January..you are an idiot.
Michael..you are an idiot.

Michael I can give you a long list of black men and women and their accomplishments, starting with frederick douglas going through Clarence Thomas. I can list them in science, literature, politics, or government.

First stop making George Washington Carver's accomplishments sound miniscule, his groundbreaking work in agriculture helped this country in countless ways, peanut butter was just a peripheral side effect-or affect--if you will, of his work.

January you are just as bad. To assume an imbecile like Michael represents in any way the vast majority of conservatives, or for that matter whites is inane. You just like to point at one presumably white man and...

I am shocked to hear that Roman Catholicism is now considered a fundamentalist christian movement. And in fact conservatives do not argue that America is a christian nation we state that it is based on Judeo-Christian beliefs. Notice that Judeo part John, that refers to Jews in case you were unclear. True some while arguing a specific point may state that the US is a christian nation, they are in fact referring to truth that the nation is by an overwhelming majority a nation of christians. NOT that it is a theocracy. It is theocracies--and repressive governments hiding behind religion or extreme secular ideologies that have been the root of most of the jewish problems

mark

What world do you live in? It is clearly not ours.

'What Shapiro Misses'
'Modern conservatives have several bonding beliefs. For example, they despise Universities.'
?????
I am a proud conservative have been since I was a teen ager and I attended University, Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland--my eldest is about to go off to University of Rochester--my beautiful amazon bride is a teacher in a public school. Conservatives do not despise univesities and education we dislike some of the current lying and partisan teaching that goes on in the current education system.

'conservatives is that the government should not step up and protect disadvantaged groups.'

Again you speak nonsense, conservatives...

The author of this article mentions God one time. One time, yet the negative responses to the article seem to want to bring religion into this. The argument that Miss Rios is making is that everyone's personal life has an effect on society, Tiger Wood's included, not because he is famous, but because everytime one of us fails society suffers. That is why general infidelity and homosexual marriage are brought up in the article, she believes that such behavior harms the underlying structure of society and the stability of families. I am happy to hear debate on the issue but try to actuall read the article and comment on what actually said in it rather than attributing positions not actually stated to the author.

What happens to software when your computer hardware is physically damaged? It ceases to exist, at least that occurrence of the software on that particular machine.

Not necessarily so William. It depends on which part of the hardware is damaged. If it is the monitor, the keyboard, the wiring but not the harddrive, then the software is still there. I believe that is where the analogy was headed.

mark

By your argument the nation would have been no better than the Polish Liberum veto of the old Polish Lithuanian Union where any state feeling "violated" could say I OBJECT and use their power to secceed to force their way on the rest of the union. True not much of a threat from say Maine, but Virginia? Particularly in the beginnning of the Union when Virginia in effect split the union in two, or New York?

I am not going to pretend that the country is what was originally envisioned by the founders, and I agree with you that far too many of the basic original intentions of the founders have been ignored, mutated, or bastardized. More worrisome is that the original philosophic beliefs of the founders in regards to liberty, and...

Other than the legality and constitutionality of the secession question I do not think we necessarily disagree on these issues.

It is true that Lincoln did not fight the war to end slavery. He fought to save the Union. In so doing he centralized government power in ways no previous president had ever done, and in ways that the founders would not have enjoyed-though whether they would have disapproved given the circumstances no one can know. My original post was not to argue this point more to state that those posts that suggested that Lincoln was not anti slavery such as Lenard who states that Lincoln did not want to free the slaves. He did want to he jsut knew he could not and felt the union was more important that slavery...

Do not mistake Lincoln's politics for his beliefs. A prime example would be justice Scalia. He has stated on more than one occasion that he is personally pro life and would love for abortion to be illegal, but that the Supreme Court has no standing to make abortion illegal only to throw it back on the states where the power for that decision should lie. Lincoln was ANTI SLAVERY all of his writings where he expresses his personal feelings on the issue make that clear. He did not believe that that moral position gave him the political right to unilaterally pass an unconstitutional act on the union. Thus his statements to Greeley which make absolute sense.

Now while the position you note taken by New York and Virginia is true...

Where to begin soooooo many have been stated.

Lincoln was clearly and adamantly against slavery. All of his writings make that clear. What he was more than anti-slavery however was pro union. Thus his statements, often taken out of context, and his application of the emancipation proclomation which of course did not extend freedom to slaves in Union territory.

Secondly--Secession was not a universally supported position among the founding fathers. James Madison, the man who wrote the Constitution if you recall, wrote expansively in the 1830's against the idea that secession was constitutional. Andrew Jackson did likewise, though admittedly he was not one of our founding fathers. George Washington was ready to take...

pathetic