PolyTrip,
I disagree with you on your opinion that Republicans are the party of prejudice or bigotry. Who fought to free the slaves and who fought to keep them enslaved? Do you know? How much American history have you actually studied or do you base your opinions on things you read on the internet? How many times have you visited the Southern states of America to form your opinion that they are in-bread illiterate hillbillies? Honestly, I think minorities are being used as political tools.

Your opinions are not based on facts but hate. You think if someone disagrees with you they are idiots. Life is not black and white my friend. There are always three sides to the story, the truth is always the one in the middle.

I agree with you about the two party system. We should have no need for a political party. Let every representative stand on his own merit and let the people decide.

About the media outlets, NONE are center of the road. Not one. They all have an agenda. To think you will ever get unbiased media coverage is naive. It's all about money, facts don't matter anymore. Media serves as a propaganda tool to form the opinions of the people that vote.

This is a misrepresentation of the facts. The party that fought to free the slaves (although that was not technically what the war was fought over, but we can gloss over that) is not ideologically similar to either main party that we know today. To claim otherwise is fallacious, party names are merely names and the political goals they represent change drastically with the times.

Looking at today's political parties, there is much more fear, hate, and bigotry being peddled by the Republicans than the Democrats. If you wish to dispute that, please say so and I will gladly begin posting various proposed laws/bills/amendments from both parties and we can tally them up. I will say that neither Democrats or Republicans are on the level of the Tea Partyists, but as they are a more radical (and "third" ) party I feel it can be said with some certainty that they hold far less sway than Dems or Reps. Of the two main parties currently in existence, there are much more reprehensible goings on with respect to prejudice and bigotry within the Reps than Dems (which is NOT to say that the Dems are free of blame or scandal). Just to take one very relevant example directly out of headline news, have you heard of the immigration legislation in Arizona? This is not only unconstitutional but is both bigoted and prejudiced.

I don't mean to butt in on your debate, but thought maybe if we talked facts (or at least political occurences/events) instead of mudslinging we could have a more productive discussion...

peace
SB

How is it a misrepresentation of the facts? It is a fact. Open a history book, go on Wikipedia. Yeah agendas have changed from freeing the slaves (because there are none, because they freed them).

I think both parties are corrupt. I don't feel there is prejudice in either party these days. Of course there are individuals on both sides who could be labeled prejudice but the country as a whole is not. The race card is played as a manipulation tool.

I don't feel the new Arizona bill is either un-constitutional or prejudice. I have read the bill, it's available online, and I don't see a problem with asking someone to verify citizenship if they are already in custody or pulled over. The bill clearly does not allow an officer to pull someone over just to ask them.

I hope it is clear that i don't realy think all people from the south are inbred hillbilly's.

I said this because i think it's just weird that no-one ever bashes back at dudes like o'reily.

I understand that people don't feel comfortable with bashing back in the same way as he does.
Well, neither do i.

But if people would have been a bit more critical every now and then (like: maybe the french aren't stinking frogs and maybe they're right about there being no WMD's on iraq) we all would have been so much better of.

Those of you who still don't understand my anger i wish a bon'apetit with those freedom fries.

Well, I will concede that it is not unconstitutional, but there is a reason for that and it's essentially a loophole. As a citizen of the US, you have the right to say no to a request for the kind of documents the Arizona Law enforcement will be asking for under this law and they have to take your word that you are a citizen and step off. The issue is that many cops already manufacture "probable cause" what makes you think they wont do it here? This is mandated racial profiling. This is against everything that America was founded for. As you yourself said, there's nothing wrong to verify citizenship if already pulled over or arrested for a legitimate cause, but when the Bill states that people who are "reasonable suspicious" to LEO are subject to these requests (remeber they can refuse, even though the law doesnt explicitly state it) there is a lot of room for abuse. To deny that is to ignore common sense and the current issues already plaguing law enforcement.

Please read the below text, if you do not find it worrying, I fear you are being overly naive with respect to the abuses of power that have been documented within America's police forces and judicial systems:



We are not nazi-germany or the 1800's American south, people who are not engaging in criminal activity should be under no obligation to present anyone with any papers, and under federal law they are not. This state bill is a horribly written offensive piece of legislation that avoids unconstitutionality only as a result of not negating the loophole that also makes it relatively powerless. However, that does nothing to prevent this bill from being abused by law enforcement. This is a very ominous law that reeks of orwellian dystopia.

polytrip, I understand your anger and feel it is justified. I also feel there are better outlets than calling everyone from the south racist hillbillies, but I get what you are trying to underscore. Assholes like O'Reilly and Glenn Beck are a scourge to humanity and their intolerance is sickening.

the confusion lies with the distinction between conservativism and neoconservativism.
conservative ideals are more closely related to libertarian ideals, whereas neoconservativism is just the warped ideals of christian fundamentalists sticking their noses where it doesn't belong. they play the "moral right" position as a rouse
to cover their true intentions....exploiting taxpayers' ideals and funneling the money to corporate oligopolies.

unfortunately, the misinformed/misguided blue-collar population support the shenanigans of the neo-conservatives because of the morality farce, and they think they'll get tax breaks.

and social conservativism is just another was of saying maladaptive. might as well live in a cave.

What portion is profiling? To say a law can be abused so it should not be in place seems silly to me. An officer can say I was speeding even though I wasn't, so should there not be speed limits? I don't like the government sticking there nose in my business at all. I think government has gone to far and to big. I don't think the government works for us anymore but we for them. Not just Obama but Bush, Clinton etc. But I am all for this law and really don't see any reason your against it. If the law said "Pull over the brown people" then I would agree with you. But it doesn't. It is very clear that they can not in fact.

Umm.... Racial Profiling sounds fairly unconstitutional to me. Why should a natural born citizen have to provide papers to prove it whenever he's got a busted taillight, simply based on ethnicity?

Ive gotta go with Snozzle on the Republicans being the party that freed the slaves. It would be quite inaccurate to credit the Republican party of today with the party of Abraham Lincoln in the mid 19th Century. They are alike in name, and that's about all.

ThirdEye, This is exaclty my point. It's not that laws that "might" get abused shouldn't be passed. It's that this law has abuse written in to it with a very simple clause stating that officers "shouldn't abuse this power against the consitution of the US or Arizona state law" despite the bill specifically telling them to profile...They are clearly trying to walk both sides of legality with this bill and i find it reprehensible and appalling. I edited my initial post while you were replying to it, so you didnt get all my points, but just that you see this as innocuous worries me. There is no legal precedent for anything along these lines for a reason. Can you please tell me a clear distinction that officers will be determining who to question beyond "reasonable suspicion"? The law doesnt spell any out and that is what is troubling, to say the least.

With respect to Republicans freeing the slaves...well, first off, the history books will all tell you it was a war over states rights and if Lincoln could have unified the nation through keeping slavery he would have. Secondly, it's not that the agendas differ, it's that political ideologies differ. If a party is not identified by it's ideologies, then how is it defined? I am aware that a group called the Republicans was on the winning side of a war that wound up freeing the slaves and that there is a current party called the republicans, however the conclusions you are drawing as to their interrelatedness are not supported by the historical causes of the civil war nor are they supported by the ideology espoused by either party.

Reasonable suspicion of an illegal alien?
1) You are in an area where illegal aliens jump the border.
2) You have in custody a person who doesn't speak English.
3) You find someone hiding in a trunk of a car or a dashboard.
4) Ran from the arresting officer.

The list goes on.

Really? If you were in a bank and a man walked in with a ski mask. Would you not try to leave quickly or would you say.....wait snozzleberry I'm profiling a potential bank robber I'm going to stay here.

I guess you can say we all "profile" everyday. That is why we are the dominant species. We see what looks to be a threat and we try to cure the problem before it gets us. In nature, animals also profile to a degree, a rabbit sees a dog, it runs.

The law does not limit anything to these areas you cite and even if it did, that would still be profiling. Just because someone with brown skin happens to be strolling along the border, you do not have the right to harass them and demand their paperwork (under the constitution, they may decline your request).

But, just for kicks, let's forget that for the moment. As the law does not limit these searches to these incidents you are talking about and applies, in fact, to the whole state, where are the limits of power? What is to stop someone from questioning every brown-skinned individual they see? Where does this harassment stop? If you are supporting this because you don't like the violence that all the drug smuggling is causing (a reason cited by many law enforcement officials as well as politicians and pundits) why not regulate drugs and actually staunch the flow at the source? This just seems like the worst possible (and least legally sound) method of engaging this problem. It will be interesting to watch how this plays out, I have a hard time believing that this law will be unaltered and in effect a year from now, but we'll see. If it is still upheld and being enforced a year from now, I would say it is a harbinger of things to come and the UK is looking that much more inviting. I have enough "ethnic" qualities to be worried about this.

Also, just as a parting comical point did your family legally emigrate to the US? Did the Native Americans say it was ok for them to come? Mine came legally according to US law, but I dunno that I can count that as legal seeing as the land was stolen from the natives and you can't legally sell/preside over stolen goods. I'm kind of facetious with that point, but think about the issues at the heart of it if you would be so kind.

peace
SB

I will agree to disagree with each of our opinions on this law. Clearly this is going nowhere.

My family did come here legally from Germany. I have my papers to prove it
We felt no need to ask any native Americans if it was OK. If you feel you are here illegally I can't help you with that. I can see what your trying to get at though and that is a whole other topic. But we all came from one place so you can try to trace the lineage of nations until your blew in the face and say this king stole the land from this king and so on and so forth. So I guess we are ALL illegal... Native Americans ALSO fought each other for land and slaves. So that point has no merit in my eyes.

Can we all agree that Fox News fucking blows, at least? I know that none of the networks are perfect, but Fox is the worst of the worst.

At least it can be good for few awkward and painful laughs: http://www.thedailyshow.com/vid...2fox+news%22&start=0

I like to add that when the dutch far-right party ever get's into power i will be the first to declare the netherlands a stinking pile of shit that would better vanish into the northsea.

The difference with an insignificant country as mine is ofcourse that nobody cares if it would be a stinking pile of shit sanked into the sea.

It's also not that i'm insulted as a dutchman ofcourse, when o'reily talks of holland as a disneyland for criminals. I think it's as much an insult to disneyland. I've been to disneyland once, too bad they didn't have coffeeshops and hookers, but i can imagine it would be a jolly nice place to smoke your brains out. Fortunately there was one thing we dutch are familiar with, wich is that gayparade ofcourse. In our gayparade the naked sailors also get all the attention. Disney's had only one but he was a duck so that counts for many.
Has o'reily ever been to disneyland? I don't think he would like it that much since it's a socialist state and also a bit too cosmopolitan: dog's, lions, ducks, rabits, even people..talk about political equality. They don't got medicare though: one guy had to wear a hook instead of a proper prothesis, the only sailor with all his clothes on.

^^^^^^

Awesome

Hmmmm.... Interesting thread.
For a good time, watch Kieth Olbermann rip Bill O'Reily. It's most excellent.

I must also say (referring to a post a ways back in this thread) that although George W. was an abomination as president, his frequent gaffes and "Bushisms" were, and still are, a really good way to unwind and laugh til your stomach hurts. Sarah Palin might invade another country, or even destroy this one (I'm in the US obviously), but I am willing to bet that her gaffes and Palinisms would make Dubbya look like a genius.

I always try to look on the bright side.

Pokey the Optimist

Well, one thing o'reily didn't mention about the netherlands is ofcourse that we can see alaska when we look out of or windows...ah, i see her waving at me right now.