tamato tamatoe

It’s about time someone speak out about the plight of the country’s most disdavantaged. Godspeed to Charles Barkley.

There are indeed fundamental differences between “liberals” and “conservatives.” Liberals look at the world and say “what’s best for everyone?” Conservatives seem to look at the world and think “what’s best for me?” Hence the favoring of tax cuts, development without regard to environmental concerns, cuts to programs like Head Start that have been shown to improve a poor person’s chance to get a fair shake in life, and not commit crime and end up in prison. Liberals look at problems and try to find ways to prevent them. Conservatives react – imprison people, build walls along the Texas border, start wars in Iraq. Why not have a vision of where we want to be in 50 years? And figure out how to get there? Making the most money should not be each American’s goal, yet so many people are driven by the dollar.

By the way, — its’ — is not a word, ever. And it’s “discrimination” not “descrimination.” If we would invest in our public schools, perhaps the ubiquitous grammar, spelling and punctuation errors we see and hear EVERYWHERE would — poof! — disappear.

I give charles barkley some credit. He is honest in his opinions. Ignorant of facts a lot of times, but Sir Charles at least calls it like he sees it.

Conservative = descriminatory…yes thats a perfect definition. One must be able to descriminate the truth from fiction, good from evil and those things that one personally stands for, and those you dont.

Conservative does not mean hate. racial, sexual preference, religion or otherwise. Thats political BS. There are differences in how we all look at problems. Where this country has a major, major problem is that both political groups are so polarized that there is little listening to each other to seek common ground. When I see “famous” people making stupid comments, that push us even further apart, then we have little hope.

Charles Barkley’s Head Fake
By David Shields
Slate.com

If Barkley’s not full of hypocrisies, he’s full of at least fairly extreme contradictions.

He’s a social conservative who throughout his playing career was a devotee of strip clubs, an anti-authority authoritarian, a rebel reactionary, both truth-teller and scam artist. After a difficult loss, he once said he felt like going home and beating his wife—the same woman who he said made him cry with joy every time they made love. He’s a relentless capitalist whose principal shtick is sticking up for the poor and downtrodden.

Quizzed by Robert Novak on CNN’s Crossfire as to whether he was a Republican or a Democrat, Barkley said, “I’m not either, to be honest with you. I made a joke with my grandmother one time. I was asking her, ‘Why are we Democrats?’ She said, ‘Republicans are only for rich people.’ And I said, ‘I’m rich.’ And she hasn’t given me a viable answer.”

If Barkley were ever to run for political office—he’s repeatedly threatened to run for governor of his native Alabama as a Republican—he’d be constrained by certain ideologies. But now he can contradict himself every other day or every other game or every other sentence, can recharge the moment with meaning, whether it’s a pick-and-roll or a racial incident.

He’s mastered the televisual style of controversy sans consequence, of playing both ends against the middle, of the cult of personality.

Wow…so basically what he’s saying is we need to redistribute wealth. OK, I’ll take 1 million from you Sir Charles. Let me know how you like socialism now!!!

GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH

If adult citizens are not free to choose what goes into their own
bodies–even in the privacy of their own homes, the words
“Freedom” and “Liberty” are just empty words.

So-called conservative Republicans pretend to oppose the so-called
“nanny state” policies.

What could possibly be more pro-nanny state than our drug prohibition
policies?

“The Democrats have done a horrible job,” Barkley said. “A really crappy job.

Note that he is criticizing more than just Bush. It’s not as much a slam dunk as people are saying it is.

I’m extremely liberal and I also believe the Democrats have done a lousy job the past few years. From the knee-jerk reaction to 9/11, to allowing Bush to start a war in Iraq (misled or NOT) to there actually being ANY Democrat voting for the flag burning amendment. I vote for them because they are the better of the two evils and actually have a chance of winning, not because they are ideal. Not granted, there are some really great legislators out there, but mostly, I would say, not. However, if I’m going to pick somebody I don’t really like to represent me, I’ll the person that I know will vote the right way on the core issues I care about, even if I don’t like them a whole lot.

Thus is the nature of a republic. We do not vote on issues, we vote for people who we think will vote the way we want on issues.

If a Ralph Nader actually had a chance of winning the presidency, I would have voted for him in 2004. But I saw Kerry as the only possible person who could take on Bush. However, I would have voted for Gore either way. I always thought he was great presidential material.

But I digress…

What is odd is that my parents believe in very liberal things, such as their stance on the environment, helping the poor, fishing/hunting regulations, gun control, medical coverage, and so on. They get “stuck” from switching sides based on one very old stigma: Democrats want more of your money and they just want to waste it. It baffles me how they can still believe this. The good news is that Democrats are really getting a chance to show their fiscal restraint with the way the current Republicans are completely spending money out of control.

I really like to see people opening their eyes politically. Sir Charles has my respect for putting aside the stereotypes and advocating, fighting, and voting based on what he believes in deep down in his heart. It’s not easy to admit that your past beliefs may have been wrong.

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Dan “Tomatoe” Quayle’s opinion is as worthy as his spelling abilities. Even as a conservative, I had a coffee table book of Dan Quayle’s wisdom. It was blank.

Comment by unbelievable — July 20, 2006 @ 4:02 pm

Actually it’s Dan “Potatoe” Quayle