"As a nationalist Welshmen, who despises the British state, yet has no choice but to be a part of it if he wants to remain in his own country, I am generally against the tories ( being monarchist and Imperialist in the past ). I Could only wish that the availability of weapons was more open to my people in the past, and that we had been able to follow in Americas footsteps."

The Scottish tried that and we gave um 'butcher Cumberland'. The main reaon America won its independance was its distance from the motherland and its alliance with France*. Which Wales sadly lacks.

And what is it with all these people thinking you can overthrow the Britsh! Even Cornwell has its own liberation army!

* As i understand it the biggest defeat of the britsih was in the battle of York town where Americans and French beseiged the bellegued Britishe forces. But then again I've only ever read britsh history books : P

don't worry mattberryman2, American history books will now be re-written.

so you will get a fresh perspective from the new books.

it will all become so clear

Obama was helped by race, but he won because many people don't like Bush, and therefore Republican control.  What's going to happen, either this term or at least within two or three, is we'll go too far left, and then we'll tire of Democrats, and overcorrect by voting in a majority of Republicans across the board, throwing balance out again.

And Palin hurt McCain as well...very poor pick for a VP.  Inecperienced, and too far religious right.  Scared some folks away.

Well, I won't touch your 60/40 nonsense with more of a ten-foot pole than to call it nonsense--not a testable, or reasonably debatable, hyphothesis.

But saying Palin hurt more than helped, that can probably make it through the rigors of "political science," at least for those folks who like to believe that answers to questions are scientific data (I don't). The energized base was not a good trade for the losses among independents and Reagan/Hillary Democrats.

Why is my quote button broken?  Now I have to highlight text and do it manually, like some kind of barbarian.

My bolding-because I agree with that 100%.  McCain should have chosen someone who would get him more Independents-after all, when the options for Republican voters are a left of center Republican or virtually any Democrat, they're going to vote Republican.  He didn't need an energized base; he needed a wider base.

For what it's worth, though, exit polls nationally show roughly 10% of Republicans and roughly 10% of Democrats voted for the guy who was running for the other party.  More significantly, though, roughly 20% of those who considered themselves conservative voted for Obama, while roughly 10% of those who considered themselves liberal voted for McCain.  Given the previous numbers, I'd guess those are some of the Independents.

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I do however agree that backing the bailout plan was perhaps not the wisest move he could have made-particularly the unmodified one.  Worse than backing it, though, is going around and pushing ads that say that Obama backed it-which he did, actually, so at least there's no lying there-because McCain was one of its most ardent supporters and in fact suspended his campaign to go to Washington to try to get it pushed through.  For the record, the House Republicans are the people who picked it up off the floor, as well.

Not that all House Republicans are evil, either, but there's certainly more than enough blame to spread around.

Note: Obama's "accusing" McCain of supporting the bailout when Obama did it is no less nor no worse than McCain doing the same thing to Obama, but from what I've seen, McCain made a bigger issue out of it.

To recap: If you're going to slam your opponent for voting for something, make sure you didn't vote for it, too.

No, but I'm saying he would have been better off had he chosen someone more, as he puts it, maverick.

You may also notice my comments on his antics regarding the bailout.

If you weren't talking to me, though, then continue on.

You seem to favour a weak passive governement with very little by way of checks on the people. While I don't doubt that you might live responsibly their will be those who ruthlessly expolite any leeway the state affords them. 

In your ideal america how would you tackle those seek to act illegally although mantaining a thin veil of legailty to their action, or even those who in moments of maddness act recklessly and blow up building or gun down innocents etc?

I don't think you need to fight the government, I think you need to find a better fight. In any country there will be plenty. 

Of the five specific issues you mentioned (energy, gun control, abortion, gay marriage, religion), you would be left-of-center on all of them. Your position on the first four is more or less consistent with the Democratic party line. As for religion, your views would probably be suicidal for any candidate for a major public office. While neither party has a monopoly on religion, the Republicans during Bush's years in office have become more associated with the religious right.

"because though Bush may have done this, he is somewhat sided with those "guns and civil liberties" people.

Obama isn't. I know, I live in his hell hole.

Now that Bush pushed all that crap on us, Obama can use it to basically destroy the American's ability to fight the government. Clinton destroyed militias, Bush destroyed privacy, Obama could destroy the rest, knowing he has the power to do so. Look at how he has voted in IL. He is for gun ban after gun ban. Ammo mark ups, legislating gun stores out of existence; 5 miles from a school or park ... It could be bad. I'm sure he doesn't openly support a "Fairness Doctrine" but I doubt he will veto one either. That's speech. So if we don't truly have the 1st, 2nd, or 4th... it could be worse. Remember, he wants "change" whatever it may be.

But hey, I'm just a crazy nut-job on the far right... correct?"

If the devil was in the forest I would cut down every tree to find him

And when he turned on you where would you hide?

I beleive that comes from The Crucible a terrible 'unamerican' play.

psychoak, I think one of the reasons that you scare and fascinate me is that we seem to look at quite a few things in rather similar ways--in general, we share some uknown degree of aversion to state power. Again, I have to say that even if you never directly considered philosophical anarchism, you really should admit to something like anarchist sympathies.

At least in US "branding" terms, being conservative entails belief in some basic level where gov't is necessary and good. From your posts that I've read around here, you seem to have have no use at all for any form of government. Am I missing something?

Personally, my biggest problems with US politics revolve around two things:

First, corruption is common in press, government, and business; three things the US needs.  Without the press, we don't know what's going on.  Without government, we are incapable of any significant international action.  Without business, our economy is doomed.  With the press, it is often more of a business than a service.  A story will be made because it will attract viewers, not because it is important.  With the government, you have lobbyists influencing the politicians.  You have decisions made not because they are good in any form, but because they will make people content.  With business, the owners often horde the money; if you take money away, it comes from the employees.  If you give money to it, it goes to the owners.

NOTE: I am not saying that this is always the case.

Second, the majority of people can be convinced by political affiliation, political decisions, and simple charisma that does very little for the government in general.  For instance, more people were likely to vote Democrat this election, and a significant reason was because Bush was a Republican president.  Also, a politician who does everything he promises probably didn't promise very much.

Again, I am not saying that this is always the case.

You'd be an independent. You differ from both major parties in important ways, from what I can tell. Maybe you'd align with one of the smaller parties, although I'm unsure of what party that would be. Problem is, all of the other parties are so small they're barely a blip on the radar. Although theoretically we can have as many parties as we want, the way our government works effectively makes our politics a two party system.

I for one will never understand why a supposed "right to choice" ever trumps the right to life.

The Republican party is supposed to be the party of small government and a low tax rate. George Bush unfortunately forgot the small government aspect of being Republican.

As far as the tax goes - the debate isn't necessarily whether we support renewable production - it's whether the government or private businesses should be doing it. The Republican party's stance is that it is generally better to let private businesses do this stuff than the government.

Considering the harsh climate of the desert and the culture of the time (the men were generally better educated), the alternatives were to leave the women and children to die of heatstroke and hunger, or to take them as slaves.

In addition, that was how wars were generally fought during that time period by other nations - if the Israelites lost a war, they could expect to be wiped or enslaved by the other nations.

And my take as well. IMHO, that is what essentially collapsed communism, which included an extreme form of socialism. Everybody was paid the same regardless of work, so people showed up and put in minimal effort. The result was a collapse of production, leading to an economy that could not sustain itself.

Sure, capitalism leads to inequalities in terms of how much people can afford. But at least it's self sustaining and very resilient. We've had ups and downs and even a great depression and a recent nosedive in our markets - but we've managed to pull out of the great depression and it looks like we're gonna pull out of our current financial crises as well. For all of its faults, capitalism works better than anything else we've tried.

I'd bet otherwise. Despite what you may have seen in the movies and accomplished in video games via a mouse, aiming a real weapon takes time and scoring a bullseye takes practice. Very, very few people can pull off the "instant aim and score a bullseye" trick.