues because I think people in need deserve help directly through some form of redistribution of wealth. As human beings they deserve my help. On most other topics I tend to be somewhere in the middle. The reality is that both parties are run by a bunch of rich guys with strong ties to big business and little in common with the common man. I try to vote for the best person whether they're D or R. A democratic government is the least productive by design!

Is China scared of the US? yes
Is the US scared of China? yes

During the Cold War both Russia and the US were very scared of each other. Most of the fear was caused by ignorance of how the other side felt and though. The good thing is that there is dialogue between China and the US. I think that the relationship is much better than our relationship with Russia during the Cold War.

A couple of great books relating to this subject are: "Blind Man's Bluff" and "Skunk Works". The first is about submarine espionage during the cold war. The second is about the super secret "Skunk Works" that developed the U2, the SR-71 and the Stealth Bomber among others. The history of these planes is very interesting. Blind Man's Bluff can also be found as a one hour documentary on the History Channel.

I extensively edited and deleted posts in this thread that were detracting from the topic and causing tension between otherwise perfectly good people on this board.

The reason that we kiss Saudi Arabia's **** is simply that we can't afford not to. We Americans love to buy our big, gas guzzling SUVs and cars. Only something like 25% of vehicles sold in the US in 2002 get more than 20 mpg; this is down from near 50% in the mid-80's. The government has chosen to let fuel economy fall to the wayside while the open market provides what Americans want: bigger and faster. We are still going by 1975 fuel economy standards with the exception of California! Without the Saudi's influence on fuel prices we couldn't afford to live the way we do. Europe's choice seems to be diesel vehicles and better fuel economy caused by high prices on fuel. Unfortunately, modern diesels are shunned in the US by consumers and legislators who think they still blow huge piles of black smoke and stink, ignoring that they are around 33% more effiecient. Europe is also big on alternative diesel and low-sulfur diesel. Biodiesel has very limited availability here in the US; it's made from corn oil, something the US has a lot of. FYI: The most fuel efficient production vehicle in the world is made by Audi in Europe. It's a diesel/hybrid that gets 72 mpg.

The cars we buy are pretty ridiculous.

In response to Elcarion:

I think you made some excellent points, and I agree with your post. Although, I think some very important things are missing.
Republicans: Oppose union control and believe in smaller gov/less taxs
Dems: Believe in opening the floodgates to let anyone into this country even if they are not going to make a positive impact. We need to only allow people in this country to make a home if they have an agenda, not a way to rid of their countries and collect welfare here. I understand that some countries have major problems and some people are looking for a better life, but our country is going to become one of those if we keep letting anyone here.
Also, these illegal aliens get hand outs, and generally have more rights then the americans! These people get to goto school for free, get free housing, etc... This is ridiculous, but the democrats support this type of thing.

On the other hand it was the Republicans who lobbied powerfully, in the name of big business, to open the borders for H1 Visas due to the so-called "IT Shortage". Now I know at least half a dozen American citizens who are looking for IT jobs while of the 5 people in my group, I'm the only US citizen. My company, one of the largest in the world, has plans to relocate 10% of all IT positions to India next year. I expect the Bush Administration to kindly turn a blind eye.
I would rather see a balanced budget than a tax break for the rich. The majority of the Bush tax break went to corporations and the top 1% income bracket. Only one administration has tightened the belt and balanced the budget out of the past four administrations and it wasn't Reagan, Bush, or Bush.
Unions, taxes, and govt. all have their good and bad points. I've yet to see less taxes or smaller government under the Republicans except for George W's tax cut. The typical method of reducing govt size is to increase the contractor to employee ratio; I don't really consider this smaller govt.
I don't think either party represents the middle class nor is either party more ethical than the other as you've stated previously. I've previously stated: "The core of either party's ideals does not revolve around taxes or government size. " In my opinion, this is a merely a facade.

Bush won't do a damn thing about it.

He does not support the workers. Every republican is not Bush.

Take for example my industry (airlines). We lost over 100,000 jobs because he will not pick up the bill for security cost. Every country in the world has security cost handled and payed for by the government.

The airlines are going under, and the war on the horizon makes things look worse. I for one am probobly going to loose my job in the next few months, and Bush doesn't give a damn.

I am a supporter of republican ways, but I am not a total supporter of Bush.

I am also a supporter of Republican ideas, but I am not a Republican. As long as I live, I will support Democrats who support me. Of course not all politicians are black and white.

On the Island of Maui, our former Democrat mayor was voted out mainly because of questionable campaign contributions and the endosement for the Republican opposition by a pro-environment independant. Still, it was a slim victory.

Check it out on the news:


Google News (http://news.google.com/)

:stickout: