Obama is our hope to repairing our ties with other countries becasue guess what this country needed other countries right now and instead of holding the man back why dont you for once stand behind your elected president.

we have one of the dirtiest countrys from slavery

Ours was not “the dirtiest country” when it comes to the institution of slavery.

Thank God there are more of us that haven’t been born from a prostitute on drugs!

I am sure glad I transferred my hard earned cash before the drop! And see if I give to loony left causes! Not one red dime of it!!!

In less then a year we will see the true colors! The greed and hand outs from the ones who never had anything. Oh and still not willing to work for it!

Obama is a great speaker I heard someone say. I think he is except I know the power words used and all of the bullshit flowers he plants along in a row. I hate that kind of reading or speech it puts me to sleep! I know bullshit when I hear it!!!

You really need to be a psych major to get it and it’s dangerous when morons like this know how to manipulate a crowd!

Odd you should use the major Burns mischaracterisation as I am an active duty US Army major. I am sorry you feel like I put you in a box, but your responses fit a pattern and now you state you are done with posting. My life depends on understanding patterns and maybe I was a little too open about predicting yours.

We have several other leftists who follow similar patterns on this site. They stick to them like glue and spout their shouting points, which will cause reactions from others here. You have decided to break with their pattern, which gives hope for debate.

Now as for the left’s love of Che. YOU may not know much about him, nor would you support him, HOWEVER, the “base” of the left-wing loves him. His images, writings, and “inspirations” are present at every “anti-war” rally, leftist book convention, protest, and MOVE-ON/ANSWER/etc gathering. I “hope” (using that word reluctantly) that most of the people wearing his shirts and praising his name are as ignorant of the real Che Guevara and his crimes. I say this because if they are knowledgable about them and advocate them, then the “radical” left is a danger to everyone. Either that, or they truly define Lenin’s “useful idiots”.

Congradualtions for “breaking from the pack” on this issue.

We will have to severly dissagree on what “true patriotism” is because universal heathcare is not a right, it is a very expensive to provide service which Word has gone into just some details on. I would add the costs of legal actions against hospitals and drug companies for their lack of omnipotence in developing new medications, forcing hospitals to absorb costs of treating illegals, dealing with illegal drug related health issues, etc. As much as these companies (insurance, drug companies, and hospitals) charge, some still cannot make it due to the above and others raise their premiums to cover the costs of R&D, legal, and non-insured coverage.

yes there is a better way, but universal (socialist) healthcare is not it. Start with tort reforms and real anti-illegal immigration laws to reduce burdens on hospitals.

“It does NOT mean that someone is going to come to your house and make your property the property of the state.”

I will ignor the statement you made after for civility sake. Try not paying your taxes, which will skyrocket under a Democrat, and see how your statement holds up. Also read what leftists in the Democratic party are stating about confiscating profits (private property of companies and self-employed people).

Come back if you wish. No one is forcing you away. Please remember though that I and others reacted because other leftists have “poisoned the well” for you. After dealing with them and doing my job daily, it does grate on me, especially when I was reading the left’s ignorance while I was in Iraq.

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I personally hope this isn’t the last time you post here. And no need to apologize for “blog-crashing”. I know the “tone” and content of the post rubbed you the wrong way; but you must see that the tone of your first comment set the tone of how us right-wing extremists would knee-jerk respond, since we’re so predictably good at knee-jerking. Liberals would never do that. Just ask Philly Steve.

I think some of your criticism does have validity; but it’s mixed in with preconceptions and projectionism; as well as misconceptions and a certain (self-professed) naivete’, regarding why Che Guevara is so reviled.

I wish I had more time on my hands to do your comments justice, and give you the courtesy of a response, worthy of the time and energy you put into them. For, now, just a couple of points:

They (and the majority of the citizens of the US according to most recent polls) favor universal healthcare because healthcare is a basic thing that everybody needs.

Is this not “socialism”? The kind of idea that you just disassociated yourself from being aligned to and felt the majority of Democrats are being slandered by?

You seem to have a distaste for labels- “leftists”, “conservative”, “liberal”, etc. Why? I think identifying positions and categorizing is important, as much as people may feel like they are “above labeling”. You, yourself, have engaged in “generalities” in maligning all of us here, before “getting to know us”, and how each of us thinks, independently. You accuse us of liberal stereotyping, when you’re engaged in the very same preconceptions of us and this blog.

Insurance and pharmaceutical corporations reaping huge profits from providing a basic human need (often in a very predatory manner) doesn’t sit well with most people.

Have you considered that pharmaceutical companies invest vast amounts of time and money in research and development?

Thomas Sowell:

A tourist in New York’s Greenwich Village had his portrait sketched by a sidewalk artist, who charged him $100.

“That’s expensive,” the tourist said. “But it’s a great sketch, so I’ll pay it. But, really, it took you just five minutes.”

“Twenty years and five minutes,” the artist replied.

The same misconception of costs runs through the much more serious issue of the prices of medicine and government regulation of those prices. When a pill whose ingredients cost a quarter is sold for two dollars, that is an open invitation to demagogues to begin loudly denouncing the pharmaceutical drug company’s “obscene” and “unconscionable” profits at the expense of the sick. But the people who are doing this are counting only the five minutes and ignoring the 20 years.

The physical ingredients of the medicine are its cheapest ingredients. The ingredient that costs millions of dollars — sometimes hundreds of millions — is the knowledge gained from years of research, and trial and error, which finally results in the creation of a new medicine. That is what the price of the pills has to cover, if we expect investors to continue to pour vast sums of money into drug companies that are trying to discover new cures for such diseases as cancer, AIDS and Alzheimer’s.

Other companies, manufacturing generic equivalents, pay only the costs of the physical ingredients, having copied the enormously expensive formula free of charge — legitimately after the patent has expired and not so legitimately in other countries, where patent laws are not taken as seriously as in the United States. The company that simply uses someone else’s formula free of charge can sell the same pill for 35 cents and still make a profit.

Somebody has to pay the high costs of discovery or the development of new drugs will be slower and therefore more people will needlessly suffer and die. While allowing patent laws to be over-ridden by politicians allows some people to buy the drug at low prices, based on the low current costs of manufacturing the medicine, that just leaves the far greater overhead costs of creating these medicines to be paid by others.

Worst of all, it leaves the even higher costs of needless pain, suffering and premature death to be paid by those whose relief is delayed by policies like these, which slow down the development of new medicines to cure their afflictions.

The United States has been one of the few countries resisting political pressures to impose price controls on pharmaceutical drugs, or to water down the patent laws which allow the original discoverer of new drugs to have a monopoly for a fixed number of years, so as to recover the costs of discovery before other companies get to use their formula free of charge.

The United States also produces a wholly disproportionate share of all the new life-saving drugs in the world. But politicians ignore this connection. Other countries have scientists capable of developing new medicines, but the economics and politics of the situation discourage companies in those countries from making the huge investments made by American pharmaceutical companies under American patent law.

Unfortunately, the Bush administration has recently begun to cave in to the demagogues at home and abroad. After congressional liberals like Ted Kennedy, Henry Waxman and Charles Schumer began making noises about a need to get the drug Cipro cheaper because of the anthrax scare, the administration threatened to over-ride the patent for the drug unless the manufacturer supplied it at a cheaper rate.

The retail price of Cipro was $5 a pill and the government itself says that someone stricken with anthrax needs to take two pills a day for five days and cheaper antibiotics thereafter. Is $50 too much to pay to save your life? And is it worth jeopardizing a whole system that has made this country the leading creator of life-saving drugs, just to get the demagogues off the Bush administration’s back politically?

The administration also caved at a recent international conference in Qatar, where foreign countries gained the right to set aside international patent agreements whenever they choose to decree a public health “emergency.” This allows them a free ride on costly American research, at least until they kill the goose that lays the golden egg — new life-saving medicines in this case.

On how it relates to being an Obama supporter: i’ve seen a rash of nutjob blog posts, theories, etc. about Obama since he emerged as the front runner. These include that he is Muslim, that he wanted to be sworn in using the Quran, etc. These are lies, pure and simple.
From my view - though it may be patently naive - Obama is running a much cleaner campaign than Clinton or any of the Republicans and it is my hope that once he wins the presidency people stop voting according to some ridiculous fabrication and instead consider the issues and the character of the person they are voting for. The attacks won’t stop but I’m hoping that people’s craving for “red meat” reduces. I’m sick of reading and debating about it.
As an aside: I fundamentally disagree with John McCain on just about everything. However, I consider the New York Times story about McCain in the same category as this post at this point. There wasn’t any evidence in that story and it seems like it is going to scuttle his candidacy - leaving the Republicans without a viable candidate. This was a dirty, dishonest move though in the NYT defense, it was originally unearthed by a conservative blogger (Matt Drudge). Of course, if evidence is produced, he’ll deserve to lose.
As I said… I just happened to stumble onto this blog and had to voice my opinions. I won’t be posting anymore. Thanks for the debate and sorry to be a blog-crasher.