Cynical Nation

Do the people polled know about Giuliani's marital history? That he married his first cousin, then had that marriage annulled and married Donna Hanover, then announced their separation -- to HER -- in a press conference while he was parading his girlfriend around with him? Or about his appearances in drag? Or his friendships with gay men?

I don't care about any of these things; I'm more concerned about things like his association with Bernie Kerik. But if in fact religious Southerners know these things about him, and STILL support him, then they are bigger hypocrites than even I had thought.

Nonsense, Jill.

Every religious person I've ever known (and I've known lots of born again Christians) accept the fact that "While God is perfect, people are not."

For many years, that view was a comfort to me, since it allowed me to figure, "If there really is a God, then he doesn't really expect me to do GOOD, just to be sorry ofr doing bad"...and for me, I rarely DID anything I'd call bad (most of the "bad things" I did, I considered self-defense), but whenever I did do something really bad, I was always pretty sorry about it, even though I'd usually keep that to myself.

Near as I can tell, even the wild me of my earlier years COULD'VE been a devout fundamentalist Christian - that is if I believed in things like going to Church, and accepted nonsense like "we're all brothers and sisters" and "we're each, our brother's keeper"- which, of course, I DO NOT.

Hell, I knew a fair amount of born again Christians who railed against "sins of the flesh," while themselves being hardcore porn afficionados/addicts.

MY problem with Rudy is that he's a BIG GOVERNMENT Conservative.

For that matter, so is G W Bush.

In fact, Rudy'd be the best bet to continue GW's legacy - Rudy also GETS IT on the WoT. He realizes that "negotiation" is useless and that it's going to have to be fought Militarily.

Rudy was great on BOTH crime control and welfare reform in NYC...no one can deny that.

He's also a fiscal Conservative who'd most likely keep the across the board income tax rates low and the economy humming.

If we're going to have a BIG GOVERNMENT, then better "big government Conservativism," where the bulk of the tax monies are spent on Military and Domestic Security programs and less and less wasted on useless "social spending" that promote dependancy on government largesse.

I'd MUCH prefer a SMALL GOVERNMENT Conservative (a Ronald Reagan), but I'd certainly acknowledge that a "big government" Conservative is better...far better than a "big government Liberal," any day.

After all domestic security spending creates lots of real jobs, while social spending on so-called "anti-poverty programs" DOES NOT.

But if in fact religious Southerners know these things about him, and STILL support him, then they are bigger hypocrites than even I had thought.

Cyber-fulminating over the idea that conservatives might support the one liberal in the world you hate: No charge.

Taking cheap shots at people you don't agree with because they hypothetically might take some action in the future: Zero Dinero.

Voting for Rudy just to piss Jill off: Priceless!

You know I want Rudy for the GOP nomination in '08. Looking forward to it.

I'd prefer Gingrich...Tom Tancredo second, BUT, I'd take Rudy as "no worse" than the current occupant, and probably better on things like SCR and welfare reform - under the current administration, social spending has sadly increased, while Rudy eviscerated NYC's gigantuan welfare bureaucracy and with little pain and dislocation. Fully one third of NYC's welfare rtecipients simply DISAPPEARED when the reforms came in.

No, those people didn't disappear, just the double-dipping (Newark and other local area residents who used to pick up "their NYC benefits" as well) disappeared.

THAT'S what New York's Liberals fought to preserve!!!

Here's something that no Liberal can ever explain, while Conservative can harken back to the forties and fifties for a period when Americans "still held hard and fast to traditional values," to claim "Life was better when we did," and turn to the Reagan era (hell, even the current economy), to show that across the board tax rate cuts (down to about 22%) INCREASE revenues and dramaticaly improve the economy, WHERE is the Liberal period of relative "peace and plenty," where we raised taxes and engaged in wanton social spending and actually improved the economy to boot?

Massive tax increases and mammoth social spending went on unabeted from LBJ's reign (1964) through Jimmy Carter's tenure (mercifully ended in January, 1981) and the result was an unmitigated disaster! Remember the near bankruption of NYC? Remember STAGFLATION (double digit unemployment, double digit interest rates and double digit inflation - the "Trifecta of Doom?"

Go all the way back to January, 1933, when FDR first took office. He too engaged in mammoth social programs and raised taxes and the Great Depression DEEPENED until it was ended by WW II, which put some 12+ Million Americans in uniform and ratcheted up a wartime economy.

So, again, where is that mythical period of Liberalism's "Good Old Days?"

I have to believe that if you asked the Southerners polled about Rudy's record, you would see a lot of blank stares.

Jill has a point. However, my gut is that when they find out his rather liberal views, their enthusiasm will drop rather sharply.

Wow, "no worse" than the current occupant would include almost the entire maximum security prison population too.

Liberal JMK, who believes in Big Government stepping in to import millions of foreigners to provide cheap labor to wildly profitable corporations, in violation of free market principles, also seems to believe that Bush is not Big Government, despite presiding over the most reckless and unprecedented spending in U.S. history. Bush expanded government with a new Department of Homeland Security, he expanded government powers against individual citizens more than any president since the Constitution was signed -- this is what you want MORE of, Liberal JMK?

Liberal, Big Government JMK -- just so long as HIS TEAM is in power.

Again Barely, the worker DOES NOT own the market he sells his commodity (labor) in.

The view that he does is Marxist.

It's also Hitlerian, "We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions." --Adolf Hitler

(Speech of May 1, 1927. Quoted by Toland, 1976, p. 306)

Ironically enough the U.S. Constitution DOES require the government to provide for local and national law enforcement ("to preserve domestic tranquility") and the Military ("to provide for the common defense").

In keeping with that the Patriot Act, and kudos to the Democrats, as it passed the Senate 99 - 0, has NOT, to date, been abused by law enforcement.

In fact, aside from the long overdue provision providing for cooperation between domestic law enforcement (ie, the FBI, NSA & local Law enforcement) and international intelligence (ie the CIA) the Patriot Act has merely allowed law enforcement to use the same techniques routinely used against drug dealers and pedophiles (most notably roving wiretaps so they can track cellular calls and no-knock warrants) against terrorists.

We're in the midst of a global war on Islamo-fascism (terrorism). A war that should've been engaged when it was started against us in earnest back in 1993.

This administration has been poor on the border issue and poor on controlling non-security domestic spending, but aside from that, they've at least been engaged in the WoT, while steering the nation out of a major recession (begun with the "Tech Bubble Bust" in the Spring of 2000 and into an economy with very low unemployment (4.7%), low inflation (2.2%), low interest rates, 4.7% of GDP annual growth last quarter and 5.6% the quarter before that, with low interest rates to boot.

On those two issues, undoubtedly the two major issues of the day, this administration has done very well...and to boot, it's been this administration that brought the the number of H-1B visas DOWN to their initial levels of 65,000/year!

Please Barely, snap out of that Hitlerian viewpoint you hold to that "the workers must control the means of production" (a/k/a the market for their labors). It is no more "pro-free market," than the central tenet of Buddhism is "Every man for himself."

That may well be true Mal, as I said, Rudy wouldn't be my fifth choice, let alone my first, BUT I'd take him over ANY Democrat this side of Zell Miller.

I'd take him FAAR ahead of the likes of Joe Lieberman.

I think the Jill's of the world are hoping that the Conservatives, especially "the Christian Right" will "sit on their hands" before voting for a Rudy.

I believe that's WISHFUL thinking on their part.

The "Christian Right" won't do that any more than the Jill's of the world would "write in Feingold's name on their ballots," in effect, throwing their votes away.

NOT GONNA HAPPEN...on either side.

And yet another topic goes by the board.

Jesus, can you guys stay on message?

This WAS about Giuliani.

Take a look at your posts and tell me where he figures in to your posts.

Liberal Big Government JMK, don't you believe in the free market? Corporations don't own the market they purchase labor in, the view that they do is neocon Corporatism.

Are you saying that corporations do not have to pay based on supply and demand, but we, the labor, DO have to pay based on supply and demand? How is this short-sighted Liberal system going to work?

Liberal Big Government JMK wants open borders for cheap corporate labor to defeat the free market principle of supply and demand, but ONLY for labor.

Does LBGJMK also believe that we should get rid of "anti-dumping" laws that stop foreign companies from selling their product below cost simply to drive American competitors out of business?

I bet he doesn't.

Know why?

LBGJMK is really just a Corporatist stooge, brainwashed by Lush Pimpjaw.

Actually Barely, business (Corporations) DO "own" the market they purchase labor in, just as all consumers are PRIMARY (or de facto "owners of the market") in a market-based system.

Guiliani WOULD be at least as good on the economy as G W (he's a fiscal Conservative, who'd spend big on National Defense and Domestic security, much like G W) and he was both a tax cutter and a spending slasher. As Mayor of NYC - he introduced real welfare reform and NYC's welfare rolls immediately fell by a full third...and they've continued to fall ever since!

Today NYC's welfare rolls hover around 400,000, down from a Dinkins-era high of 1.1 Million!

There are MILLIONS of IT jobs going begging in America today...that's why corporations continue to push for raising the H-1B visa limit.

The idea that paying $150,000 to $200,000 per year for jobs worth $100,000/year would "bring American programmers back into the marketplace," is absurd.

The Democrat Congress expanded GATT (1990) and a Democrat Congress and a Democratic administration passed NAFTA 1/1994)...THAT'S the root of ALL of today's "outsourcing."

Between 1993 and 2001 H-1B visas exploded from under 50,000 to over 900,000...in 2004 THIS administration lowered the H-1B Visa cap down to 65,000/year.

Rudy Guiliani is a pragmatist and as such, I'm almost certain he'd also support maintaining the expanded GATT, NAFTA & CAFTA as well...and might probably be open to increasing the cap on H-1B Visas.

Like I said, I'd take Rudy over just about any Democrat this side of Zell Miller.

Once again Liberal Big Government JMK shows his true colors like Mel Gibson after a few gallons of beer.

IT jobs going begging? Really? I wonder why my unemployed programmer friends don't take them ... hmmm. I guess they are just lazy. Or wait, maybe the corporations are just lying! No, that doesn't happen in LBGJMK's world! He's a Corporatist! Corporations are everything right, good, and true about America, ever since George Washington and Thomas Jefferson created them, er, um, well no.

So LBGJMK, what about those dumping laws? Should foreign companies be able to sell below cost, just the way foreign programmers program below cost? I don't see why not.

How can corporations own the labor pool LBGJMK? Are we the slaves of corporations? Don't they use the infrastructure that taxpayers paid for, operate in our safe, clean taxpayer funded country, use the water, sewage, and electricity taxpayers paid to provide? Are they really allowed to just import, with your Big Government help, legal or illegal workers simply to defeat a free market economy?

LBGJMK isn't really conservative at all, is he?

Stick to politics Barely, you're an economic imbecile...and I mean that in the nicest possible way.

Democrats and Republicans BOTH support the H-1B Visa program.

Both Democrats and Republicans support the expanded GATT, NAFTA and CAFTA as well.

We DON'T Have a "free market" in America...we haven't in a very long time.

But in a free market, in fact, in any "market-based" economy, the CUSTOMER/CONSUMER is KING!

Just as shoppers are all consumers in the retail market, where "the customer is always right," business is the CUSTOMER/CONSUMER of working people's primary commodity - their LABORS. We workers are basically selling our skills/labors in the labor market.

G W Bush gets this, Harry Reid gets this, even Hillary Clinton gets this...and so, of course, does Rudy Guiliani.

Again, I (hopefully, like yourself) would take a Rudy Guiliani over any Democrat except perhaps Zell Miller.

If that's not the case, than you're a political moron as well - and again, I say that in the nicest possible way.

Now, say something nice about Rudy!

I have no idea how anyone would call JMK a "liberal". JMK is (unfortunately) a super-conservative. Of course, being a conservative is NOT a good thing. At least in my opinion. But JMK is a good guy and means well.

Anyway, as this post is on Guiliani, I simply wanted to say that I dont like him. He has not necessarily done a good job in NY (despite the spin) and he has (shamelessly) supported strongly the disastrous Bush administration. That says a lot about his character. He is a smart guy and he can see how disastrous the Bush administration has been for the country. Despite that, he has been a strong supporter of Bush, in order to advance his own future polotical aspirations.

> He has not necessarily done a good job in NY...

I stopped reading after this.

If I take it out, will you read the rest?

BW...I've had a number of problems with Rudy - MAINLY that he's a BIG GOVERNMENT Conservative, very much like G W Bush.

Government spending still goes up...and up, but at least it's spent on something both Constitutional and USEFUL - Military and Domestic Security.

I also like that the more money spent on domestic security and the Military, the less there is available for worthless social programs that breed generational dependancy among the poor.

The inane social spending that Liberals crave is both Unconstitutional and USELESS - it does no good.

The two big things in Rudy's favor that make him far more palatable than "any Democrat this side of Zell Miller, are (1) Rudy GETS the WoT and realizes that it's a global MIlitary war and there is no chance for a negotiated settlement with the Islamo-fascist cultists...and (2) he's a fiscal Conservative who'd continue the Bush economy which has resulted in the current boom - 2.2% Inflation, 4.7% Unemployment, 4.7% of GDP annual growth last quarter and 5.6% the quarter before that, low interest rates and a Dow approaching 11,000!

The last time we saw numbers like that (the late 1990s) they were part of a Tech Bubble scam perpetrated on America's small investors by politicians engaged in questionable, and probable insider trading (ie Terry McAullife among others).

Now those scams are behind us and Sarb-Ox (Sarbannes-Oxley) has been put in place to keep some of the more egregious activities in check.

National Security and the Economy - those are the TWO things this administration has handled flawlessly...and their two things Guiliani would most likely "stay the course" on.

P.S.

Oh yeah...and thanks for disavowing me as a "Liberal."

You're a nice guy too, but on the opposite side of the political fence.

Don't be confused by Barely, he lives in bizaaro world where up is down and black is white.

Rudy is probably the only Republican who could get my vote, even if he does look like a vampire.

I'll never forget that while Chimpboy was hiding under a mountain in Colorado for DAYS, Rudy was in the streets LEADING before the smoke cleared.

Rudy rightfully focused on law and order in New York, unlike Bush who says we can't enforce our immigration laws, because it would just be too darn hard.

Rudy for president, I'm on board.

Alright then, yes, despite his many flaws, Rudy's probably no worse than anyone else the GOP will put up (Newt & Tancredo are real long shots)...and BETTER by far than just about anyone the Dems will put up.

But don't expect much from Rudy on Labor issues, he balanced the city's budget by zeroing out its Municipal Unions TWICE in a row!

Rudy's big on NAFTA, CAFTA, the expanded GATT and most likely the H-1B Visa program too.

Here's what the gambling community has for the 2008 election:
http://205.134.167.60/lines/lines.cgi?device=browser&site=sbcom2&sport=754

LOL! That's great. 7500-to-1 on Michael Moore. :-)