No anti-establishment candidate feels he has a chance to win if he doesn't play the game and become repub or demo. I partically blame the "Get out and Vote"people and the ones who think you don't have a right to complain if you don't vote. This time we will be stuck with either Obama or McCain but if millions of people did not vote in protest, then a third candidate would feel he actually had a chance to win if he could get that voting block in the next election. Just voting to be voting only adds to the illusion that repubs and demos are the only choice.

When you try to pin down what each candidate says they will do about...health care, the war on terror, the economy, the environment, etc., that is when I HOPE they are lying.

Living in both Kansas and Missouri I've talked to plenty of people in middle-America, both farmers and corporate exec's at Corporate Woods in KC and almost always they don't care about gov't surveillance and will come back with the "Only people who have something to hide don't like it" statement. And this is over and over to most people I talk to. Only the young seem to have a grasp of the loss of civil liberty side of this. This is only an example of one persons experience in this matter but I am very aware of a class of middle-Americans who don't care. In spite of your poles, how many people do you really think are educated about this and paranoid about what the government is up to? When all you do is go to work, drink beer, and watch tv its hard to realize anyone is out to get you for that. And what examples of how the gov't has used this surveillance of average Americans against them can you cite? Just curious. Specific examples would be more convincing than poles..please.

I raised my daughter by myself and it was the most rewarding thing I ever did. But I didn't use it as a ploy to trap a woman. Not all men think it is a ultimate ball-and-chain, at least not those who go get beyond their own self-interest, but it should not be taken lightly, as a bargaining chip, or a way to trap anyone. If its anything other than a commitment to that baby to be there for it unselfishly and to dedicate yourself and time then you have no business doing it. How's that for an opinion.

I agree that it has to be a ploy, maybe to make you think he is husband material or some nonsense but unless you have gone together awhile and planning a life together and that could be part of it then it makes no sense other than to be some good guy image he is trying to project without earning.

I think that if all three of us have found our own way of belief in whatever we need to believe in then I don't see what the problem is. Even if I know mine is right for me I don't care or expect it to be right for you. I will be glad for you if you can find what you need to find. Too bad not everyone can do that. My philosophy doesn't need you to believe in it in order for it to work for me.

And I'm sure she weighed the costs and went on with it knowing what she was getting into and accepting that responsibility. Do you think she was surprised by the reaction she got? Or did she take it on knowing that it was worth the fight? That is called taking responsibility for your own actions too. The people she had to stand up to probably denied any responsibility for their actions.

You are right. All I'm saying is that once you decide what you are going to do about it you will be responsible for your actions.

If you have studied various religious philosophies and can't seem to fit or agree with any of them or parts of them, then you can look into yourself for what you know is true to you and go from there. Somethings should strike you as undeniably true without relying on faith in something you don't know to be true. I find that laws of nature or physics or whatever you want to call them stand true, even if you don't want them to or don't find any significance in them. If you don't believe in them will they change or go away? I don't think so. Where did they come from? Why is the world revolving around them. Can you change them without using their own basic natures to do so? Why are they in control of themselves without your help? Do you need blind faith to believe in them? Do I have only questions and no answers?

Sometimes you have to stand up for what you believe in no matter what it costs, but weigh the costs with what they accomplish. There is probably a better place to get better results than in the workplace.

The idea of taking responsiblity for your own actions is not hard to understand even when it applies to standing by your principles. You aren't released from that responsiblity just because you don't like the reaction you get, any more than the person reacting to you can deny responsiblity for how they react.

Most pagans understand the forces of nature and its easy to see that what you project outward will cause an effect that will come back at you. If you want to stand on principle and make your point even if you know you are creating fear in people you have to be ready for their reaction and realize your part in causing it. Of course they are intolerant and close-minded but its like going up to bubba in a bar and telling him how stupid he is and not feeling you had some responsiblity for getting your head bashed in.

I suppose that would give you a better chance for change. Lawrence Tierney had a chance for change but look where it got him. "Even a man who is pure at heart, and says his prayers by night, may be a werewolf when the wolfbain blooms and the moon is full and bright." I'd vote for that creepy old lady (the one in the movie, not Hilary). She knew what was coming.

Republicans do understand the importance of corporate America to our economy and the so-called American Dream. If we leveled everyone as in communism there would be no work incentive to get ahead. If we take away the rewards of being a top executive why would anyone strive to get ahead. But that mentality also leads to a pride of accomplishment and individual achievement that can also turn into a lack of compassion for those not making it or allowed to be part of the game. That is a big voting base that the Democrats like to appeal to but to demonize big business in doing so helps create more people who have to rely on the government instead of individual incentive. Look how they rewrite history to demonize the "now called" Robber Barons of the industrial revolution who took this country, practically destroyed economically at the end of the Civil War, and turned it into the strongest country in the world by the beginning of the 1900's. Workers rights and the poor people didn't do too well then either but in comparison to where they would have been without the Industrial Revolution it is no contest. We need to stop the divisiveness and bickering that demonizes one side or the other and try to develop the best qualities of both.

kippered

Zoology 101

What keeps you up at night? Mine is work, I have settled with my conscience years ago.

3,195...seemed like a good idea at the time

I know they're crooks, you know they're crooks, they know they're crooks. But, reality check..What would America be like without corporations that continue to flourish, no matter at whose expense. Have you been to a country with no corporations, no jobs, no infrastructure, no housing, no airconditioning or heat, no food on the shelves, no utilities, water, sanitation? The money and jobs generated by corporate America not only employ a lot of the country but most of the other jobs and small business are a spin off that expects someone with money to shop there. If we have to do this bailout or milk the profits to be made from oil before switching to another energy source to keep us a first world country or a third world country would you support it then? Turn off your utilities, park your car, only buy bags of flour and condensed milk, never go to the doctor, and then get back to me.

Good and evil as interpretations of the mind alone...hmmm. Maybe. But what you caste out into the world is probably going to come back at you sooner or later in some form or another and then you can decide for yourself. For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction is a law of physics governing the material world. Does it apply to the spiritual also. What if you are totally conscienceless and a sociopath? If there is no heaven or hell will you torment yourself eventually? Or will you get away with it?