SuperJerk

As far as blame for gun violence goes...gun control isn't about BLAMING. It's about PREVENTING. You're right, though, "What would the founders think?" arguments are iffy. They never had to live in our world. Sure, they'd hate taxes and the standing army, but other things the founding fathers probably wouldn't be happy out might include: -The Industrial Revolution. -Nuclear Bombs. -Women voting. -Negroes running around free. They've been dead 150-200 years. Does it really MATTER what they would think at this point? They gave us some good ideas, and they also gave us some fucking shitty ones. Can't we just keep the ideas that still work and revise the others? These are the same men who gave us the necessary-and-proper clause and the 9th Amendment. They knew their ideas weren't perfect. They wrote an archaic amendment into the constitution, but they also gave us the mean to work around it. Also, Washington might have objected to the cross in the bottle of urine, but I bet Thomas Jefferson would have found it hillarious.

Those are all good points. And if the founding fathers had envisioned government run standing armies and firearms that could kill dozens of people in a few seconds, would they have written the second amendment the way they did? We'll never know. They did, however, give us the okay to regulate firearms even if their reason for doing so (citizen militias) doesn't exist anymore.

What? We do regulate them. We regulate the hell out of them. Sure, you have the right to bear arms... as long as you're an adult, a US citizen, haven't been convicted of any felonies, or ever been in a mental institution, or are under any restraining orders, or have otherwise been designated by law as not being fit to own a gun, and have the time and money to complete all the paperwork and wade through all the red tape that your particular state requires in order to be legally registered and permitted, and then only the kind of arms which the government deems to be legal for civilian use. According to the law, that's the only situation in which you are allowed to own a firearm. Of course, all this gun crime involving people which did not meet the above criteria might suggest that maybe the current laws, they are, how you say, not enforced so well. I didn't say that very well. I know we DO regulate them...I meant hypothetically, according to 2nd Amendment advocates, how far and how much regulation can there be?

The Greens would have been a much better fit for Mike Gravel than the Libertarians.

Don't those two contradict each other? WHAT? Just because someone has the right to be alive doesn't mean they have a right to stay alive. Those are two completely different things! Pffft. Crazy talk. No, but I have a bold prediction: Hannity, Coulter, Limbaugh, et. al., will decry liberal media bias when Snow doesn't get the same treatment Tim Russert got last month.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080712/ap_on_re_us/obit_snow This is sad...I can't imagine dying that young. Bold prediction: Hannity, Coulter, Limbaugh, et. al., will decry liberal media bias when Snow doesn't get the same treatment Tim Russert got last month.

I mean today in 2008, not how it worked in 1788. Because we now have a standing army, we can ignore the first part of the amendment while the last part stands absolute and unchallengable? We can't regulate civilians with guns, even though the constitution says we can, because we now have a standing army?

Is it my turn to slap Marvin?

I fear it'll reawaken our shoot-first, ask-questions-later mentality that dominated public opinion most of the time since 9/11. Then again, I don't think the public necessarily shares our government's hard-on for going to war over Israel. Yes, its an ally and the only democracy in the region, but politicians talk about it like its the 51st state instead of a soveriegn nation with its own well-equipped military and nuclear capabilities. Anyhow...I was talking to my friend today and I mentioned how there was a concerted effort to paint Obama as a snob. He thought the idea of a bunch of rich white people hanging their strategy for winning on making a black guy look like a snob was pretty fucking funny. I replied, "Yeah, I guess they already gave up on make him look like a black militant."

I could, but I didn't because (a) I already know the answer, and (b) that's a discussion for another topic. Can anyone explain how the "well regulated militia" part of the Second Amendment is supposed to work?

One of the Swift-Boaters has returned to back up McCain... http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080711/ap_on_.../mccain_s_buddy Must...resist...urge....to go on...another...anti-Swift Boat Vet....rant... (And in case there's any doubt that the accusations against Kerry were baseless, read this article. http://www.factcheck.org/republican-funded...ar_record.html)

No argument here as far as Jackson goes. Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle... http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080711/ap_on_...andidates_gramm Rather than doing the fake righteous indignation routine everyone else is doing, I'll throw out this question...is the economy really that bad? Or are we just nervous and complaining about it? Or is Gramm out of touch?

I want someone to explain how the "well regulated militia" part is supposed to work.

From the "OH NO HE DI-IN'T" file... http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/09/jes...ment/index.html

According to Glenn Beck, this is conservatism: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/25/beck.cons...ives/index.html In summary, Beck's conservatism sounds a lot like another name for social darwinism. I honestly don't even think Beck believes that, given how conservatisms usually have no problem running to the government and ask for protection from anything THEY don't like.

And yet foriegn countries show insane amounts of American TV and movies in their own nations and have little (if any) of the same results.

Every time an old racist dies, I think "I guess a black man really will get elected president over his dead body."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080701/ap_on_el_pr/obama_faith Since the money given to religious-based groups is only used to help people and not to push a religious agenda, I've actually come to think of President Bush's program as one of his better ideas as president. I'm glad that Obama is willing to keep what is good about the current administration, rather than a knee-jerk jettison just because Bush';s name is attached to it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080701/ap_on_re_us/airport_guns Ah, geez...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080626/ap_on_...e/teaching_math When I got my Master's in Special Education a few years back, I saw this as well. I think this is a larger trend in general, applicable to all subject and grade levels. For example, when I first started student teaching I didn't feel I was prepared. There's a reason so many teachers work as hard as they can, but the kids never seem to get ahead. Teacher education relies too much on theoretical psychology, and not enough on subject matter comprehension or usable techniques.

Johnson may have gotten bad and conflicting advice after the U.S.-backed coup against Diem, but the choices were his to make and the decisions made were the ones that he made. Ultimately, he is the one responsible for escalating the war to a scale over 30 times what President Kennedy had authorized. Johnson is the one who lied to the American people about the Gulf of Tonkin, and Johnson is the one who kept making one bad decision after another until he finally left office. Compared to Johnson, Jimmy Carter was a saint. The worst mistake he made was his handling of Iran, but he did manage to get the hostages released. The problem with the Carter presidency was he got blamed for the messes left behind by the previous 3 administrations. Republicans loved to beat up on Carter for SALT II, but when Reagan essentially negotiated the same treaty with the Soviets during his presidency, he got hailed as a hero. The actions of the Federal Reserve under Carter led to a decrease in inflation, but the effects were delayed until he was out of office and Reagan got the credit.

I was only refuting your answer to the original question. I actually think I know the real answer to the question. (I can be a dick sometimes.)

I don't think pay is the problem, given a teaching contract starts at $30,000 for 180 days (even if we're talking 10 hour days). I think a bigger problem is with retaining people and the high turn-over in the profession because of frustrations with administrative incompetence, parental resistance, and too many demands on a teacher's time within a school that have nothing to do with actual teaching or student assessment. I've seen hundreds of man-hours wasted on things like writing mission statements, pointless meetings, and so-called professional development that has either little practical application or that is not follwo through correctly.

While President Kennedy did send troops to Vietnam, there were only 16,000 there when he died. Johnson escalated the war after the fake Gulf of Tonkin incident and before they lefty office there were over half a million. At its peak, a thousand Americans were dying in the war every month. His war strategy was based on containment of the communists without truly doing anything to help the South Vietnamese people. His budget priorities, also known as "guns and butter" was a combination of increased spending on military and social programs coupled with tax breaks, led to greater inflation (starting a tide which was not turned until the 1980s). Though poverty dropped dramatically at first, eventually his anti-poverty programs were defunded to help pay for the Vietnam War. Though he was instrumental in getting the Civil Rights Act passed, it was originally proposed a year before by John F. Kennedy.

Let me see if I understand this argument... Bad things that happened while LBJ was in office = JFK's responsible because it was his supposedly idea. Good things that happened while LBJ was in office = JFK's not responsible even if it was his idea. Does that about sum it up?