Line up left or right of me:

[Galbally]

Originally Posted by Accountable

I know. I think we've understood each other for quite awhile.

Who claims the lion's share of governing in your opinion, Northern Ireland or UK? A better question might be, how is responsibility divided?

I find that we tend to agree on quite a few things, but we have different perspectives on some things, its usually that European/American thing isn't it?


Anyway, as for Northern Ireland, oh I would say at this point most of the local stuff is Northern Ireland, (except the police, which is a thorny issue), but its still the UK so the parliament in Westminster still has final authority. I dunno, it seems to be working, there have been some issues (not surprising, in fact its being a lot less fractious than you might expect). Hopefully it will keep going in a positive direction, its important for us of here of course in the South, as a stable North is in everyone's interests that lives on the island. At the moment I am more worried about our Taoiseach (or Prime Minister, you may have seen him in the White House on Patricks Day), he is not an unpleasant fella, but his is a crook, a Government tribunal seems to have caught up with him, hopefully they will get to the bottom of his murky dealings.

[[love]light]

[[/b]

Originally Posted by Jester

Using my opinons in life in the following catagories please tell me if you fall to my left (more liberal) or my right (more conservative)

1. Marriage: Between a man and woman only, no exceptions, no domestic partnerships allowed. Why? What do you feel your protecting by excluding certain American citizens from building a marriage together?
2. Military/Diplomacy: Kill every terrorists in every country regardless of international law.Debatable
3. Total and open free trade based on product desire and let the consumer drive the economy.
4. Total balanced budget, no borrowing ever.I think that it should be possible, but it will never happen
5. No government entitlements. (no social security, no healthcare, no welfare).Healthcare is a must. Either regulate the astronomical costs of healthcare or provide insurance to the masses.
6. Legalize all substances, make laws regarding the negligent use of any product.Agreed. Make money off taxes & fines, rather than spending money to fight the unfightable.
7. Penelties for lawbreakers are severe, and swift punishment is carried out but when your are done paying you are done, no more system to track you or stigmatize you.Disagree. Patterns need to be observed in order to efficiently handle repeat offenders
8. Inact the death penelty by public hanging.Agreed... after years on death row and an exhaustive investigation to ensure the death of only the guilty
9. Outlaw all forms of abortion, its murder and is punishable by the death penalty.Disagree. This is not a black & white situation, don't punish those caught in the grey
10. Parents can legally spank thier children.Is spanking not legal?
11. Flat Tax, no more than 4%. With 2% of your total tax payment going to the agencies of your choice.Flat Tax: Agree, but unfortunately people are just not informed enough to make such important decisions
12. Public education is driven by testing to move to the next level, private education is optional. Parents are responsible either way. Disagree. I have seen many brilliant folks fall thru the cracks of public education because they were ignored by the teachers.
13. Seperation of Church and State shall be claryfied and defined to mean that no one denomination or sect shall at any time assume a role of lawmaking power in the government, but that the traditions and symbols of our founding influencial religions (Judeo-Christian) shall be permissable in public areas. The use of the generic term 'God' attributes to tradition of long helf belief and does not constitute a government recommndation to follow 'God'.

AGREED, but religion should have NOTHING to do with our law making.

[Bruv]

I am so far left of you Im out of sight......

Without trying to be argumentative, your discription of terrorists would condemn the american military.

Agree we need some rules to determine what a terrorsit is, Ive decided my rule to define a terrorist is someone who targets civilians in protest or to exert his will over others.

[Accountable]

Originally Posted by [love]light

5. No government entitlements. (no social security, no healthcare, no welfare).Healthcare is a must. Either regulate the astronomical costs of healthcare or provide insurance to the masses.

Insurance is the primary problem. Insurance is the reason costs are astronomical in the first place. Of course, we'll never get rid of the insurance industry now because they own so many politicians. That's their insurance policy.

Sorry folks I dont mean to ignore your posts, lots of good stuff for discussions, but Ive run out of ways to explain how I feel and why I feel the way that I do. Ive seen lots of suffering of the innocent in my life, and I'm dang tired of it, I'm especially tired of those who hurt the innocent and most of my thoughts go to stopping it. I think thats why I appear so extreme. On the sodomite issue Im just anti-homosexual I believe its immoral behavior, and has no place in proper society, so Im willing to use government to stop it.

I can see now I should not have been so openly truthful about how I feel. It just causes hard feelings.

I'll be more careful in the future here in the garden the way it is now.

If I can clarify the severe punishment isasue it might make the stuff I said about law more understandable, I'll take my thoughts from petty crime to murder.

If someone commits a petty crime, say jaywalking, he gets a ticket, pays the ticket based on a percentage of his income, not a flat fee. (it should hurt everybody the same way). Lets say the same man gets angry at the cop and beats him near dead, in full view in public, with many wittnesses... he is tried, found guilty, in my opionon that man deserves death. He has demonstrated by his actions that he cannot live in peaceful society.

I realize there are other not so clear cut cases, but they would have to be tried and judged by a jury under the same system we currectly have.

Now the drug issue: We legalize drugs, if someone uses heroine and drives out and kills three kids by running over him then he is put to death under the same, rules as before.

Now I realize this is harsh, but our society has become so soft on criuminals that its nearly a joke to get incarcerated (if it wasnt for the prison gangs it owuld be a joke)

Eventually our society will get the picture that criminals will be punished and its a good thing to want to fit into society rather than deveaite form the rules as a general ideology.

On a side note, Im not a soldier of fortune reader, Nomad.

I will also leave my issues with terrorism alone here too.

Gal, The US is not religious, the US is quickly becoming anti-religious and antagonistic to religiouns, and not a very nice place to live if your a christian. There wont ever be a religious take over in the US. Mostly becasue there is so much fighting amongst Christains that they will never agree on a way to do it. And secondly most US citizens if they are religious wear it on their sleeves 'IF' they even attend church at all. I'll bet you a dollar to a donut more folks in the UK attend church services than in America on any given sunday (per capita).

Please don't censor yourself Jester. I may not agree with you 100% on everything either but it would be a damn shame if you or anyone else felt they couldn't express themselves here in a way that is not mean-spirited. And I don't think you have been.

Originally Posted by JAB

Please don't censor yourself Jester. I may not agree with you 100% on everything either but it would be a damn shame if you or anyone else felt they couldn't express themselves here in a way that is not mean-spirited. And I don't think you have been.

Just being prudent as to not offend the whole group! I censor myself all the time either way, this one just got away from me.

[Galbally]

Originally Posted by Jester

Sorry folks I dont mean to ignore your posts, lots of good stuff for discussions, but Ive run out of ways to explain how I feel and why I feel the way that I do. Ive seen lots of suffering of the innocent in my life, and I'm dang tired of it, I'm especially tired of those who hurt the innocent and most of my thoughts go to stopping it. I think thats why I appear so extreme. On the sodomite issue Im just anti-homosexual I believe its immoral behavior, and has no place in proper society, so Im willing to use government to stop it.

I can see now I should not have been so openly truthful about how I feel. It just causes hard feelings.

I'll be more careful in the future here in the garden the way it is now.

If I can clarify the severe punishment isasue it might make the stuff I said about law more understandable, I'll take my thoughts from petty crime to murder.

If someone commits a petty crime, say jaywalking, he gets a ticket, pays the ticket based on a percentage of his income, not a flat fee. (it should hurt everybody the same way). Lets say the same man gets angry at the cop and beats him near dead, in full view in public, with many wittnesses... he is tried, found guilty, in my opionon that man deserves death. He has demonstrated by his actions that he cannot live in peaceful society.

I realize there are other not so clear cut cases, but they would have to be tried and judged by a jury under the same system we currectly have.

Now the drug issue: We legalize drugs, if someone uses heroine and drives out and kills three kids by running over him then he is put to death under the same, rules as before.

Now I realize this is harsh, but our society has become so soft on criuminals that its nearly a joke to get incarcerated (if it wasnt for the prison gangs it owuld be a joke)

Eventually our society will get the picture that criminals will be punished and its a good thing to want to fit into society rather than deveaite form the rules as a general ideology.

On a side note, Im not a soldier of fortune reader, Nomad.

I will also leave my issues with terrorism alone here too.

Gal, The US is not religious, the US is quickly becoming anti-religious and antagonistic to religiouns, and not a very nice place to live if your a christian. There wont ever be a religious take over in the US. Mostly becasue there is so much fighting amongst Christains that they will never agree on a way to do it. And secondly most US citizens if they are religious wear it on their sleeves 'IF' they even attend church at all. I'll bet you a dollar to a donut more folks in the UK attend church services than in America on any given sunday (per capita).

Don't worry about it Jester, there are no hard feelings, its a good thread, just because I disagree with you on a lot of your ideas, that doesn't mean I am right, and you are entitled to have your opinions and to talk about them, thats what its all about. I take your point about religion in the US, thats just the way it appears to us sometimes over here in Europe, which may be an unfair or inacurate description. I would be fairly sure that Church going in England anyway is very low indeed, its famously so.

I am of course from Ireland, and we were famously Catholic for much of our history, funnily enough since the economic boom, and the scandals of the Catholic Church the Church has lost an enormous amount of respect in my society, and people have turned against it if anything, which is quite odd to watch as its all happening in my lifetime, the collapse of the Catholic Church, the end of much of the old poverty, the end of mass Irish emigration to America, the UK, and Australia and instead we now have mass immigration into Ireland (10 percent of our population are now foreign nationals, mostly Polish which has all happened in about the last 10 years), the end of the troubles in the North, and a general reconciliation between the U.K. and the Republic, its an interesting time.

[Accountable]

Originally Posted by Jester

Just being prudent as to not offend the whole group! I censor myself all the time either way, this one just got away from me.

Oh, so you mean this thread cause you to have hard feelings? Well that's different, I guess.

Personally I think this has been one of the most invigorating discussions we've had lately. I'm disappointed sometimes when I expect you or someone else to join a debate with a differing opinion and they don't show up. I like stuff like this. It makes me think -- makes me examine my opinions to see if they hold water.

[Galbally]

Originally Posted by Accountable

Oh, so you mean this thread cause you to have hard feelings? Well that's different, I guess.

Personally I think this has been one of the most invigorating discussions we've had lately. I'm disappointed sometimes when I expect you or someone else to join a debate with a differing opinion and they don't show up. I like stuff like this. It makes me think -- makes me examine my opinions to see if they hold water.

Yes, I agree, its been a good thread this one, lots of actually interesting opinions on things and not just a load of shouting.