amongst the members . verbal sparring . i joined a short while ago , but have just reading various members opinions. also polishing up on reading my Latvian .
    i must say that i am also getting an education on the Latvija i left behind back in 1944 or thereabouts .
    just to set things straight on my political leaning . i was a registered Republican . until a year ago when GWB tried to ram the illegal amnesty down my throat . now i am an INDY , with strong conservative leaning .

Welcome. Make yourself at home.

Would an independent ever vote Democratic?

Khe…Can a recent former Republican vote Democratic ?

I was and still am a Republican - even after the Rovian neocon cancer went to stage 4 and the WMD lies pushed by a revenge driven Gang of Four came in to power with no concept whatsoever of what it means to govern.

The Bush Jr Republican identity has sold the traditional values of fiscal conservancy and small government down the proverbial river - to the point that these are now the claims of centrist Democrats.

Since when did the occupation of sovereign nations, out of control borrow, borrow and borrow and spend budgets and massive new bloated government thats completely out of touch become Republican mainstays ?

Maybe former Republicans cant vote Democratic - but current Republicans can and are. The neocon movement must die.

now to answer the question if i would vote Democrat ! WHY would i even resort to somehing like that! IMO there are no qualifed candidate for the presidency this election.the GOP has a lame duck candidate whom i equate to the “Manchurian Candidate”, the Dems have Hellery & Hussein .
  my only choice as i see it is to write in Ron Paul.

Sveiks Zonie. I don’t envy you any of the options. George actually looks pretty good in comparison, and no - I never was a fan of junior - or senior for that matter. I wish that some country would provide the option of voting for “none of the above” - and am fairly confident - that in many countries that might end up as the most voted for option. I guess you can tell that I am not that politically inclined. In Canada the two top options (quebec excluded) are Liberal or Conservative. I imagine that fundamentally I am more Conservative - but our party has seen significant changes in recent years. So I guessI have been looking for for a new ideology - but don’t like any of the options available.

Zonie, then, the question arises—are you really an independent?

Just like daytime soap opera’s, you come back after a weeks vacation and nothing has progressed on LOL.
The last time I returned from Arizona, (home of “I was a POW” McCain) I made the mistake of lining the bird cage with a Phoenix newspaper and found out how fast one bird can fill up the bottom of the cage.
Talking about Republicans being fiscally responsible is like being an environmentalist driving a Hummer. The only balanced budget from Reagan to the present was Clinton.
I do not see where a person’s middle name has anything to do with politics unless you are trying to show that you are a racist. When they finish building that fence along the border, you could move to the other side and see how they treat you.
I would like to know if you or your parent ever had a racist remark thrown at you for being a foreigner?

my goodness !! my skin is still smoking from being raked over the coals. me a racist , mebbe, mebbe not.just because you call or infer that i am or might be a racist does not make it so . on the other hand you seem to be a tad touchy. i often find that in Liberals or a minority name calling !!! i got called lots of names in my younger days.after i got done whomping some patooties i earned new name. the new name i will not divulge.
  from the gist of your reply to me i get the feeling that you are a Democrat .
  now , if i have hurt your feelings or offended you then i apologize. truly i do !! ;))

Aleksejs , you have to trust me o the question if i really am an INDY. i am a registered Independant .
  of all the candidates from day one there was not one single one i found worthy it is vexing for me to consider to cast my vote for any of them .

I don’t believe that’s what makes an independent. Registered or not. An independent, as the name implies, considers both sides and never votes a straight ticket. That’s an independent. A disillusioned Republican who cannot cast a vote for McCain is not an independent. If anything, he or she is more to the left, or right of McCain, finding his policies too liberal. That person would not be an independent, but rather an ultra-conservative.

Just some thoughts.

to the right of McCain…vai ne.  And Alex is right…you can call yourself whatever you wish…but you don’t look like much of an independent thinker politically to me either.

courlander - 11 March 2008 10:02 AM

I do not see where a person’s middle name has anything to do with politics unless you are trying to show that you are a racist. When they finish building that fence along the border, you could move to the other side and see how they treat you.
I would like to know if you or your parent ever had a racist remark thrown at you for being a foreigner?

It’s funny how people get all bent out of shape over a middle name.  The liberals, of course, have been derisively calling the President of the United States by his middle initial “W” for many years.  Does this make them racist?  Didn’t people call Presidential candidate Henry Perot by his middle name, Ross?  What is the harm?  If B. Hussein Obama were ashamed of his middle name, he could have changed it the moment he became an adult.  There is no shame for a politician to change his name.  Former Democrat Presidential candidate Gary Hart was born Gary Hartpence.  Former U.S. President William Jefferson Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe.  Also, the late President Gerald Rudolff Ford was born Leslie Lynch King, Jr.

Besides, how do you figure “Hussein” to be a racial insult to Obama, who is half-Caucasian and half-African?  One would think that “Hussein” could be more a dig at someone from an Arab background, but it seems nobody is making a big deal out of the Lebanese ancestry of one of the candidates in this year’s race, a man who has run as an Independent, Reform or Green party candidate in the last 5 Presidential elections.

As for the border fence, the saying goes—good fences make good neighbors.  I see no problem with keeping the Mexicans on the Mexican side and Americans on the American side.  If a Mexican wants to come over to the this side of the fence, all they have to do is apply for a visa.  Ditto for the Americans.  In fact, the foreign city most commonly visited by Americans is Tijuana, a short drive from San Diego.  Most Americans I know who have visited Mexico have enjoyed their stay in Mexico.  I’m sorry, Courlander, if you haven’t had a particularly good experience South of the Border.

As for the problem with the illegal aliens crossing from Mexico to the U.S., I propose building internment camps, where several families would have to share a couple of rooms packed into barracks housing hundreds of other people for four years.  Before being allowed to come to America, they would be carefully vetted, make sure they do not belong to any questionable political movements, made to undergo numerous physical exams to make sure they are not carrying any exotic diseases, be required to learn English, prove they have some marketable employment skills, obtain work permits, find sponsors who would vouch for their character and be responsible for their welfare should they be lucky enough to be allowed to enter the USA.  Sound brutal?  It’s nothing more than what my senči had to endure in the D.P. camps before they earned the right to come to America.

As for epithets, the family has endured many.  One of the ones I heard from my mother was the taunt “Lette Lette Zigarette,” that children hurled at her.  Americans have called my family “Krauts.”  I myself have been called “Whitey,” a “Honkey” and a “Cracker,” though I suspect this was more due to the color of my skin.  You did, however, ask about racist remarks.

How about you, Courlander.  Ever have anyone call you any racist remarks?  Do you speak Latvian with the ol’ Ventiņ dialekts, and ever get called out for it?

just wondering,
/R

:-) looks like i have been foundout , or maybe i did not convince anybody of my political leaning . after all , i only have been a INDY for less than a year and my GOP roots must still be showing .
    one thing about politics does drive me up the wall . why do i have to be pigeonholed as to my political beliefs . for instance , i admit to having been a registered Republican , now i am an INDY , i have been called neocon and a whole slew that i have forgotten. I AM A VOTER. i do not need ny tags or labels hung on my beliefs. then i suppose if i don’t vote i will inherit another label . being"a bad egg ” maybe .

I think you pigeonholed yourself when you said that you wouldn’t vote democratic, you didn’t see anyone worthwhile on either of the party tickets, and you said you find Ron Paul closer aligned to your own views. And that would be an ultra-conservative view.

If you had said, for example, I’ll consider all candidates and weigh various issues important to me and vote for anyone (even a democrat) if their views seemed reasonable—that would be an independent. The point with independents is that they don’t subscribe to the party allegiances, nor would they mock seeming opponents (for their name, or whatever) simply because the independents don’t agree with what the opponents stand for…

And we can’t help but using labels - Russian, Latvian, conservative, liberal… after all, a voter is also a label…

Zoni, I for one cannot believe you are an Independent. To mention that word and Ron Paul is an indication of extremism. My bumper sticker says “God IS Not A Republican” .
I have thick skin so you didn’t offend me but in today’s world the way you talk about someone can be offensive. Our local newspapers letters to the editor today was filled with angry responses to western Iowa’s Representative in Congress and his use of “Hussein” in reference to the Iraq war.
Roberts is not in my neighborhood. Obama is not anymore ashamed about his name and heritage then you are about yours and has no reason to change it. The use of his middle name by right wingers is an attempt to associate him with the Arabs and Islam extremists is to develop a hate and that is racism.
Yes Roberts , I have been at the end of racial hatred. While talking to my sister in school in Latvian a sheepdip for brains hollered “Why don’t you damn foreigners go home” and when he got up off the floor ran to the principle and I was suspended for a week for fighting.
I think you should take a course about racism and learn of all the ways it exists.
I went through the DP camp bit myself and several of them had guards to keep the locals from attacking us. My outlook about letting the DP’s come west was that it only was allowed after they found out that there was a worker shortage and our parents would work cheap. Everything else was BS.

I agree with Courlander [clutches heart].

/P