Frustrated, are you in a swing state by chance?

• Why do they keep calling? - frustrated
  • Frustrated, are you in a swing state by chance? - Tulan
  • WAAAA. They never call me. - Backwards typist
    • Could be - see message this is too funny - frustrated
  • Polling Facts - Rae
  • Also... - frustrated
    • The plus is that it is a real person you are talking to and not - a robocaller. nm
  • Oh my gosh. They keep calling you because of people - Bradley
    • voice mail doesn't cost anything - but I hate it - frustrated
      • Voice mail doesn't cost anything? Crapola. My - Bradley
        • so if you don't have voicemail, you are a democrat and on welfare? - Amanda

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Two Border State Governors Declare Illegal Immigration State of Emergency

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Many people were confined against their will just because someone wanted them "out of the way." These were normal people with no mental illness - that is why it is so difficult - don't blame the liberals. Blame your state.

CONFINING THE MENTALLY ILL


In the legal space between what a society should and should not do, taking action to restrict the liberty of people who are mentally ill sits in the grayest of gray areas.

Our notions about civil and constitutional rights flow from an assumption of "normalcy." Step beyond the boundaries and arrest and prison may legally follow. Short of that, government's ability to hold people against their will is severely and properly limited. Unusual behavior on the part of someone who is mentally ill is not illegal behavior. Freedom can't be snatched away on a whim, or on the thought that a person is hard to look at, hard to hear, hard to smell.

It was only a few decades ago that the promise of new medications and a change in attitude opened the doors of the mental hospitals and sent many patients into society. There, they would somehow "normalize" and join everyone else, supported by networks of out-patient facilities, job training, special living arrangements and regular, appropriate medication. But the transition has been imperfect, long and difficult.

In some parts of urban America there is little professional support for those with mental health problems. A new generation of drug and alcohol-fueled mental illness has come on the scene. People frequently end up on the street, un-medicated and exhibiting a full range of behaviors that are discomforting at the very least and threatening at their worst.

Written last Thanksgiving:  "Some would argue that two different nations actually celebrated: upright, moral, traditional red America and the dissolute, liberal blue states clustered on the periphery of the heartland. The truth, however, is much more complicated and interesting than that.

Take two iconic states: Texas and Massachusetts. In some ways, they were the two states competing in the last election. In the world's imagination, you couldn't have two starker opposites. One is the homeplace of Harvard, gay marriage, high taxes, and social permissiveness. The other is Bush country, solidly Republican, traditional, and gun-toting. Massachusetts voted for Kerry over Bush 62 to 37 percent; Texas voted for Bush over Kerry 61 to 38 percent.

So ask yourself a simple question: which state has the highest divorce rate? Marriage was a key issue in the last election, with Massachusetts' gay marriages becoming a symbol of alleged blue state decadence and moral decay. But in actual fact, Massachusetts has the lowest divorce rate in the country at 2.4 divorces per 1,000 inhabitants. Texas - which until recently made private gay sex a criminal offence - has a divorce rate of 4.1. A fluke? Not at all. The states with the highest divorce rates in the U.S. are Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas. And the states with the lowest divorce rates are: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Every single one of the high divorce rate states went for Bush. Every single one of the low divorce rate states went for Kerry. The Bible Belt divorce rate, in fact, is roughly 50 percent higher than the national average.

Some of this discrepancy can be accounted for by the fact that couples tend to marry younger in the Bible Belt - and many clearly don't have the maturity to know what they're getting into. There's some correlation too between rates of college education and stable marriages, with the Bible Belt lagging a highly educated state like Massachusetts. But the irony still holds. Those parts of America that most fiercely uphold what they believe are traditional values are not those parts where traditional values are healthiest. Hypocrisy? Perhaps. A more insightful explanation is that these socially troubled communities cling onto absolutes in the abstract because they cannot live up to them in practice.

But doesn't being born again help bring down divorce rates? Jesus, after all, was mum on the subject of homosexuality, but was very clear about divorce, declaring it a sin unless adultery was involved. A recent study, however, found no measurable difference in divorce rates between those who are "born again" and those who are not. 29 percent of Baptists have been divorced, compared to 21 percent of Catholics. Moreover, a staggering 23 percent of married born-agains have been divorced twice or more. Teen births? Again, the contrast is striking. In a state like Texas, where the religious right is extremely strong and the rhetoric against teenage sex is gale-force strong, the teen births as a percentage of all births is 16.1 percent. In liberal, secular, gay-friendly Massachusetts, it's 7.4, almost half. Marriage itself is less popular in Texas than in Massachusetts. In Texas, the percent of people unmarried is 32.4 percent; in Massachusetts, it's 26.8 percent. So even with a higher marriage rate, Massachusetts manages a divorce rate almost half of its "conservative" rival.

Or take abortion. America is one of the few Western countries where the legality of abortion is still ferociously disputed. It's a country where the religious right is arguably the strongest single voting bloc, and in which abortion is a constant feature of cultural politics. Compare it to a country like Holland, perhaps the epitome of socially liberal, relativist liberalism. So which country has the highest rate of abortion? It's not even close. America has an abortion rate of 21 abortions per 1,000 women aged between 15 and 44. Holland has a rate of 6.8. Americans, in other words, have three times as many abortions as the Dutch. Remind me again: which country is the most socially conservative?

Even a cursory look at the leading members of the forces of social conservatism in America reveals the same pattern. The top conservative talk-radio host, Rush Limbaugh, has had three divorces and an addiction to pain-killers. The most popular conservative television personality, Bill O'Reilly, just settled a sex harassment suit that indicated a highly active adulterous sex life. Bill Bennett, the guru of the social right, was for many years a gambling addict. Karl Rove's chief outreach manager to conservative Catholics for the last four years, Deal Hudson, also turned out to be a man with a history of sexual harassment. Bob Barr, the conservative Georgian congressman who wrote the "Defense of Marriage Act," has had three wives so far. The states which register the highest ratings for the hot new television show, "Desperate Housewives," are all Bush-states.

The complicated truth is that America truly is a divided and conflicted country. But it's a grotesque exaggeration to say that the split is geographical, or correlated with blue and red states. Many of America's biggest "sinners" are those most intent on upholding virtue. In fact, it may be partly because they know sin so close-up that they want to prevent its occurrence among others. And some of those states which have the most liberal legal climate - the Northeast and parts of the upper MidWest - are also, in practice, among the most socially conservative. To ascribe all this to "hypocrisy" seems to me too crude an explanation. America is simply a far more complicated and diverse place than crude red and blue divisions can explain.

they are adding police and only in the big cities do they have paid firemen. The rest are volunteers.

I look at it this way: If a state can't stay in the black, then they have to cut spending some place that wouldn't jeopardize the safety of the citizens. Threats of cutting essential services like Barney Fife stated today are unjustified. Cut the non-essential services first.

Our governor talks about cutting back on services, laying off government workers, which I think is a good idea because government is too big anyway, but then he turns around and spends more money on non-essential items. Doesn't make sense.  

to this and you kinda misrepresented what he said.  Surprise surprise.

He said he hated about 10 people out of the 3000 plus 911 victims' families who won't stop complaining, then he compared the people in New Orleans who were making it hard on everybody else there by not cooperating to those same type of people who are never satisfied no matter how much people are trying to help them.

I completely agree with everything he says on this.  I never really felt sorry for the people in New Orleans who refused to leave when they knew way ahead of time that a disaster was looming. 

of having Down's syndrome child at birth.  

I worry more about Biden being President and Pelosi being VP. 

90 percent of Melanoma growths are curable.  Lung cancer is bad.  Smoking is bad. 

...the exact same way I gave George W. Bush a fair chance even though I didn't vote for him.  It was only after he was in office and I saw his contempt for the Constitution and for anyone who wasn't filthy rich that I formed my negative opinion of him.  It was his very own actions that formed that opinion, not partisan hearsay.

If this issue is legitimate, why in the world aren't Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham and/or any of the other right-wing media screaming it from the rooftops?

If this issue is legitimate, why in the world didn't Hillary Clinton or John McCain scream it from the rooftops?

The SC will meet this coming Friday, in private (five days before the EC votes) to discuss whether or not they will hear this case. 

If the SC goes against the will of the people in this nation and selects the US President again, then the mayhem that will result will make it very easy for George W. Bush to declare martial law (to control the "masses") and officially promote himself to "Dictator in Chief" for an indefinite period of time.

Perhaps that's the true goal of all of this.

If somehow, the will of the people is upheld, we need to be a country of AMERICANS that bond together.  We are living in very dangerous  and challenging economic times right now.  This isn't Obama's fault.  It's the fault of George W. Bush and the crippled America that Obama will inherit from Bush.  Something tells me, though, that you'll find a way to blame Obama for the sins of Bush, regardless of what happens.

As for me, I'm sick of reading and responding to posts regarding this nonissue.  I'm more concerned with legitimate problems facing this country, as they are extremely serious, real and potentially life threatening.

Have at it all you want.  I won't be participating any more.  I want to be a part of the America that supports its President, especially in these emergent times, not the small, bitter minority that will never give Obama a chance.  He could wind up being the best President we've ever had, but sadly, some people will never even realize it.

...before some right-wing home-grown terrorist (with or without the prior knowledge of the GOP) decides to enact "what is to come."

That truly is my biggest fear.

I just don't understand the absolute refusal of some to even give Obama a chance.  These are the Americans who frighten me the most, the ones who seem to be the most angry and bitter.

I never voted for Bush, but when he was first installed in the White House, I never felt this bitter about him.  In fact, I was starting to like him a little right after 9/11.  It was HIS actions in the years to follow that absolutely disgusted me and the very first time in my life that I was afraid of my country's leader.

But I didn't flat-out hate him before he was even sworn in. 

If Obama has the opportunity to survive a Presidential term and has actually been a GOOD President, would you even recognize it, or are you so firmly implanted in your crystal ball's readings of "what's to come" that that's all you can see?

In any event, I hope you and everyone else who visits this board has a happy, healthy and prosperous 2009 that is full of love.  My health hasn't been all that great, and I need to surround myself with hope and optimism.

and watched Olbermann because I was bored and wanted to see what all the hoopla is about over him.

Turned the channel after 5 minutes. He just spews hate. He took pot shots at everyone not conforming to his thinking and tried to twist words of his guests.

Let me know what you think. 

I came across this because I was researching the Bilderberger Group.  I had seen a documentary earlier today on IFC and so decided to see what I could find.  Ran across a list of members and, interestingly enough, one of the American members just happens to be David Rockefeller. 

As far as the OP's comments, I was wondering why the need to be so insulting to someone not even addressing them directly  Pent-up aggression much?   

If you took a second out of your I love Bush, and nobody else cloud, you would see that we do care about our soldiers, our countrymen.  But, you're so full of the Bush Kool-Aid you can't see straight. Did you even read the article???  You obviously didn't from your response.  Knowledge is a powerful thing.  It's not just liberals feeling this way about Bush and his war, the country is at a divide and more people support his impeachment than those who supported Clinton's impeachment that by the way republicans pursued on their own to defame the president in front of the world any all and any cost. So you can save your do the right thing speech.