If the shoe fits?

[Catty1]

GWB has to be rated waaaaaay above anyone that umms and ahhs their way thru life..

...that darn Blackberry withdrawl!

[sparks19]

I just can't help but think about the uproar if one of their officials had come here and one of our citizens had done that to them. I cna just HEAR it now

Heck even Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to Columbia University and the US was able to treat him with respect even though he has made his hatred of the US and Israel etc known to the world. yet he was treated with respect when he came here. if he hadn't been treated with respect people would be calling for the death of those who insulted him... kind of like when a cartoon about Allah was printed and people FREAKED ... yet a cross in a jar of urine was considered art

I don't know...

A lot of people on here are vehemently disagreed with... but would you assault them just because they said something that hurt your feelings? Would you find it funny if one PT member threw things at another PT member just because they didn't agree with their position.

No one is saying they shouldn't have the right to free expression... but he only has the right to free expression... NOT to have people agree with his actions.

and there is a difference between disagreeing with the POTUS and trying to assault him. I don't AGREE with Obama but I would NEVER try to hurt him or personally insault him in the worst way I could imagine.

[Lady's Human]

I have total respect for the rights granted under the Constitution of the United States. I think 20 years of my life defending the government and the document that guides it would pretty much answer that question.

HOWEVER......

I refuse to stand by while people use their rights to belittle Constitutionally elected representatives and the people who voted for them.
If you disagree with a policy decision which has been made, fine, state that.

Calling someone an idiot and by extension calling the millions who voted for them idiots is a tad over the top.

I disagree with decisions the current President has made, but he's still the POTUS, and as such I will give him the respect that THE OFFICE deserves.

I disagree with many of the campaign promises and platform statements made by the President Elect, but would never call him an idiot.

[blue]

I have total respect for the rights granted under the Constitution of the United States. I think 20 years of my life defending the government and the document that guides it would pretty much answer that question.

HOWEVER......

I refuse to stand by while people use their rights to belittle Constitutionally elected representatives and the people who voted for them.
If you disagree with a policy decision which has been made, fine, state that.

Calling someone an idiot and by extension calling the millions who voted for them idiots is a tad over the top.

I disagree with decisions the current President has made, but he's still the POTUS, and as such I will give him the respect that THE OFFICE deserves.

I disagree with many of the campaign promises and platform statements made by the President Elect, but would never call him an idiot.

I predict you and I will be disagreeing alot with the POTUS Elect and the Congress for the next 4 years.

[lizbud]

Bush may have dodged the thrown shoe, but his press secretary was
not so lucky. She has a black eye from the ruckus. She looks terrible.
What was she doing there anyway?

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/

[sparks19]

OOOOOH ouch... THAT looks really painful. Poor lady

[Edwina's Secretary]

What I find…well amusing I suppose…is you want the maximum stretch of interpretation of the Second Amendment (guns) but want to limit the interpretation of the First Amendment (free speech).

Blagojevich is a constitutionally elected official. He is also an idiot. You suggest it is wrong to say that. I disagree.

George Bush is an elected official who has squandered the good reputation of the United States, lied to the people of the country and the world and sacrificed over 4,000 Americans to his lies.

I do not believe he or any other elected official should be protected from criticism.

And I not believe criticism of him or Clinton or Obama when he gets into office - or Pierce or Harding or any other man who sat in the oval office shows disrespect for the position of president or for the constitution.

Otherwise the Founding Fathers would have written the first amendment to say…”freedom of speech except when criticizing government officials.”

Thankfully, they did not.

[smokey the elder]

What's interesting is how an insult is in the eye of the beholder. To the Iraqi Muslim, that was the worst possible insult, yet Bush and others have made somewhat light of it. I feel bad for the press person who got hit by the shoe. I'm surprised the Secret Service gave the man the opportunity to even throw the second one!

[Lady's Human]

Calling someone an idiot isn't criticism.

It's an insult.

Criticism woud be pointing out the percieved faults without being insulting.

Nowhere did I suggest limiting free speech, quite the opposite, I'm using my right of free speech to speak out against insults that add absolutely nothing to an adult discussion.

As an aside, I have no desire to see a maximum stretch on the second amendment, but merely want the government to allow law-abiding citizens to exercise their rights enumerated under the Constitution with a minimum of governmental interference.

[Edwina's Secretary]

I refuse to stand by while people use their rights to belittle Constitutionally elected representatives and the people who voted for them.
If you disagree with a policy decision which has been made, fine, state that.

Calling someone an idiot and by extension calling the millions who voted for them idiots is a tad over the top.

I remain baffled to why you have not expressed any disgust at people calling Blagojevich an idiot, etc. Or various congresspersons.

Your disgust over disparaging remarks toward elected officials seems to only apply to either politicians you like or posters with whom you disgaree.

[Lady's Human]

I have disagreed with politicians here, disagreed with policy, but frankly I don't remember calling any elected official an idiot.

Posters, yes, but normally with cause and premeditation.

In Private messages? possibly.

In an open forum? Nope.

Gov. Blagojevich may turn out to be the most corrupt politician since Boss Tweed (It's Tamany Hall in NYC, BTW, not Tamany, NY), but he's still the Governor of Illinois.

[Edwina's Secretary]

First let me thank you for pointing out that I left the word "Hall" out after Tamany.

But back on topic....

Interesting that the word "idiot" offends you but "moron" does not.

I will watch. Next time RICHARD goes on one of his rants about Barbara Boxer or Nancy Pelosi -- or other Democrats he dislikes -- when he rants about the clothes they wear, whether they have had a face lift or not -- calls them (or himself I am not really sure ) morons and worse -- I will see if your sensibilities are riled by those affronts to constitutionally elected officials and the people who elected them.

It hasn't happened yet. But strangers things have occurred I suppose.

And I am fascinated that your find it acceptable to call a poster an idiot but not an elected official.

[RICHARD]

What's interesting is how an insult is in the eye of the beholder. To the Iraqi Muslim, that was the worst possible insult, yet Bush and others have made somewhat light of it. I feel bad for the press person who got hit by the shoe. I'm surprised the Secret Service gave the man the opportunity to even throw the second one!

Remember the Shoe Bomber?

We really didn't care about shoes until then!

Now, we could have made a HUGE deal about it, but the shoes didn't connect.
We already went to war over something far more sinister than a pair of 10s.

Look again and see had this happened in Germany? Italy, Russian, Australia, Canada? Spain?

There most certainly would have been a different look at the incident, What if the "shoe bomber" hit the Iraqi diplomat?

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

What I was trying to get across was the stupidity of the incident, the deftness that our president has and how he shrugged it off and didn't make a huge deal out of it.


One thing I find IMMENSELY amusing is the idea that you can take a coin issued by the US Mint paint anything on it, and sell it as a 'commemerative'
piece to be patently ridiculous.

The coin was struck with another intent and to trivialize it by painting it, sell it for 20-40 times it's original value strikes me as a scam. The people who deal in stuff like that usually are not upstanding citizens, just people looking to make a buck!

[Lady's Human]

If one calls a person an idiot, one is simply calling that person an idiot.

If one calls an elected official an idiot, you are by extension calling those who voted for the individual in question idiots at best.

I fail to see why you are so huffy about a simple request to keep political discourse above the schoolyard level. Is it because you are in fact incapable of doing so yourself?

[sparks19]

and as always this thread comes down to bickering about a few words or misspellings