You are not being forced to accept gay marriage unless a gay person of the same sex as you is forcing you to marry them, and I don't think that is happening to anybody. You are not really being forced to accept anything. You are only being asked to live and let live.

There are many practices that are legal in our society that I don't like. I don't like the way animals are raised for commercial food consumption. I don't like the idea of shooting wolves from airplanes. I don't like fur factories, raising and killing small animals so we can wear them. I don't like large companies getting a tax break to move their company over seas. I don't like that we went to war in Iraq. I don't like the fact that alcohol is legal while marijuana, which is not as dangerous as alcohol, is illegal. I don't like Christians telling me that me and my children are going to burn in hell because we do not believe the way they do.

But you know what? I don't have to eat meat or shoot wolves from airplanes, and I don't have to practice Christianity if I don't want to. I do however have to accept that others have that right. Now we can spend our time and resources trying to change the laws concerning things that we don't like, and that is very American to do so. There are many things that are legal that cause undue grief and suffering to other living creatures, and to me, these are worthy causes to fight to change. But with so much unnecessary pain and suffering going on, with so many worthy battles to fight, why would anybody want to waste their time and energy fighting to change a law that concerns how grown up people choose to express love?

On the other hand, now and then, everybody has something to say that others have not thought about. That's the beauty of putting your thoughts out there as well as getting the input from readers. Personally, I love it when somebody says something that makes me change my mind about something. I especially love it when it comes from somebody I happen to disagree with a lot. I guess it makes me think that I'm not completely set in my ways. It's happened with a politics quite a bit over the years. I certainly don't have all the answers, although I tend to lean towards issues and ideas that have proven themselves in the past and lean away from issues and ideas that have proven not to work.

I guess that's the bottom line for me in this election and the reason I support Barak Obama. I certainly do not support every bleeding heart liberal idea that has come along over the years. In fact, as I've said before, fundamentally, I think the conservatives have a sound and logical philosophy, they just quit practicing it. In fact, I don't know when they ever did. I find myself looking to the democratic leadership to shrink government, get government out of people's personal lives, and practice fiscal spending. These have always been the main tenets of the republican party (practiced in theory but not in reality) and now they are up for grabs. I hope the democrats latch onto them because these are the philosophies and root ideas that make America strong, we just need a party who is in control to practice them. The republicans had their chance and they blew it. If the democrats blow it, if they fail to reduce the size of government and control runaway spending, they will loose me next time around. I'm sure there will be a whole lot of us fiscal conservative/social liberals who will be looking for a third party to represent us. We shall see.

Senator McCain My Friend,

You promised to run a clean and honest campaign, although at your recent Rally's along with Governor Palin the crowd roared"Terrorist!” one man screamed Monday at a New Mexico rally after you, My Friend Senator McCain voiced the campaign’s new rhetorical staple aimed at raising doubts about the Illinois senator: “Who is the real Barrack Obama?”
"He's a damn liar!” yelled a woman Wednesday in Pennsylvania. "Get him", "He's bad for our country."
Obama Osama!" one woman called out. "Kill Him another said.

If anything happens to Obama, you senator and Govern Palin should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law for abiding and abet tying these KKK like Rally's!

You have not only slumped to a new low but you My Friend and Governor Palin have been crawling in the mud on your hands and knees!

You have even used your wife Cindy to lie for you, when she said " It chilled her to her bones" when Obama didn't vote to fund the troops (He refused to unless their was a set time to get our troops home) You My Friend ALSO VOTED NO ALSO, because in another bill their was a time Frame!

Obama has been vetted by the best of the best in the press for two years and they have found nothing of substance about Bill Ayers. The board he sat on with Bill Ayres was a Education board set up by Walter Annenberg's wife, who by the way was a stanch Republican! Obama was eight years old when Mr. Ayers was accused of his acts!

You, my friend was censored by your own Senate for the Keeting Five!
You, my friend, Destroyed not one but FIVE planes Having said that, your conduct in flight was reckless, If you were not an
Admiral's son, you would have lost your flight status, if not your commission.

Governor Palin's husband has been Pallin around with a Alaska group led by Jim Volger who wants Alaska to leave the Us and states he "HATES AMERICA AND HER DAMED FLAG", your Vice President pick in 2006 even gave a speech at a recent convention! Does this make her a terrorist by association?

You my Friend have lost your soul, God help you!

out!

Iraq aside, the war on terrorism is really two different wars. If you talk about the battle fronts in Afghanistan as well as covert operations around the globe to curtail and keep an eye on terrorist activities, you could argue that we are winning because we are not getting attacked....or you could argue that we are loosing because our presence in certain Muslim countries around the world is fanning the flames that is creating more terrorist. There is however a third war, which is really the most important war, and that war we are definitely loosing.

I'm talking about the war that Bin Laden started when he attacked us on 9-11. He knew he could never defeat us on the battle field and that was never his intention. His intention was to set into motion a spending cycle that would eventually cause us to self implode, kind of like what Reagan did with Star Wars when he got Russia to spend their way into economic collapse. It worked then and it's working now.

The real war has been going on right here at home. The real war has been with ourselves, and it seems we have been our greatest enemy all along. We were never united on Iraq where we have spent a trillion bucks. We never achieved any sink-your-teeth-into-campaign finance reform. The few well connected corporate giants, via their lobbying efforts, have been able to keep corporate regulation at a minimum as well as monopolize the large industries that should have been kept to a manageable size. Liberals helped to make it possible for low income families to buy houses they couldn't afford. We over reacted to terrorism and did too much of the wrong things and not enough of the right things. We were so eagerly spending money we didn't have that we did not want to see the big bubble forming around us. Everybody is to blame for this mess. Everybody from Osama Bin Laden to George Bush to congress to the lobbyist to the greedy rich to the ignorant poor to the over spending middle class.

The real war is the war we have waged upon our selves. Bin Laden started it and we will finish it.

In the movie, Maher sets out to understand something that I have been trying to figure out for forty years....how is it that intelligent people are so willing to suspend all forms of critical thinking when it comes to their religious beliefs? Isn't it amazing that you can hold the highest office in the country, even in the world, and with the nuclear codes at your disposal, profess to believe in a talking snake, a 900 year old man who survived a flood and was able to take samples of over two million species on a boat he built with his own hands, know that man walked with the dinosaurs 5,000 years ago, and that Jesus is coming back very soon to destroy the world and take His chosen ones away with Him. Is that not a little frightening as well as very strange?

I wish that everybody would see this movie. If nothing else, the movie will get you talking about religion and that is one of the prime directives of this movie....to get people to talk. We need to talk more about the strange things we believe in. I think it's high time that we begin to re-define what faith and religion means to us. We will never survive our technology if we don't. We do not have to suspend our faith or belief in God, or Jesus for that matter, but we do need to upgrade some of our out dated beliefs that we have held on to for hundreds of years.

If I took issue with anybody at last night's debate, it would be the moderator, what's-her-name. She gave too much slack to Sara in allowing her to talk about things that had nothing to do with the question. I'm sure this was a strategy from Sara's coaches....when you don't have an answer to the question, digress to an earlier topic. And she did this for about 1/3 of the questions.

Debates are indeed easier than interviews. One can only hope that there will be more interviews.

My beef with Christian thought has always been that they seek to spread their message as well as impose it where ever they can because they "know" they are right. They are not right for me. I think it's high time that more people (non Christians) start speaking up and expressing their thoughts about Christianity, because Christianity has never held back about expressing their thoughts about the non- believers. In the end, I think it's fine for people to believe any way they damn well want to believe, Christian or atheist or anything else. They just have to learn that whatever their beliefs are, they cannot and should not be imposed on others who do not subscribe and don't want to subscribe. I don't want an atheist telling me how shallow I am for believing in God any more than I want a Christian telling me I am going to go to hell for not believing their way, excuse me....Gods way.

It's very simple to me. If you believe in Jesus, then follow Jesus. If you don't believe in gay marriage, then don't marry a gay. If you don't subscribe to euthanasia, then don't ever do it. If you think prostitution is wrong, then don't screw a prostitute.

Now this is not to say that we don't need laws to protect ourselves from each other. You might believe in pedophilia and therefore want to have the freedom to practice it, but the problem is, the child you practice it with is an innocent victim....so sorry Charlie, you don't get to practice pedophilia. I'm mainly talking about things like gay marriage or euthanasia, things that do not affect others in a direct way but are rather a personal choice. Notice I have not interjected abortion into this equation because I have to respect that the act itself may or may not harm another living person who has no say so in the decision....it depends on your definition as to when individual life begins and I recognize that is open for debate.

So my whole point here is, religion has always seeked to control and spread it's influence in the name of truth. Truth is a relative term, it's relative to who's truth your talking about, yes even what you would call God's truth, because to some, the bible is not Gods truth, it is man made. If my truth does not accommodate the bible as being from God, then it cannot be put upon me as such, but since it is and has been for hundreds of years, then I maintain the right to call shenanigans....and that is what I believe Bill Maher is doing in his new movie....we shall see....today at 4:20. I hear it's really funny.

Bill Maher Talks 'Religulous'

Bill Maher is prepared to be public enemy no. 1 to the world's devout. "I think I've been that for about 15 years," the host of HBO's 'Real Time With Bill Maher' tells us. That very well may be, but expect the war of holy words to really blow up (no pun intended) when Maher's rabble-rousing documentary 'Religulous' hits theaters nationwide.

Directed by Larry Charles, the man behind the 2006 smash hit 'Borat,' 'Religulous' follows Maher on a "spiritual journey" across the globe as he interviews subjects as diverse as an actor playing Jesus Christ at a Christian amusement park, gay Muslims, an anti-Zionist rabbi and a U.S. senator who admits, "You don't have to take an IQ test to run for Senate." If you found Borat's wrestling match with a 300-pound naked man offensive, wait until you hear what Maher has to say about the Old Testament. Moviefone talked to the world's most outspoken agnostic for more insight into his controversial shtick.

Have you been surprised by any of the reactions you've gotten to the film?

I think the biggest surprise we found out making the movie was that religious people don't know much about religion. I know more about religion than they do. It's amazing; they don't really study it. You know people can quote the bible, but they haven't read it. They don't know what's in it. They can't even name the Ten Commandments. They're like, "You know, uh, don't kill and don't make statues, uh Sleepy, Grumpy, Dopey." They don't know.

Is it fair to say that you're essentially asking people to denounce their religion?

Well, "asking" is a strong word. First of all I'm just trying to make people laugh, that's my number one thing. This is a real funny comedy ... So as a comedian for so many years I understand that when you make people laugh, you trigger something in them that says "Maybe that's true," because laughter is an involuntary response and if you can make them laugh maybe they'll go, "Oh wow, well maybe he does have a point." So, I'm not on a crusade here. I just thought that this was the last taboo as a subject. It always bothers me when people say, "You can't talk about this." It just makes me want to talk about it, and I was a little tired of the situation in this country, which has always been that if someone said the word "faith," it's a magic word that closes off the debate. "That's my faith." OK, we can't talk anymore about that because it might be insulting to him. But you know, religion is just an opinion. It's your opinion, and it's no more sacred than my opinion about anything else. Just because you say it is, I don't have to buy into that.

It's doubtful that church groups are going to be organizing trips to go see this ...

Yeah, but we've shown this to lots of religious people and they like it, because first of all it's about a subject they care about, religion. It's also not a condescending movie, it's not making fun of people, it's not pointing fingers. I'm just asking questions. I admit I'm asking questions, which I think I get ridiculous, funny answers to because there really are no good answers to the questions I'm asking. It's just amazing that religious people have never been confronted with these basic questions before. Like "Why doesn't God just obliterate the devil? He is God. He is all-powerful. Why make a game of this?" There's no real answer to that.

How do you respond to criticisms that you're merely mocking or ridiculing religion in the movie?

I don't think I'm mocking religion. I think religion makes fun of itself. I don't think I have to. I'm asking these questions, and the answers that people give are ridiculous. You know, an analogy you could make would be to the Sarah Palin interviews. Was Charlie Gibson mocking Sarah Palin by asking her about the Bush Doctrine? Because I heard that argument: "It's a gotcha' question." Well, it's a "gotcha question" if she was running for Miss America. It's not a "gotcha question" if she's running for the Vice Presidency of the United States. Am I mocking them by asking them these questions? Well, considering that this country has been run by a faith-based administration, I think these questions should be asked. And if the answers come out ridiculous, then I didn't put them in that situation. Most of the rest of the industrialized, grown-up Western democracies have thrown these old myths out the window. Even Italy, where the pope lives, is over 50 percent atheistic. England is like 70 percent or 80 percent. All the Western European countries. They grew up. I don't think I'm the bad guy for asking my country to grow up too.

Not to simplify things, but what would you say are your biggest beefs with organized religions?

Well let's see, they're responsible for most of the wars we've ever had. The Crusades, the oppression of women, the oppression of minorities, exorcisms, killing witches, honor killings, suicide bombings, having sex with children, keeping women in the beekeeper suits, you know ... where does it end?

What do you think are the upsides to religion?

Oh, now you've stumped me [hums the 'Jeopardy' theme]. Well, of course no one can deny that religion has been responsible for a lot of charity work and so forth, feeding the poor, soup kitchens, missionary work. But I would say to that one, all those things can be accomplished without religion. You know Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie go around the world doing good deeds and never seem to have the need to bring Jesus into it. Millions of people have done the same thing. And the other thing is that people say "I get comfort from religion." Well yes, but it comes at a terrible price.

There's also the argument that it instills morals and behavioral codes in people.

But it doesn't. It's not about morality generally. I mean, Christianity is not about morality primarily. They'll tell you right to your face. If you ask "what is religion this primarily about?" "Salvation, personal salvation." It's about believing in something so fervently, without question, that when you die, you get your ass saved in the next world. That's not morality. That's not selflessness. That's selfish. "I'm doing it to save my ass in heaven." Even the Ten Commandments, did you ever look at that list? Is that the list of the 10 most awful crimes? If we're going to make a list today, would you leave on the list "don't swear," "don't work on Sundays," "don't covet your neighbor's wife," "don't build statues to other gods," and leave off torture, incest, rape, child abuse? So this idea that it's a bunch of morality is a bunch of bull.

It seems like since George Bush has been in office, we've been involved in one national trauma after another. I don't remember this with Bill Clinton. For eight years now it's been nothing but bad news. It started with 9-11, went on to Iraq, then this financial mess were in. And there's been plenty of sub trauma's in between.

Under Clinton, and most presidents before him, we dared to dream. Things were good and we expected they would only get better. After eight years of Bush, I find I have less hope for the future for myself as well as my children. Our expectations are constantly being lowered. Now days I feel like I will be lucky just to not go into a great depression or major world conflicts. To hell with having affordable health care, alternative energies, a retirement to look forward to, or peace on earth. I feel grateful that there is still enough food to go around. About one more year of George Bush would probably take care of that. This administration has taken everything from us they possibly can and I think they still got a few more tricks up their sleeves before their finished.

We used to expect that politicians were working for us, the people. Now we are happy if they don't bankrupt us. We no longer expect them to be good honest people. We just hope their greed will not do too much damage. What's happened to the American dream? Can we ever get it back?

There are several reasons why this version of the bailout failed. Every member of the House is facing re-election in less than six weeks, and their constituents are angry. They’re angry at the government’s lack of oversight and regulation, supported and encouraged by Bush and McCain, that helped bring about the crisis. They’re angry at the failing mega-mammoth financial institutions that sacrificed the middle class to a horde of unbridled greed and incompetence. They’re angry at corporate executives who make millions while their companies are failing, and then get multi-million dollar “golden parachutes” that let them float into retirement, while the average taxpayer’s 401(k), with only a few thousand dollars may now be worth only half what it once was. They’re angry at “house flippers,” aided by easy-to-get mortgages and some unscrupulous real estate brokers, who made minor fortunes and helped raise housing prices to the point where middle-class families could no longer afford to own a home in an economy that was being held up by toothpicks.

But, most of all, consumers and members of Congress are furious at President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, and their Neocon gaggle who no longer have credibility. For seven years, the Bush–Cheney Administration has used fear as a bargaining weapon.

It seems to me that thru out the course of our life time we get caught up playing different roles and identifying with different characters at different times. I am a kid, I am a working man, I am a good person, I am an addict, I am a rich person, I am a muscular person, I am a crazy person, I am a genius, I am a poor person. But are we ever any of these things? I don't believe we are.

All of these characters are just an aspect of our body, our personality, or our social situation at any given time. The key word here is "identify". We play many roles in life, but to the degree that we identify ourselves with these roles determines who we think we are at any given time. But what if we didn't identify with any of these roles? What if we knew we were just playing different roles, and instead of being that character, we just used that character for fun and experience?

That's what I think is really going on, the only thing is, not everybody realizes they are just playing a role. They get so caught up in identifying with their roles, they forget who they really are. Isn't that why rich people committed suicide when the market crashed in 1932, because they mistakenly placed their identity with their money? Isn't that why we feel insulted or our pride gets hurt whenever an aspect of one of the characters we are playing is criticized, because we have mistakenly placed our identity into an aspect of that character? When we overly identify with something, we loose our self.

I think the term "getting grounded" refers to loosing all of these identities and getting your self back to who you are, which in reality is much more than any role that we are playing. I bring all of this up because it's an election season and elections have a way of getting us all to over identify with our inner liberal or our inner conservative. Politics has a way of crystallizing and sharpening the contrasts between the different ideologies. As we define our differences, it gets easier to get caught up in identifying with these roles. We take stands on issues, we know what's right and wrong about our side and the other side, and in the process, we loose our selves into the characters we are pretending to be.

I am very concerned about a lot of things going on right now on a national and state level because these things affect our lives. So I feel angry, but I try not to identify with that anger. I'm OK feeling that anger, but I do not want that anger to own me. When anger owns me, I can be dangerous, as can anybody when they loose themselves to an emotion. I have my own ideas about what caused these problems as well as ideas about what we can do to fix these problems, but they are not written gospel truth's, they are only ideas and feelings. Once I accept them as gospel truth's, it's easy to get angry because other people are not seeing "the truth".

All I'm saying is that every now and then, it' might help to sit back, take a long breadth, and just stop. Quit thinking of yourself as a republican or a democrat, a Barak guy or McCain guy, because in reality, you are more then that. But the only way to approach that deeper thing that you really are is to....just stop. For one minute, quit blaming and quit identifying. Just be who you really are. It's refreshing, it keeps us grounded. Then you can come back out with both guns blazing. Do what you've got to do, just remember who you really are and in the end, no recession or depression or war or national debt or president or crisis of any kind has the power to own you....except to the degree that you allow it to.

I was surprised that McCain felt he couldn’t handle 2 major tasks at a time. He never suspended his salary as a Senator, so why shouldn’t he expect to return to Washington and fulfill his major duties as a Senator? How will he handle 2 or more major crises if he is elected President. Maybe this was a stall to give Palin more time to bone-up for her debate. Although a Republican, I decided not to vote for McCain, when he selected someone so unqualified to be Vice President. I don’t think McCain put “Country First.” Also, he wants to “reform” the U.S. – if things are so bad, why didn’t he do more all of those years he was on the Federal payroll? I am fed up with both parties, but Obama seems to be less of a threat.

Joe's reply....Very good point! I had a thought about Sarah Palin as I was having lunch today and watching "King of The Hill". I always knew she reminded me of somebody but I couldn't think who, and as Im watching this cartoon, it hits me....she looks like Hank Hills wife Peggy Hill!

Another thought about the financial crisis....It seems that the same guys who got us into this mess are asking us to bail them out to the tune of hundreds of billions. I don't really know if it is a scam to steal the last bit of the American wealth or if it really is necessary to keep from going into a depression. All I know is that as a tax payer, I'm tired of getting ripped off. I heard today that there is 23 billion dollars unnacounted for in Iraq! I say that if we agree to this bail out, we the tax payer need something in return. After all, this feels like financial terrorism and I for one am sick and tired of being threatened and ripped off. I say that if we bail the bastartds out, people need to go to prison and for a very long time. Not only that but we also need to rewrite the rules. Any corporation or financial institution that is big enough to hurt this country that bad, should not exist. We need to get away from the mergers and mega coprorate monopolies and get back to small business, and that goes for the media as well. At this point, I am so angry about what these thieves have done that I am almost willing to let the whole damn system collapse if it means that they go down with it.

The thing I haven't heard anybody talk about is....what is a depression? I mean, what does it really mean? I guess there would be similarities to the "Grapes of Wrath" scenario, however, that was like a thousand years ago and times have changed a lot since then. I remember when I was young, the older folks talked a lot about "The Great Depression". To me it was all Blah-blah-blah. Now I wish I had listened better, I might need the pointers.

I guess a depression could be anything from a nasty version of a really bad recession, to everything getting Bangladesh-like. The difference would be if we have 15% unemployment or 90% unemployment. If 90% of the population couldn't afford their rent or mortgage payments, does that mean that 90% of the population would be homeless while 90% of all the houses sat empty? I know my ignorance is laughable, but I've never been thru a depression, so I really don't know.

Our leaders and the major economist's must feel like they are in a catch 22. On one hand, they have to remain optimistic because if people get scarred and quit spending, that in itself would spiral the economy into shambles. On the other hand, they need to be telling us what to expect if things get really bad and how to prepare for that, but if they do, they will sound pessimistic and pessimism is not what we need right now.

To me, the answer is obvious. Since we don't really know what is going to happen, we need to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. The obvious would be to stash some cash and build up a good supply of dry and canned foods. If everything collapses, the first thing that would happen would be a run on the grocery stores, and they'd be forced to close their doors. I know this would happen because I've seen it happen a couple of times in my life over situations that were not as bad as economic collapse.

The way I imagine a depression, is that life would be kind of like it was when I was in my early twenties, a constant struggle to survive with nowhere to go to borrow money. People shared houses and food. We were skinny and often hungry, but we survived.

When I look at what has happened in our country over the last several years....jobs going overseas, tripling the national debt, the transfer of wealth from the middle class to the super rich, escalated health care costs that in and of itself could break the bank....there's been so much damage to the system, it seems to me that economic collapse is inevitable, sooner or later. And maybe in the long run, that's not altogether a bad thing. Basically, we would all be starting over. All the problems I mentioned above would be wiped out. It would be tough. It would be unfair to older folks who spent their whole lives paying into a system that would have nothing left to give back.

But in the end, maybe we would emerge stronger and better. Maybe we would realize that tax and spend is a better policy than borrow and spend. Maybe we would keep the manufacturing jobs here at home as we built them back up. Maybe we would realize how important it is to regulate industries that are so big that they have the power to make or break us economically. Maybe we would rethink our relationship with, as well as the inner workings of, the federal reserve board and the international banking system. Maybe we would change the political system so that the "lobbyist" no longer existed. And maybe we would no longer be fooled so easily by greedy politicians spouting meaningless feel good cliche's and pitting us against each other with issues like gay marriage and birth control, so that while we are distracted squabbling amongst ourselves, they are free to do the big damage....the kind of damage that has led us right to where we are.

Maybe...but then again, I rember the Vietnem war. When it was all over, we said never again. Maybe our attention span is so short that even the pain of a great depression won't be enough to change business as usual....and that my friends, is cause for depression!