Gravel is awesome: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rZdAB4V_j8

Other than that? Well, GOP are shooting themselves in the foot by ridiculing Ron Paul who in my opinion is the only one who even have a chance against the Democrats.

But the whole political system in the US is really ridiculous. It's not so much democracy but more like "who should be dictator for the next 4 years?". A popularity contest where the participants only give their views on the most stupid subjects (Gays, abortion, Terroism(scaretactics)).

Every candidate here talks about changes that'd implement. When the democrats took charge of the legislative branch, they said they'd change more in the first 100 hours than the republicans had done in their term. That was an empty promise.

Sadly, politicians are nothing more than a figurehead for the money that backs them. They will change their tune instantly if it means money for them.

Only the seriously christian can be slightly trusted because they *must* have some sort of moral and ethical basis on which to base their choices on! That or a soldier/general.

Yeah, like the priests for example, they are truly moral! Oh wait...

.

if you have a chance have a look at friends of god. it's disgusting...

you're an idiot.

mike gravel is a moron. every single presidential candidate is an idiot, and the whole idea of a presidency is an idiot, but ron paul is the best candidate we've had in 100 years, and I have no idea why anyone is even talking about mike gravel.

although I do admit that the situation in the US political system is absurd and that the presidential candidates are idiots, I must concede that dird is probably the biggest idiot I've ever seen, nonetheless.


also, ron paul and mike gravel both have no chance. it'll be another year I don't vote (not that your vote matters, anyway, with the electoral college).

P.S. dird: stop talking. no, really.

Actually, I'm not christian. Neither do I adhere to any organized religious views. Furthermore, I think there's some very deep problems that arise when you have someone trying to abstain from sex altogether (see pedo-priests). Sex is pretty much, imo, a requirement to a healthy mental state.

But my point was that these candidates that have been raised with rock-solid values are more than likely 'good people' relative to those who have been raised with parents would don't care about other humans at all.

For instance, if you're raised by parents who are always doing charity work with their church (which doing charity work with a church is common) and so on, I think you're more likely to be a charitable and compassionate person. Someone raised by perverse, child-abusing parents might go on to be a fascist psychopath.

And this isn't just some random theory of mine; this is from my observation while I've lived in a city that has a lot of these families that are christian church-going, community oriented people. I'd vouch for one of those people any day of the week before I'd vouch for some of the other scumbags that I encounter in my daily routine in this city.

[Note: sorry about the gravity of my initial comment -- it was made in the early morning while I was getting ready for work and seems like I'm a bit of religious nut.]

But my point was that these candidates that have been raised with rock-solid values are more than likely 'good people' relative to those who have been raised with parents would don't care about other humans at all.

For instance, if you're raised by parents who are always doing charity work with their church (which doing charity work with a church is common) and so on, I think you're more likely to be a charitable and compassionate person. Someone raised by perverse, child-abusing parents might go on to be a fascist psychopath.

did you actually just say that? that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I thought you were actually making fun of the idiot voters who expect politicians to adhere to the same sort of retarded religious dogmata that they do, but, damn, you were serious. now that's a good example of why this country is so fucked up.

You've obviously just learned what the word dogma means and just now started pondering yourself about what religion is. You must be a very inexperienced young man (maybe late high school, early college?) and don't have any real-life experience with many varieties of people.

I'm sorry you can't think about my words, you obviously would rather read them and then blab about stuff you've never honestly encountered in real life in day-to-day business.

For instance, if you're raised by parents who are always doing charity work with their church (which doing charity work with a church is common) and so on, I think you're more likely to be a charitable and compassionate person. Someone raised by perverse, child-abusing parents might go on to be a fascist psychopath.

Explain to me what's wrong with this statement.

did you actually just say that? that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I thought you were actually making fun of the idiot voters who expect politicians to adhere to the same sort of retarded religious dogmata that they do, but, damn, you were serious. now that's a good example of why this country is so fucked up.

What I see in your post is an empty attack. You claim my opinion is stupid and add nothing to the thread and only insult me. You give no real counterpoint besides "yappa-yappa, fucked up opinion, yappa-yappa".

I'm registered independent. If I was to vote for someone, it surely wouldn't be anyone you'd see on the ticket to begin with. I hate politics, I think it's a money game (which America is run by money anyhow, so it's fitting). But for someone to run this country the proper way, they must be willing to sacrifice and work hard for things that might not be beneficial to them or their stakeholders (in a political sense).

I'm sure I can rattle on and on and you'll just read past my words without a thought of consideration about my point of view. That's okay, that's america - home of the ignorant.

I'm in banking and I deal directly with all sorts of people on a daily basis. Rich, poor, religious, non-religious. From my experience, those people who were raised humbly (in any type of religion) are often far more pleasant to deal with than the brats who've been raised by parents who don't care.

Please, for my sake, and the single other person that may read this post, reply with an actual argument of why you believe what you believe instead of a "whoa, stupid post... you f--kin moron, this country is ridiculous." and I will retort with an explanation of why you're wrong.

no. actually, you're just an idiot. you're making a positive claim. you provide the evidence.

and since you're obviously so mature and experienced and have quite clearly been out of college for some time, I would recommend GOING BACK.

I know I'm only opening myself to further attack, but I'm in grad school right now... while working full-time. :-D

stop the presses

that's what she said.

i don't know if probability is allowed for in democracy. a true democracy reflects the culture of its people. if most of the country were raised by perverse, child-abusing parents, you might have a massive majority of the people believing in things like god and the idea of some personality creating the universe in 10,000 years, or whatever. people are generally not stupid. we tend to all share a lot of characteristics, and our inability to perform in certain situations seems to arise a lot from not having proper access to educational information.

we learn from each other and teach others. we are like a rung in the rope ladder of information dissemination in the universe. we move and learn, and because we're so curious, if we don't have access to the proper materials to learn the things that benefit us as a race, we will invent things and create a culture based on those inventions to establish some identity for our race, the same way we establish an identity for ourselves without ever even knowing it, and the galaxy establishes its identity, and the universe and whatever other universes are out there separated by similar distances but always consciously recognizable thanks to the genius of the human mind.

that all being said, the point i was trying to make is that you seem to be tossing out a black and white herring. there are all sorts of non-religious people who raise their kids based on social norms and intellectual satisfaction. social norms exist because of evolution and physics. it's my guess that people who were raised humbly in church tend to be 'good' people more because they were raised humbly, and tend to be church people because they were raised in a church. do you see, the two don't necessarily intertwine.

there is something about religion that does allow for the means of enforcing social norms (which is the equivalent of stagnating society by repressing progress), rather than allowing them develop, and that something is the fear instilled in people by the idea of a vindictive god or the anticipation sparked by an eternity in orgasmic climax among the clouds of heaven. these completely empty promises do serve to accomplish some good, yeah. they get people to 'behave' in a way that society accepts, but not because they are religious, simply because that is what society accepts.

but good is relative to social norms, and the only reason these people have managed to propogate their non-organic mental virus is by halting the advancement of the human mind.

the only reason we consider these people good is because they strive to be good for the sake of society. the fact that they are religious is completely irrelevant, really, because if they are not seriously mentally handicapped in some fashion so as to be completely antisocial (genetic, psychological, physiological, what have you) they should end up adhering closely to their social norms, and only straying based on INTELLECTUAL STIMULATION that is provided by the arts and sciences.

so the fact that you see many religious people who are polite shouldn't have you considering religious people polite, but polite people religious, and you should really wonder why such polite, intelligent, open people are being demeaned by a cognitive cancer that has gone untreated for nearly the entire length of the human species.

i don't even understand what exactly social interaction has to do with politics and not being an idiot. I'm also surprised you're not going into how truly religious people are rather radical and hypocritical due to warping their "generally smart" minds around the existence of Christian god religion and reality, ie nature.

i don't understand why exactly you're replying to me. was it just because somebody posted about something you think about, and you felt compelled to retort?

i just don't understand what you're getting at in your response. it doesn't seem to have much substance.

yeah. Wait no, it says what it says. I would have gone further in your post. My own thought is that the 'good people' who the parent poster calls religious aren't even that religious, they are 'good people' first, they read religion according to their well attuned moral compass. So what I would have added is that doing it the other way actually produces very hypocritical, twisted logic that can explain anything.
don't care if that's little substance.
why did you post?

i'm not sure what a well attuned moral compass is. you seem to be reiterating one of my points, i guess, but in a naive sort of way. people read the bible because their morals coincide with it? so why don't they read the origin of species, or the elegant universe, or any number of other equally accessible texts as the bible or other translated religious doctrines? they were raised to read the bible and be religious. that is how humanity functions: the children are impressionable and believe the things perceived authority figures tell them. children are incapable of reason, because they lack the knowledge to allow them to reason intellectual issues out. they are not incapable of reason because they don't have some 'reason' lobe (please correct me if i'm wrong on this [or anything, but especially this]).

and yet, strangely enough, there are billions of people raising their children with total disregard for scientific thought. i think it seems kind of obvious why people read the bible: because they have been told to. my personal experience is that my mother neither asked me to read the bible (though we did frequent a few catholic churches for select periods of her life, a psychological anomaly i was unaware of until old enough to have learned of it based on my 'motion' through the space of knowledge, i.e. the faster you learn the more the knowledge of the planet ages around you, but you can never approach the speed required to maintain infinite knowledge, therefore there is always progress relative to your own, lol) nor asked me to learn science, and strangely through all this i managed to become intensely interested in the universe and physics and the mind and biology, and all these things we commonly see as disconnected because of our unique vantage points.

just imagine if i'd been raised to be familiar with science from the beginning. imagine that my mom had known some of the things i know now, and had imparted such knowledge on me as a child. i would be free to spend my more reasonable days rationalising more complex thoughts. i would not be the idiot i am now, but a more advanced idiot with the potential of somebody hoping to be stupid! as it stands now i am a drug addicted social failure with barely a hope in mind that i will overcome the social binds of my family and cultural structure.

that is the great thing about death and birth. by using my limited knowledge of the way things are i can show my children how fascinating and interesting the universe is without dependence on religion. they will learn more than i ever have, if only because i will show them what i've learned. not through direct lessons, of course, but simply through their inherent curiosity toward the reasons i am so fascinated by and interested in the things i am.

why did i post? what does that matter? i posted. i was only asking why you posted because your post didn't seem too substantial, and i couldn't really get a grip on what you were trying to say (it was very vague, a sort of intellectual armor, i suppose. if you don't have to say the things you think, people can't ridicule you for them? that may be entirely inaccurate, but i guess i felt that i needed to write it down somewhere, lest it be forever lost in the collapsed synapses of my mind. then i would have to go through life knowing that i refused to contribute yet another of my ideas to humanity when i had the chance. i am uniquely me, and i should be propogating myself furiously, if only to maintain my specific species and all things inherent in my species on this planet)

"i'm not sure what a well attuned moral compass is. you seem to be reiterating one of my points, i guess, but in a naive sort of way. people read the bible because their morals coincide with it?"
I think what I said means they ["good people", as opposed to "religious people"] interpret the bible or religion based on their already established morality and if it's the other way, they become rather "bad people". If that was me reiterating one of your points, I'm sorry, but then you're reiterating your own point in Comment #35, first half of which is that exact point.

i tried to have a genuine conversation with you.

try not to misinterpret things in such a way that half of what you say is moot, i didn't actually have time to read beyond that yet.

i didn't misinterpret, i just didn't know, and honestly i was going to post before i left the house that i agree with what you said, but i was already late for work.

as to what i'm misinterpreting, my last comment was addressed to your snide red herrings. perhaps if your posts weren't so convoluted by them and your clever personality, our conversations would be much more rewarding, at least for one party.

Thanks for the full reply with your thoughts.

We'll have to agree to disagree because the basis of your argument is that religion is a useless/dumb/untrue/etc. I believe otherwise. I used to believe what you did, that religion is a crutch for a weak mind. But as I get older I'm finding that having constant bad luck and having it mean 'nothing' (when I was really against the idea of spirituality) feels a lot worse than having constant bad luck and there being some point to it -- that maybe I should be learning lessons and be resilient to even more bad luck. And I know you can easily think both ways and still be atheist, but when it just keeps happening religion gives you something to hold on to.

I was raised atheist. My mom used to tell me when I was a little kid that, "If God is God then God is bad. If God is good then God isn't God." Both my parents professions and educations were very science oriented.

But the real meat of my post was that you can't trust politicians. Only that I'm more inclined to trust a politician who's religious only on the basis that the chances of them being a good, understanding person may be better.

By the way, if you look through all of history, it's not just human history that is saturated in different religions, it's the great civilizations and great people that are as well.

i don't believe that religion is useless, i just don't believe that deluding the masses to quell them is necessary or efficient. the world can be better enlightened by the knowledge technology and thousands of years of transcribed history, and still maintain a morality that reflects the direction of human relations. the point wasn't to naysay religion, because indeed religion naysays itself. people just don't tend to notice it because they tend to be...religious.

the same reason serial killers kill in the name of jesus and suicide bombers bomb in the name of allah. surely extreme examples, but extreme examples are what we need. these acts are allowed for by the lack of logic and reason in religious ideas. there are people who support the killing of others based entirely on the 'spirit' cited as the source of inspiration! there are people who stifle free speech in the pursuit of not happiness or comfort, but ambiguous intellectual limbo. the nether between having learned to operate their body and having not learned how that capacity for operation has occurred.

i totally agree with you that many religious people are what we'd call 'good.' as i stated before, though, i think that has little to do with the religion as an enactment of morals and more to do with the codification of what were then purely social norms into a superstitious medium.

religion doesn't serve a good purpose, good people serve a good purpose under the guise of religion. they just can't possibly know it because they've been restricted from learning about themselves and the universe by people who have in turn been dealt the same blow. religion does NOTHING, and to talk of religion as though it possibly could do something is ludicrous. the 'choices' to do things are made by misinformed and uninformed people, not by ancient texts or imagined gods. the imagination of god is the imagination of people, and the words god speaks to them are the words they think to themselves.

those words just happen to coincide with moral uprightness because people tend to share a lot of similarities, both genetically and socially. those similarities we do not share are less severe than the tabboos of cannibalism and incest, for example, but there simple fact that people in china still exist is a testament to the existence of morality without the assistance of an abrahamic god or any god as a personality at all.

so to respond to what you've said, the idea that religion is useful is like the idea that purchasing 5 billion apple iie computers for the cost of birthing and raising a human child up until adulthood. sure, with 5 billion apple iies you can probably do a lot, but there's an ultimate bottleneck that advancement through education and intellectual social reform can overcome. you cannot advance by letting people continue to follow social norms while disregarding technology and information. can you imagine a preacher or priest solving an immense equation without the aid of a computer? and yet these people can memorize entire chunks of the bible! certainly they are intelligent and have a grand capacity for humanistic thought, but ultimately they are whipped into submission by the antisocial idea that they are incapable. they are incapable of surviving without god's assistance; they are incapable of doing anything without god's assistance! they live under the impression that everything they do is assisted or resisted by god. if they win the lotto, it's god. if lightning strikes their house too closely, it's god. the crutch of god serves both to allow those with weak legs to stand, and also to further weaken the legs of those standing by never allowing them to recognize that they can assist themselves if they are so inclined.

to be honest, i don't want to agree to disagree. that sort of mentality waylays the entire purpose of argumentation, the evolution of the survival of human communication. if one of our opinions or ideas is not a proper representation of the universe, then one of our opinions or ideas should cease to be. not becasue either you or i are correct, but because that is the only way to allow for each of our full mental potential to be realized.

oh, and i am not daryl.

thats fucking scary...

If your moral and ethical basis only comes from the fear of going to hell I wouldn't consider that a sound basis to run a country. I do nice things because I want to, not because I'm scared shitless of the invisible man in the sky.

Hilary will win the primaries and then get smoked by some unknown republican just cause she is a girl.

Obama motherfucker.

"Women can entry for free"

http://www.esl.eu/eu/wc3l/entry/

.

you know, even though I'm not an American, I know the ultimate goal of Democrats is to turn the Land of Free to the Land of Homos...

Guess we are the land of homos then.

History Of Homosexuality in Europe

Sorry already reading this one:

Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets

But I'm sure lukrek might like your book :o

eeek .. how do u sleep at night?!

I think he already knows anyway:)

True crime stuff (y) and I sleep well thank you :o

also a good read

Oh .. not my type :( I already have trouble sleeping with all those orK dreams .. well that happens when u have an orK in your Clan :)

The only Crime related book I can remember reading is this (although fictional) because of it's cyber punk world, but I already see u like real crimes:)
The Blue Nowhere By Jeffery Deaver

http://www.esreality.com/files/images/2007/51670-mksesr1.jpg

http://www.esreality.com/files/images/2003/17914-jan_esr.jpg

:))

as it's going to be your votes that matter.

Do they?!
Aren't the presidents chosen by Aliens who pull the strings ?!

oh c'mon I thought those things only happen in my Nightmares -_-

I'm Your Worst Nightmare!

oh really? I thought HamidoOs is!

No .. He's Just an orK!

Yea, but I also thought he is your worst Nightmare too!

It's the reptiles! Or the jews, I can't quite remember...

I saw some greens .. don't think they were orKs though.

Orkz is made for fightin' and winnin'

Zog Zog!

Ork Ork Ork.... All I hear, all I see is ORK. by the word OrK i've seen the lunacy of the race of green people called "The Horde". I condemn Blizzard as they put Undeads and Orks in the same faction called the HORDE! not even my rest is not eternal, I have to fight the same side as the orks. Ner'Zull how could you just stand and watch that happens?!

mexicans cant vote? :o

No idea

I was excited for Barrack Obama, figured I'd vote for him. However I watched Mike Gravel and think I like him quite a bit, undecided now.

He is smart and has good ideas but will never get elected in this country. Just wont happen, it's one thing to get a majority in say California, New York, or Minnesota. Where people are half sensible. But I've traveled my country a bit and it's totally backwards in a lot of places, not saying everyone is mentally retarded like the Christian zealot videos posted above in this thread, but enough people to get a majority.

Barack* Obama is just another corporate shill. you've been easily taken in by the propagandistic media. he doesn't even want to end the war, and he didn't vote to stop the patriot act (I think he voted for it). why the fuck would you ever vote for this moron? he's been so pushed by the news corporations, but there's absolutely no substance to his campaign. it's just because he's half black or something. I really don't get it.

all mike gravel talks about is the war. while I think that's probably important, there are other things! he comes off as a raging lunatic. in the sc debate, he completely ignored a question about nuclear energy and rambled on about the war. you just don't come out of that looking sane when you go off on a rant about the war everytime your name is called. I understand that "political tactics" are ways that politicians try to "get ahead," but that's what I'd expect from Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, or Mitt Romney -- not an actual, useful presidential candidate.

Ron Paul is the only person who has the guts to be honest, and he's pretty damn rational in his opinions.

What's with all these anonymous posters in the political section?

Maybe they're afraid someone is going to come after them.

And I agree Obama has been changed by his presidental run and has gotten cautious to not hurt his chances. But it's not nearly as bad as Hillary Clinton or the robotic McCain.

all the same person...

as it's going to be your votes that matter

Unless you live in Florida and are black and/or have the same name as someone who has ever been to prison

I think people have taken me abit to literally, all I meant was that I was interested in an Americans opinion as it was their elections, not mine.