$100 Million to help setup brothels

[I_luv_saber]

It started with the Democrats using class envy as a political tool. Saying things about greed and fairness. It makes it easier to redistribute someones wealth if you first convince everyone else they don't deserve it.

So... to summarize, your rebuttal is: "They started it", am I right?

EDIT: Likely, this "term" has probably been used long before. I'm simply pointing out how often it's used more recently.

[I_luv_saber]

{snip} And his point was that things are now so polarised in the US that reasonable discourse is virtually impossible.

I would say, on the level of the general populace, that it's become much harder, but far from impossible. Most people I speak with have their opinions, but most are not the screaming extremists. Even there, yes, there are some things that simply no agreement is ever reached. You can very much tell it has become far more partisan, though.

It seems any higher than that, any sort of civility and reason becomes very rare and nearly impossible to find.

Basically: I think it's a slight exaggeration... but only a slight one.

[migopod]

I hate this "un-American" crap that's getting thrown around so much lately. Pelosi calling Republicans she doesn't agree with "un-American", Rush calling Obama "un-American". What the hell does that even mean? Irritating partisan politics is irritating.

I believe that Pelosi was calling the practice of shouting down other people at town-hall meetings un-American... in that using pure volume to stifle another's right to be heard is anti-small-d-democratic.

In that respect I totally agree with her. If people are just making noise in an effort to stifle actual reasoned discourse, they are *behaving* in an un-American fashion. Doesn't mean they're un-American people.

In the respect of calling other people un-American, I'm with you 100%. Nobody on either side has any business doing it.

[I_luv_saber]

I disagree that any action could be considered an "un-American" action. This sounds awfully close to No True Scotsman.

I don't approve of the phrase in any fashion (except perhaps as a very odd way of calling an expat )

[migopod]

I disagree that any action could be considered an "un-American" action. This sounds awfully close to No True Scotsman.

I don't approve of the phrase in any fashion (except perhaps as a very odd way of calling an expat )

Fair enough. I agree also that it's a loaded term that's been used for a long while to impugn an individual's patriotism. I'm henceforth going to caucus with you on this issue, sir.

[erooMynohtnA]

It started with the Democrats using class envy as a political tool. Saying things about greed and fairness. It makes it easier to redistribute someones wealth if you first convince everyone else they don't deserve it.

I think that is more or less a correct, if damning, statement of what is happening.

If people are just making noise in an effort to stifle actual reasoned discourse, they are *behaving* in an un-American fashion.

I don't know. That sounds pretty American to me, in the bleeding Sumner fashion of Americanism.

[twisterfencing]

Acorn::::

You know, if I learned that some kids just decided to go out and try to find something wrong with local company, nothing would have even cought my attention.

Now if I learned that a 20 year old girl and a 25 year old guy went out to figure out what Acorn was doing and found 5+ offices that would help them set up a brothel while importing 12 under age girls, now you have my attention!

If these two kids just told the story, no one would belive them. Get them on tape and now everyone says it was a trap! Most are too young to remember, but ABC did the same thing with the grocerie store "Food Lion" and it almost put them out of business over dates on meat! So, who is right and who is wrong? Well, sounds like these two kids picked up a couple of easy acorns off the ground!

Everyone needs to remember that Acorn is a 501C3 non-profit group that gets yours and my tax dollars. If these things are going on at even one office, not the 5 they found, no matter how many they went to in the 6 weeks they filmed, they need to be SHUT DOWN! One office is bad enough, 5+ offices is a trend!

I have watched the tapes on Fox News. I watched CNN news and they were referencing to the tapes as a Fox News backed sting. I fired off an email to the young lady that possed as the lady of the night and she responded to me in a form letter that stated that she and her film guy had zero backing from any group. She drained her savings account to almost zero to make this news known. Understand, she is a journelist student and wanted a really juicy story, what she set out with, she got one. I for one, take my hat off to this group and say a huge "Thank You" for a excelent job!

I can only hope that the outcome will be that Acorn is no longer funded by our tax dollars, our current President shows where he paid Acorn $900,000 to "get out the vote", where Acorn has caused fraud in our current housing market and to the Fed's.

Gary Spruill

[lindajdunn]

I've seen an interesting response from one of the offices targeted:

The woman said that she was just having some fun with them.

First of all, I'd still consider that kind of employee action worthy of some form of action be it firing or retraining/LWOP. Second, I wouldn't buy that story but... among other things that the woman told the filmers, was that she had murdered one of her previous husbands. This, as might be expected, led to a police investigation that discovered the ex-husbands alive and in good health.

Whether she was having fun at their and her employer's expense or not, I'd still call her on the carpet and possibly dismiss her if for no other reason than to serve as an example of why you don't just play along with folks.

Whether this is a case of a few bad apples or a whole orchard of diseased fruit remains to be seen. I'm withholding judgment until an independent investigation is completed.

[Bayou Bum]

Whether this is a case of a few bad apples or a whole orchard of diseased fruit remains to be seen. I'm withholding judgment until an independent investigation is completed.

It's interesting to me that you are willing to give Acorn the benefit of the doubt (multiple times over) with all of the accusations, and even convictions on voter fraud, but you had no hesitancy convicting Haliburton with much less evidence. I wish you would seriously think about your hypocrisy.

[Fechter1]

It's interesting to me that you are willing to give Acorn the benefit of the doubt (multiple times over) with all of the accusations, and even convictions on voter fraud, but you had no hesitancy convicting Haliburton with much less evidence. I wish you would seriously think about your hypocrisy.

So you think that Acorn should face the same scrutiny and consequences that Halliburton did? Remind me again, what happened to Halliburton? How many people got fired, sent to court/jail, how much were they or the company fined? (I honestly don't remember)

Speaking of hypocrisy, I have tried to find a post of yours where you demonize Halliburton and the supporting administration as you are doing Acorn and the democrats right now. Could you help me by providing the relevant quote/link?
Thanks

For the record, an investigation does seem necessary at this point, and if the wrongdoing goes beyond a "few bad apples", then action does need to be taken.

[chase]

Acorn::::

You know, if I learned that some kids just decided to go out and try to find something wrong with local company, nothing would have even cought my attention.

Now if I learned that a 20 year old girl and a 25 year old guy went out to figure out what Acorn was doing and found 5+ offices that would help them set up a brothel while importing 12 under age girls, now you have my attention!

If these two kids just told the story, no one would belive them. Get them on tape and now everyone says it was a trap! Most are too young to remember, but ABC did the same thing with the grocerie store "Food Lion" and it almost put them out of business over dates on meat! So, who is right and who is wrong? Well, sounds like these two kids picked up a couple of easy acorns off the ground!

Everyone needs to remember that Acorn is a 501C3 non-profit group that gets yours and my tax dollars. If these things are going on at even one office, not the 5 they found, no matter how many they went to in the 6 weeks they filmed, they need to be SHUT DOWN! One office is bad enough, 5+ offices is a trend!

I have watched the tapes on Fox News. I watched CNN news and they were referencing to the tapes as a Fox News backed sting. I fired off an email to the young lady that possed as the lady of the night and she responded to me in a form letter that stated that she and her film guy had zero backing from any group. She drained her savings account to almost zero to make this news known. Understand, she is a journelist student and wanted a really juicy story, what she set out with, she got one. I for one, take my hat off to this group and say a huge "Thank You" for a excelent job!

I can only hope that the outcome will be that Acorn is no longer funded by our tax dollars, our current President shows where he paid Acorn $900,000 to "get out the vote", where Acorn has caused fraud in our current housing market and to the Fed's.

Gary Spruill

i agree with this. i also agree with the example posted earlier of "why not the catholic church?" (catholicism is a false religion that leads away from Christ and therefore should not be funded by OUR tax dollars.)

[migopod]

i agree with this. i also agree with the example posted earlier of "why not the catholic church?" (catholicism is a false religion that leads away from Christ and therefore should not be funded by OUR tax dollars.)

Almost a point of agreement. I would do you one better and say All religions are false, and none should be supported with OUR tax dollars.

[lindajdunn]

It's interesting to me that you are willing to give Acorn the benefit of the doubt (multiple times over) with all of the accusations, and even convictions on voter fraud, but you had no hesitancy convicting Haliburton with much less evidence. I wish you would seriously think about your hypocrisy.

There is no hypocrisy concerning Haliburton. I work in a related industry.

[chase]

Almost a point of agreement. I would do you one better and say All religions are false, and none should be supported with OUR tax dollars.

i know your trying to get a flame out of me, perhaps to get me banned and silenced but i will just calmly point you towards the Word of God, and let you discover the Truth. the fact of the matter is that there is only one true religion, and others are leeches that dont deserve our tax dollars because they are false, and some are both false AND anti-american (remember the mulsim churches that were giving money to the terrorists in gaza?)

[migopod]

i know your trying to get a flame out of me, perhaps to get me banned and silenced but i will just calmly point you towards the Word of God, and let you discover the Truth. the fact of the matter is that there is only one true religion, and others are leeches that dont deserve our tax dollars because they are false, and some are both false AND anti-american (remember the mulsim churches that were giving money to the terrorists in gaza?)

You can believe whatever mythology you want as far as I'm concerned, but no religious institution should receive funding from tax dollars (office of faith-based and community initiatives, I'm looking at you).

[fencerchica]

You can believe whatever mythology you want as far as I'm concerned, but no religious institution should receive funding from tax dollars (office of faith-based and community initiatives, I'm looking at you).

Amen, brother!!

[Digital Analog]

i know your trying to get a flame out of me, perhaps to get me banned and silenced but i will just calmly point you towards the Word of God, and let you discover the Truth. the fact of the matter is that there is only one true religion, and others are leeches that dont deserve our tax dollars because they are false, and some are both false AND anti-american (remember the mulsim churches that were giving money to the terrorists in gaza?)

Religion is nothing but a means of uniting a group and excluding another group. Its just another method of controlling a population. Best to do away with it entirely.

[Hauptman]

You can believe whatever mythology you want as far as I'm concerned, but no religious institution should receive funding from tax dollars (office of faith-based and community initiatives, I'm looking at you).

I completely agree, Migo.

Chase, everyone thinks that their religion is the one "true" religion. I guarantee you'll have a tough time proving your position.

And if you were agreeing with my Catholic church analogy then I think you misunderstood; I wasn't advocating that the church as an institution was at fault, and by analogy neither is ACORN. You seem to be condemning both.

[dcmdale]

Yeah, the irony is that it's actually backhandedly fortunate that the Talibangelists are too racist to court these demographics that would support substantial chunks of their reactionary social agenda.

I can't believe that I am actually reading this thread... (slow day at work).

We often think of the political parties as monolithic. The reality is that they are coalitions of many different viewpoints. The GOP is generally supported by the Religious Right. That is not co-extensive with the Racists (although there is overlap). Neither of those groups are co-extensive with Neo-Conservatism or any of the other constituent viewpoints within the GOP. As is true with the Dems, not all of these groups happily co-exist under the same umbrella.

Within both parties there is also a spectrum between those who believe in "party first" and the idealists. Within the GOP, there are those who welcome the racist/anti-immigrant vote because they are votes, then there are those who are disgusted. The GOP, historically, was not the party of racism. That was the Democrats until the 1960's. Brown v. Board of Education was written by a good GOP ex-governor appointed by a GOP President correctly interpreting civil rights constitutional amendments pushed through by a GOP congress and GOP controlled legislatures. The "Solid South" of the Jim Crow Era was solidly Democratic. That the racist elements moved to the GOP is indisputable. And they gained a voice in the GOP because they swung elections. Both parties work that way.

I think that you correctly identify that immigration and associated racism is the big barrier between the Hispanic community and the GOP. What I personally find ironic is that the Hispanic community in the southwest is much, much larger than the anti-immigrant element within the GOP throughout the southwest. It is easily within the ability of the Hispanic community to simply walk in and take over the GOP in the southwest and completely co-opt the anti-immigrant voices within the GOP. They could do this any election cycle that they chose.

Now, party leadership is not particularly interested in this for the simple reason that they are unlikely to remain party leaders under that scenario. If the Hispanic community moved en mass into the GOP, it would be as large and influential a block as the Evangelical Right likely is--and there are many synergies between those groups.

From where I stand, I would say that what is really needed is leadership within the Hispanic community. Nobody is just going to hand over the keys to the party. However, the keys are there to grab and nobody can stop them if they chose to take them.

[migopod]

.... The GOP, historically, was not the party of racism. That was the Democrats until the 1960's. Brown v. Board of Education was written by a good GOP ex-governor appointed by a GOP President correctly interpreting civil rights constitutional amendments pushed through by a GOP congress and GOP controlled legislatures. The "Solid South" of the Jim Crow Era was solidly Democratic. That the racist elements moved to the GOP is indisputable. And they gained a voice in the GOP because they swung elections. Both parties work that way.

Interestingly one major reason why the shift in party identity especially in the south was that Democrats were dominant in large part because Lincoln was Republican until LBJ cheesed them off with passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act in '64 and '65.

I think that you correctly identify that immigration and associated racism is the big barrier between the Hispanic community and the GOP. What I personally find ironic is that the Hispanic community in the southwest is much, much larger than the anti-immigrant element within the GOP throughout the southwest. It is easily within the ability of the Hispanic community to simply walk in and take over the GOP in the southwest and completely co-opt the anti-immigrant voices within the GOP. They could do this any election cycle that they chose.

Now, party leadership is not particularly interested in this for the simple reason that they are unlikely to remain party leaders under that scenario. If the Hispanic community moved en mass into the GOP, it would be as large and influential a block as the Evangelical Right likely is--and there are many synergies between those groups.

From where I stand, I would say that what is really needed is leadership within the Hispanic community. Nobody is just going to hand over the keys to the party. However, the keys are there to grab and nobody can stop them if they chose to take them.

That would be a very interesting strategy.

Very interesting.