President Obama's Nowruz message to Iranian people

[FORD]

But to sit here in this liberal circle jerk day in and day out thinking that countries like Iran and North Korea should be dealt with on the same level as allies is about as dumb as anything i can think of.

What's next for the president. Inviting Bin Laden to the white house for tea.

You fucking moronic son of a bitch.

The USSR had nuclear goddamn missiles pointed at us for some 50 fucking years. Yet every President of the United States in that period - Democrat or Republican - would "invite them over for tea."

Your messiah, Ronald Reagan, for example.......



How DARE he sit down and talk to that goddamn Commie bastard!!!

Diplomacy works. It should always be the preferred approach. Every elected President of the United States (even the ones I didn't like) accepted that reality. Only that moronic chimp who illegally occupied the office for the previous 8 years did not.

[Nitro Express]

You fucking moronic son of a bitch.

The USSR had nuclear goddamn missiles pointed at us for some 50 fucking years. Yet every President of the United States in that period - Democrat or Republican - would "invite them over for tea."

Your messiah, Ronald Reagan, for example.......



How DARE he sit down and talk to that goddamn Commie bastard!!!

Diplomacy works. It should always be the preferred approach. Every elected President of the United States (even the ones I didn't like) accepted that reality. Only that moronic chimp who illegally occupied the office for the previous 8 years did not.

Exactly. Speak softly and carry a big stick. Diplomacy is saying nice doggie until you find a big rock. LOL!

[FORD]

I do blame Britain for the above and there's enough evidence to doubt the official version of the London bombings. It's not my nation btw. I live here but I'm Indian.

Unbelievable... they're outsourcing trolls now??

[FORD]

Exactly. Speak softly and carry a big stick. Diplomacy is saying nice doggie until you find a big rock. LOL!

We had as many big rocks as the Russians did. But to use them would have meant (in the words of the prophet Robert Zimmerman) Everybody Must Get Stoned.

And not in the good way.

[MUSICMANN]

You fucking moronic son of a bitch.

The USSR had nuclear goddamn missiles pointed at us for some 50 fucking years. Yet every President of the United States in that period - Democrat or Republican - would "invite them over for tea."

Your messiah, Ronald Reagan, for example.......



How DARE he sit down and talk to that goddamn Commie bastard!!!

Diplomacy works. It should always be the preferred approach. Every elected President of the United States (even the ones I didn't like) accepted that reality. Only that moronic chimp who illegally occupied the office for the previous 8 years did not.

You're the fucking idiot. Leaders of countries like Russia and China are much differant than the religious regimes of Iran. They carried a mutal Presidental respect. Basicly, we had nukes they had nukes so it was a stalemate at best.

Iran on the other hand has fanatical leaders that care more about the total destruction of Israel and those who are allies of them than anything else.

Letting them become nuclear would be like giving the convicts the keys to the prison.

[Nitro Express]

Wow, this is news to me. Hmm, America is not a democracy. So i guess when i voted this past election, it didn't count. My one man-one vote. i didn't realize that my represenative made my choice for me on who i wanted to vote for president.

As for, The USA not helping their allies, let me see. I do believe that we have always helped out our friends and allies, when they needed help. So if you can prove that America has never stepped up to help out, please by all means, educate me.

Great point. You know that's why the United States is often reffered to as a Democratic Republic. It's really a combination of both. We need representatives because could you imagine hundreds of millions of citizens trying to votes on every issue? Democracy works with small groups of people but as the population grows you need representative government.

[LoungeMachine]

Wow, this is news to me. Hmm, America is not a democracy. So i guess when i voted this past election, it didn't count. My one man-one vote. i didn't realize that my represenative made my choice for me on who i wanted to vote for president.

.

Are you really this uneducated? This stupid?

Did you learn NOTHING in school? This is basic shit we're talking about.

As for, The USA not helping their allies, let me see. I do believe that we have always helped out our friends and allies, when they needed help. So if you can prove that America has never stepped up to help out, please by all means, educate me.

ALWAYS helped our allies? Wrong, dumbass.

And where did I say NEVER, dumbass?

Jesus fucking Christ it's like talking to a 4th grader.


Doesn't know the difference between a republic, and a democracy, and uses words like NEVER and ALWAYS.

Seriously, man. You're a fucking moron.





ThisNation.com--Is the United States a democracy?



Is the United States a democracy?

The Pledge of Allegiance includes the phrase: "and to the republic for which it stands." Is the United States of America a republic? I always thought it was a democracy? What's the difference between the two?

The United States is, indeed, a republic, not a democracy. Accurately defined, a democracy is a form of government in which the people decide policy matters directly--through town hall meetings or by voting on ballot initiatives and referendums. A republic, on the other hand, is a system in which the people choose representatives who, in turn, make policy decisions on their behalf. The Framers of the Constitution were altogether fearful of pure democracy. Everything they read and studied taught them that pure democracies "have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths" (Federalist No. 10).

By popular usage, however, the word "democracy" come to mean a form of government in which the government derives its power from the people and is accountable to them for the use of that power. In this sense the United States might accurately be called a democracy. However, there are examples of "pure democracy" at work in the United States today that would probably trouble the Framers of the Constitution if they were still alive to see them. Many states allow for policy questions to be decided directly by the people by voting on ballot initiatives or referendums. (Initiatives originate with, or are initiated by, the people while referendums originate with, or are referred to the people by, a state's legislative body.) That the Constitution does not provide for national ballot initiatives or referendums is indicative of the Framers' opposition to such mechanisms. They were not confident that the people had the time, wisdom or level-headedness to make complex decisions, such as those that are often presented on ballots on election day.

Writing of the merits of a republican or representative form of government, James Madison observed that one of the most important differences between a democracy and a republic is "the delegation of the government [in a republic] to a small number of citizens elected by the rest." The primary effect of such a scheme, Madison continued, was to:
. . . refine and enlarge the public views by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations. Under such a regulation it may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the same purpose (Federalist No. 10).
Later, Madison elaborated on the importance of "refining and enlarging the public views" through a scheme of representation:

There are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be most ready to lament and condemn. In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens, in order to check the misguided career and to suspend the blow meditated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice and truth can regain their authority over the public mind(Federalist No. 63).
In the strictest sense of the word, the system of government established by the Constitution was never intended to be a "democracy." This is evident not only in the wording of the Pledge of Allegiance but in the Constitution itself which declares that "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government" (Article IV, Section 4). Moreover, the scheme of representation and the various mechanisms for selecting representatives established by the Constitution were clearly intended to produce a republic, not a democracy.
To the extent that the United States of America has moved away from its republican roots and become more "democratic," it has strayed from the intentions of the Constitution's authors. Whether or not the trend toward more direct democracy would be smiled upon by the Framers depends on the answer to another question. Are the American people today sufficiently better informed and otherwise equipped to be wise and prudent democratic citizens than were American citizens in the late 1700s? By all accounts, the answer to this second question is an emphatic "no."

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[MUSICMANN]

Great point. You know that's why the United States is often reffered to as a Democratic Republic. It's really a combination of both. We need representatives because could you imagine hundreds of millions of citizens trying to votes on every issue? Democracy works with small groups of people but as the population grows you need representative government.

You get the jest of what i was saying. LM comes into threads as usual, and tries to make whomever he disagrees with look foolish, when in turn all it does is make him the foolish one.

Of course we elect our representatives to Congress and the Senate, to vote for all the differant bills and laws that get passed in the House.

I just find it amazing that he said that the USA is not a Democracy. Funny shit if you ask me.

[LoungeMachine]

Here, I'll dumb it down and use Kidipede for MUZAKmann

Republics - History for Kids!

Republics

In a republic, instead of voting directly about what they want to do, as in a democracy, people instead vote for people to represent them, and those people decide what to do.
The first republic was the Roman Republic, which was founded about 509 BC, just about the same time as the first democracy in Athens. The rules about who could vote were about the same as in Athens too: slaves couldn't vote, and neither could women, or children, or men who were not citizens. In addition, in Rome you could only vote if you owned land, so a lot of poor men could not vote at all even though they were free citizens.
The republic was a lot more efficient than the democracy, because most men who could vote only needed to vote in the big elections, and the rest of the time they could be at work. Only the Senators, the elected representatives, had to be voting all the time. And men who had been elected to be judges or to run the city, those were full-time jobs: consuls, tribunes, quaestors (KWEE-stores), and praetors (PRY-tores). (Only people who could vote could be elected, so only free men who were citizens and owned land could run for office).
But the aristocrats (the rich people) fixed it so that it was pretty much impossible to elect anyone who wasn't already an aristocrat to the senate or to be a consul or a tribune or anything. So this republic was a lot like an oligarchy in that it tended to be run by rich people.

Hasdrubal, a Carthaginian
general At the same time, in Carthage (Africa), there was a very similar government. It was a republic as well. The chief magistrates or officials were two shopfets (suffetes in Latin) who were elected annually on a basis of birth and wealth: this is almost identical to the Roman system of electing consuls from among the patricians.
Military commands were held by separately elected generals: this is different from the Roman system, where the consuls were the generals. In addition to these leaders, there was a powerful "senate" of several hundred life members, again, as at Rome. The powers of the citizens, or the Assembly, were very limited: basically they could only vote for the magistrates. There was also a separate group of 104 "judges" who scrutinized the actions of generals and other officials to keep them honest.
After the Romans destroyed Carthage in 146 BC, and the Roman republic collapsed about 30 BC, there was not another one for about a thousand years. Then in the Middle Ages, around 1100 AD, there began to be small republics in various northern Italian cities like Venice, Florence, Siena, Pisa, Genoa, and Milan. Sometimes these cities joined together into the Lombard League, but often they acted independently. Like the Roman and Carthaginian republics, however, almost all the power still was in the hands of rich people, so that these republics were a lot like oligarchies.




Democracy

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Democracy means the rule of the people (in Greek). That is where each individual person has a vote about what to do. Whatever the most people vote for wins. There is no king or tyrant, and anybody can propose a new law.
One problem that immediately comes up in a democracy is who is going to be able to vote. Should people vote who are just visiting from some other city-state? How about little kids, should they vote? Or should there be some limits? The earliest democracy in the world began in Athens, in 510 BC. When democracy proved to be successful in Athens, many other city-states chose it for their government too. But most of them allowed even fewer people to vote than Athens did: most of the other city-states only allowed free adult male citizens to vote IF they owned land or owned their own houses (that is, the richer people).
Another problem for democracies is that it is very inconvenient for men to always be going to the meeting-place to vote. Most men have work to do, planting their grain, making shoes, fighting wars or whatever. They can't be always voting. So most democracies sooner or later end up choosing a few men who will do most of the voting, and the rest only come when there is a really important vote. It is hard to decide how to choose these few men, and different cultures did it different ways. Athens did it by a lottery. If you got the winning ticket then you were on the Council of 500. Men served for a year.





I cannot believe you have to explain to an adult these days the difference between a republic, and a democracy.

[LoungeMachine]

You get the jest of what i was saying. .

Back to the "jist" again......

typical packpeddle from the idiot.

:D

[Nitro Express]

The truth of the matter is US imperialism is coming to a quick end. We no longer have the money to go running all over the world policing every issue. Our military is spread thin and our equipment has become old and worn. We are isolated in a world where we are no longer the leading industrial base. We no longer can afford to police the world.

So it's time to come back home and fix ourselves here. The average American isn't getting any benefit from all this global policing. If we are going to survive as a country we need jobs here. Nobody is going to fuck with us if we stay home. Sending our military all over the place just wears it down, creates more bad will, and gets us farther into debt as a nation.

[LoungeMachine]

Of course we elect our representatives to Congress and the Senate, to vote for all the differant bills and laws that get passed in the House.

.

THAT'S WHAT A REPUBLIC IS, YOU FUCKING MORON.

[LoungeMachine]

Great point. You know that's why the United States is often reffered to as a Democratic Republic. .

Yes, a democratic republic

Not a true democracy.

Thank you for just proving my point. :D

[FORD]

You're the fucking idiot. Leaders of countries like Russia and China are much differant than the religious regimes of Iran. They carried a mutal Presidental respect. Basicly, we had nukes they had nukes so it was a stalemate at best.

Iran on the other hand has fanatical leaders that care more about the total destruction of Israel and those who are allies of them than anything else.

Letting them become nuclear would be like giving the convicts the keys to the prison.

I already debunked the ridiculous "destruction of Israel" shit, so I'm not even going there again.

Iran has no nuclear weapons. There is no evidence that they are trying to get a nuclear weapon, aside from a bunch of ridiculous speculation coming straight from Likud propaganda headquarters.

But let's suppose, just for a second, that they were trying to get a weapon.

Could you blame them?

They're surrounded on two sides by US occupied countries. Israel is a relatively short distance away (as the missile flies). Pakistan & India are also both armed, in the neighborhood, and known for occasional political instability.
Then of course you got the big dogs Russia & China back in the outfield, so to speak.

You tell me what you would do in that situation, seriously.

[LoungeMachine]

Wow, this is news to me. Hmm, America is not a democracy. So i guess when i voted this past election, it didn't count. My one man-one vote. i didn't realize that my represenative made my choice for me on who i wanted to vote for president.

.

No, moron, your elector in the electoral college voted for president.

You didn't know this either?