USSoldier11B

I'll try it out ASAP.

400,000 votes is less than 1%, and most likely within the electoral margin or error, especially given that most election commision employees are frighteningly geriatric. The guy at my voting precinct who checked my I.D. was barely concious. The candidate winning through the electoral college but not through popular vote is exceeding rare. Geographically Bush took the race easily. The only people who would have celebrated a Gore victory would have been found in Boston, NYC, Chicago, San Franciso, and LA. Edit: I promise you Tex, popular opinion means a lot to the presidency. While else whould he hire legions of PR people and spend millions on polling firms?

The Germans get to use the G36, a fact I'm very jealous of. While I like the M4 a lot more than the M16, the G36 is something I'd really like to have. While HK does produce a variant based on the G36 for U.S. civilians called the SL8-1, it does not possess the modularity and compact design that I covet in the G36. I want to buy a real G36 with a semi-auto sear, but Sen. Diane Fienstein has just made that all together not possible.

What can I say? Weaponry is my passion second only to women and making Democrats blow a head gasket.

Personally I don't care who immigrates to the U.S. as long as they don't try to blow up civilians or live off of socialized government assistance. (unless it is money to get an education) I have several very good Lebanese friends who own a nice middle eastern restraunt over by the university.

Remarks like this are one of the reasons I respect you.

Not so my man. Or at least not according to Lowi who is a leading political scientist among university scholars. The president's #1 priority is to be elected to a second term, and popular opinion has almost everything to do with that. Also, popular opinion determines who is eligible to run for office, aside from independent candidates that fun their own campaigns without major party affiliation. I suggest reading some of Lowi's work to get a grasp on how the media and popular opinion affects voting. Lowi's books are very un-biased given that the were written jointly and objectively in a functionalist manner by authors of opposing political views. Compare it to the older system in which presidental nominees were selected in a King Caucus by members of Congress, rather than the current primary system. Before the implimentation of primary elections the public had almost no say in who ran for the presidency. I like the electoral college simply because it prevents the president from being elected by popular elections with a constituency concentrated in geograpically narrow urban centers. Given that a great deal of Democrat voters are concentrated in New England, North Illinois, and Southern California. These areas easily carry the states, which still carry a great deal of electoral vote weight, but prevent a geographic misrepresentation. Article II, Section 1 does not state anything about the president being elected by popular vote. The founders did this for a reason. To place emphasis on popular election in Congress. The Legislative branch was intended to be the strongest branch of U.S. gov't. For the better part of U.S. history it was. Until FDR the president was merely a clerk of Congress with a few exceptions. Ironic that Democrat legislation giving more legitimate authority to the presidency is something that has returned to plague the Democrats in recent history. The growth of mass media and these powers vested by Congress has resulted in the Executive branch becoming the most powerful without exception since the FDR administration. Although the judicial activism of the liberal courts in the latter half of the 20th century closley rivaled this power. The only thing currently checking the rise of imperial juduciary is the fact that the courts truly have no means of enforcing their rulings without the cooperation of the other two branches.

I'm not advocating a separate but equal policy. What I am saying is that business should not be hampered by the federal government. If people want to hurt their business by making an extreme political statement it's their business. Ultimately their actions will decide the fate of their livlihood, after Brown v. Board of Education a lot of good legislation did take place, (excluding affirmative action, try getting a scholarship in the U.S. being a white middle class male) but even today many private establishments can and do still refuse patronage/ membership at their discretion, while the aspect mostly affected by legislation is equal opportunity in employment. Establishments cannot refuse employment based on religion/race/age/sexual preference, but never the less can refuse membership based on the fact that the person is not a Yale graduate. What I am saying is that it would be prudent to allow anyone to patronize your business simply because it increases profits. Who cares who you are selling to as long as you are making money given that it is not causing physical harm to others? (i.e. selling weapons to criminals)

I find it amazing that almost every contemporary white house administration has put this issue at the front of their foriegn relations agenda. Probably in hopes that a sucessful peace plan would give the predsident unprecedented popularity in the state affairs arena. It seems that such actions are fordoomed to hurt a president's approval ratings since the advent of Radio/TV media, and the emergence of split ticket voting after the implimentation of the Australian ballot has made the U.S. presidency a slave to popular opinion.

I'm with 5th Bn, 19th Special Forces. AFAIK the M4A1 is still the standard issued weapon for all of SOCOM. Most 1st tier conventional units have switched to the M4A2, while the USMC reluctantly clings to the M16A2/A4. Colt currently produces 4 M4 variants. M4A1- RO977 : Flat top, Safe/Semi/Full Auto RO979 : Flat top, Safe/Semi/Burst RO777 : Fixed handle, Safe/Semi/Full Auto M4A2-RO779 : Fixed handle, Safe/Semi/Burst most SF ODA's also have a Knight Armaments modular 1913 picatinny rail hanguard added to the weapon, as well as a Trijicon ACOG, and a vertical front assault grip.

Yeah, that's exactly the point I'm making. I may be a wacko gun toting conservative, but I'm also a capitalist at heart. I know when to shut up and make some money off the people I disagree with. Take the American tobacco industry for instance. A very very very conservative sector. One of the top five GOP capaign fund contributors that continues to make billions while liberals complain about Republicans and have three marlboros hanging out the sides of their mouths. The irony is rich.

Damn right, and let me add my birdie too.

:: Some people will never understand....all I was advocating in the first place was unhampered free enterprise. Just because the dude didn't serve French or Germans doesn't necessarily mean I think it's smart. I just believe that businesses should run how the people that own them want them to be run. Personally I think the guy is kinda dumb. The only thing better than pissing people off is making money off of them while you piss them off. Now that's capitalism

Read On: Hillary's Memoirs Yes, it is a sad day in American history when people actually line up in the middle of the night to buy a book written by perhaps one of the nations most blantant political actresses. Clearly Barbera Walters did not know that she hadn't left her post at the annual Tony awards when she proceeded to interview our beloved ex-first lady. A woman whose husband whose repeated sexual escapades she covers up with an elaborate conspiracy theory allegedly comitted by the religious right wing of the Republican party. In her amiable, composed and well mannered interview with Walters, we almost forget that a few weeks ago we saw her on a stage in New England, red eyed and screeching, baring for the first time ever her proverbial political "ass" in which we finally got to see the true irrational Democrat we always knew was lurking inside of her. As the first week of her book release campaign begins, we gear up to watch as her billionare Senate friends head to Amazon.com to buy 10,000 copies a whack, so that she can pretend to have a New York Times Best Seller. If it wasn't for Bill O'Reilly, I don't know what I'd do.

Anyone catch her speech in New England last month? That was enough to give any Republican nightmares, all she needed was a greenpeace t-shirt and some Birkenstocks.

Read on: If I was him I would have faded away into the wood work for the rest of my life....then again with the US's ailing HUMINT network maybe not.

I could really care less what you think of my views. Just another honey pissing liberal to me. Your opinions appear just as ignorant to people like me as mine do to you and yours.

Ohhhh....an ally. Nice banner.

yeah being the kind, sensitive, totalitarian dictator that he is.

I'm not even going to say anything about this statement.

Wow! Denoir stood up for us.... ::heart attack and dies::

Considering the UN gave them 12 years to hide them this is not surprising.

Yes, I AM A CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN, I believe free enterprise is none of the government's business.

That's their business. If they dislike me that much I don't want to be there anyway. What we have here is a failure to grasp American liberty.

Schools are government institutions, that makes it different. That's plain segregation, what I complaining about is the stifling of a political statement that's not really hurting anyone except his own business. O'Reilly would have a fun time with you Mr. spindoctor.