Wake Up America!!!

[salty tiger]

If McCain would have said that we weren't gonna bail out a lousy banker on wall street, I would have admired him and supported him for taking a real stand.

This is the only thing I can agree with you on.

[WaltDawg]

You guys eat up the conservative propaganda. Maybe we should have an Obama section added to the discussion thread.

[DixieReb]

I have read this thread and think all the comments are very interesting. most of us here don't agree with what is going on in Washington and would like some (good) changes of our own. I'm not kidding, if I wern't afraid that the d--- federals would come back and kick our butts again like 150 years ago, I would love to see us just secede, leave the union and start something totally different with conservative leadership that listens to our problems and refuses to sell the country out like that circus in Washington is doing. But to do that a lot of planning needs to be done to organize the government, the treasury, postal service, and all the other agencies needed to run a country. I think when the South seceded last time, not enough thought was put into what would happen when they did leave the union. And there was not near enough industry to support the new government.
Anyway, I think if things keep going the way they are and we cannot rid the country of what we have leading it now(president and cabinet,congress,senate,etc.) then something should be done to try to save the country. Just my .02. Thanks for all the widely-varied comments, we should be able to debate subjects like this one.

[jsuber]

I think that all of those politicians care only about one thing and thats power. I think Nancy P really wants to run the the multitrillion dollar insurance business. I thing she sees it as a position of power, and a nice new jet, and they could give two craps about any of us.

[BayGator]

A little derail here, but this guy was at a rally and Obama was in the area, with an AR15 and a Glock pistol. Guy has some balls, but I bet there was more then 1 rifle tuned into his nugget everywhere he went.

[duckbill]

Crispy,

I live in Dawg Town - Athens, GA. Our town's vote is always contrary to the rest of the state. I would expect Gainesville (FL) to vote the same way Athens, GA would. College towns are hotbeds for liberals (or if you prefer "progressives"). Change just for the sake of change is not a good thing. It's sad that we no longer have real statesmen that can step up to the plate and lead. We now have a President with very little experience whose roots are embedded in the corruption of Chicago politics. In just a few short months into the Obama era, we can see clearly several things: (1) a real lack of experience, (2) cronyism to the max (look closely at the background of the "czars"), and (3) a disdain to either approach the problems this country faces in a bipartisan way or either a dogged determination to force a radical agenda down everyone's throat. What happened to all the talk about uniting the country????

We're in for some hard times folks and if you don't agree you must have blinders on or your head is buried in the sand. I hope and pray that things change for the better for my children and their children.

[Barhopr]

I honestly don't think the admin. can keep the momentum up that it gained during the election. The young liberal crowds have always had very short attention spans and now that the initial fervor is over his support will dwindle. just my .02. Mid term elections are to only saving grace we have to slow the Prez's agenda down and anyone here that wants to keep their money where their mouth is should find out who their state and fed. Conservative (R) reps are and if nothing else volunteer to stuff envelopes.

[Flanders]

We could get all this turned in the right direction with one simple change - make paying federal income tax a prerequisite to voting. In other words, if you don't pay tax, you don't get to vote. After all, we are voting on people to decide how to spend our money. So, if you don't pay anyting in, why should you get a chance to vote on how our money is spent.

Best idea I have heard in a long time!!!!

[GatorBaiter]

"And, RHT, you'd be surprised how much of Gator Nation is behind me. Just take a look at how Alachua County voted during the last election (Leon County, too)".

This member of Gator Nation is ashamed that UF (once a great Land Grant and Agricultural College) has become the liberal hole that it has become. High Springs has followed suite with the new age yuppie liberals and buying up every inch of farm land they can to accommodate their urban sprawl and then yelling about how "green" they supposedly are. Did you grow up inside or right next to the Hari Krishna compound?

Like most liberals you never bother to refute the statements or argument made in the article. You just insult us for our opinions and blame the Bush administration for everything. Never mind that Bush worked with a mainly Democratic congress that held votes every now and again. Nope, you don’t need facts or substance when you’ve got a scapegoat. The only stand I have seen the Democrats take is that Bush was to blame, that anybody who speaks out against them is extremist, and government is the solution to our every problem. Watch MSNBC tonight and see if I lie.

Your statements are way out of line and for the record there are many of us from UF and Alachua county who still maintain a little sanity. Speak for yourself and don’t throw the rest of us under the bus with you. Now this red neck farm boy is gonna go throw him sum gas in his 4X4 and go home to enjoy dinner. I hope you do too and you’re welcome for it!

[cueball]

We could get all this turned in the right direction with one simple change - make paying federal income tax a prerequisite to voting. In other words, if you don't pay tax, you don't get to vote. After all, we are voting on people to decide how to spend our money. So, if you don't pay anyting in, why should you get a chance to vote on how our money is spent.

Best idea I have heard in a long time!!!!

Didn't we fight a war over something kinda like that way back some 200+ years ago? How did we lose that basic American value?

I agree with JSuber. I don't believe that any of today's leaders from either side give fourteen dumps about anything but current political power. We are all just in the way and inconvenient colateral damage.

[CrispyFishin]

GatorBaiter, I apologized for shooting off, but apparently that wasn't good enough for you. You decided to run down me and my home town.

Just so you know, a population of 4200 people doesn't constitute urban sprawl, even in Antartica. Next, unless you are 70 something and/or went to UF in 1950 something (maybe you are and maybe you did), you can't refer to UF over the last half century as anything BUT liberal. It was ultra liberal when I went there, it was the same when my Dad went there.

And, the Krishna farm is in Alachua, not High Springs. Maybe you should brush up on "fact checking" before you comment on ANYTHING.

However, back to the matter at hand.. I agree with a lot of the comments here. Obama has proposed a lot of big government programs, with big government spending. Healthcare is obviously one of them. I agree that it would have a massive cost, and us average blue collar working folks would ultimately be left to bare that cost.

Now let's do some refuting... the idea that we're on the verge of being subjected to death panels, euthanasia, government tapped bank accounts, and the like is just absurd and stupid. The idea that we're evolving into tyranny and facism is just as loony. The NRA would have you believe that Nancy Pelosi is going to comission the National Guard to come and seize your weapons... more extremist nonsense. Conservatives don't seem to realize that they lost the ability and credibility to scare people into the voting booth years ago when Saddam turned out to be no threat, not even to his neighbors (remember WMD?). Conservative extremist propaganda pushers want us to believe they are being silenced by mainstream media; however, Sean Hannity has 3 hours a day (and a few hours at night) to voice a solution to healthcare, and I've never heard him present one. The only conservative solution I've seen is turning an unregulated wall street loose and letting the cards fall where they may... too many losers in that kind of America for me.

[big bend gyrene]

Why do liberals have to villianize capitalism and those who work to succeed? I used to be a democrat and still feel very strongly about having a nation where every race, sex, creed has equal OPPORTUNITY to work hard and succeed, to live the OLD American dream of going from rags to riches, and I've fought hard in a 20 year business career to promote folks, be they African American, Korean, even pink-haired (seriously), if they PROVED themselves to be hard working and capable. But equal opportunity and forced equal mediocre results/hatred of those achieving wealth are where I draw the line. My wife is a daughter from a family where she's the first to have gone to college, and though I came from a relatively wealthy family, my father was one of 12 dirt poor sharecropper's kids, and he warned me when I finished college I was on my own. Not given a cent, my wife and I started with little... didn't go to movies, out to eat, partying, nada... instead putting money into savings in our 20s. I started as a card operator in a textile mill and worked my arse off to prove my worth and be promoted into management where I worked even harder to ensure employees under my direction kept their jobs while we competed against countries with much lower costs/tax burdens. And after about 20 years my wife and I collected enough to live comfortably and I don't feel a bit guilty that I have more than folks I saw run out the door when the whistle blew, took all the sick days they could, and lived beyond their means while I didn't. They had EQUAL OPPORTUNITY and as a USMC veteran I would gladly still give my life to protect that freedom, but I will hate this nation if we kill the ability for hard working, driven poor to amass riches by the sweat of their brows & brains... destroying the very work ethic that made us great.

So let's fast-forward to Obama's scare campaign and push to hate the rich. My wife and I have cancelled 40 catalog subscriptions, have cut our travel by 80% in the past year, and slowed our disposable income spending by close to 50%. Think that's helping the economy? What about the hotels, airlines, restaurants, and many more businesses we would have been supporting... we could still do so, and we didn't stop to punish Obama and the libs, we've largely done so to protect our nest egg we worked SO dayum hard to build and to also have the means to raise our infant daughter if times keep getting tougher.

As a former Democrat, I am saddened AND greatly angered that the party is now ridiculing truly concerned citizens, many independents like me (I am NOT a registered Republican and have many beefs with them too, though Iraq isn't one of them... WMD was a huge mistake of an excuse but NATO's complete failure to address 17 broken treaties was PLENTY of excuse in my mind). But I digress... Democrats now call me a terrorist risk because of my honorable service, as well as evil-mongering and unpatriotic for not supporting agendas I sincerely believe will financially bankrupt this country and pave the way for China's ascent (they are making huge capitalist strides in "owning" us through the loans we keep taking from them).

For any libs reading this I sincerely pray you're right and I am wrong but all the math I'm doing on our massive spending/taxation to support "social" programs leads me to believe we are in for a very ugly fall in the coming years. I sure "HOPE" I'm wrong...

[waldo]

cant we all just get along and go fishing I agree with dixie reb if we would have been a little better which i know we all can the world not only our country but america and the south would have been a better place,my god people this a time for all of us dems and reps,libs,consers as americans to say enough we have a better life than anyone in the world today so lets not pizz it away with my grandfathers blood as well as anyones grandfather has fought and died for this contry

[MudDucker]

The biggest laugh on this thread is the liberal characterizing their movement as "progressive". Progressive implies a "new" direction. This bunch of so called progressives are seeking virtually the exact agenda sought in Rome that started the decline and end of the Roman empire.

Those of us who are not students of history are destined to repeat the mistakes of the past.

[FUTCHCAIRO]

HEY BIG BEND GYRENE, BOY YOU HIT IT RIGHT ON THE HEAD. I HAVE BEEN YELLING FOR THE LAST 50 YEARS, THAT UNLESS YOU PAY TAXES YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE THE PRIVILEDGE TO VOTE ON ANY THING WHERE THE GOVERNMENT IS SPENDING THAT TAX MONEY. ANOTHER THING , WE SHOULD GET OUT OF THE U.N. AS FAST AS WE POSSIBLY CAN. WE SHOULD FIRE ALL OF THE OBAMA APPOINTED PEOPLE AND LIMIT HIS POWER TO APPOINT ANYONE WITH OUT THE APPROVAL OF THE SENATE AND CONGRESS. ANOTHER THING, HOW MANY AND WHAT KIND OF GUNS I HAVE IS NO ONES BUSINESS BUT MINE, I STILL HAVE THE ABILITY TO (CARRY A BIG STICK) AND I KNOW HOW TO USE IT AND THE GUNS.
BIG BEND GYRENE THANKS FOR YOUR POST, IT IS EXACTLY THE WAY I FEEL.
SEMPER FI
PA THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA