Uncle Sam - Comments

While that is probably true, the point is still a fair one. We spend way too much on our military.

A telling picture about our military spending:



Certainly would have gone up had Romney been elected, but it's still higher than when Bush left office contrary to Obama's promise in 2008.Neither party is interested in being responsible when it comes to spending.

It's funny, no President is ever to blame for their failures, it's always the previous administration's policies that make recovery impossible. While Bush's out of control spending did help create the mess, it goes way deeper than that and much farther back. The fact is spending continues to skyrocket and Obama is showing no signs of fiscal responsibility. His answer is to just print more money, which is a great idea obviously. The health care bill only adds about 200 billion to our spending, and if the government doesn't figure out this tax situation Americans are about to have their tax burden increase dramatically. Always a great thing while trying to recover from a recession.

The more I watch the assholes in Washington screw things up the closer I come to becoming an all out anarcho-capitalist.

For the record, right wing gun owners are not the ones shooting people in the streets.

If the Libertarian party is infected by Republicans looking for a new home, then the true Libertarians will find a new party.

And I don't know if you've been following things over here, but Obama IS bad. This should never have been a race but our country is in such bad shape that the Republicans were able to trot up a candidate like Romney and make it close. The difference was not voters voting FOR Obama, but against Romney. Our national debt is rapidly increasing and Obama's answer is to print more money. His policies have caused the value of our currency to plummet, and with expensive programs like his healthcare bill (which is extremely poor) he shows no signs of being fiscally responsible. The only hope is that the Republican majority in the House will force him to balance the budget, but they are so dead set on wasteful military spending that I have little confidence in that. And speaking of the military, despite his rhetoric to the contrary Obama continues to meddle in foreign affairs and keep our military in parts of the world where we are not wanted, killing innocent civilians and ruining lives.

I am an impartial observer because I detest both Obama and Romney as Presidential candidates. You are assuming Obama is less religiously motivated than Romney for the sole reason that you prefer Obama. Using their rhetoric as a guide, there is no difference between the two when it comes to religion beside the fact that Romney's faith is far less mainstream and is actually contrary to the foundational beliefs of the vast majority of the population. To try and gauge which one is more genuine about their faith is speculation and guesswork.

You are right about how important religion is to a significant portion of the electorate, however. That's why all politicians profess faith and why the Republican party uses it especially to manipulate voters. I don't care what religion a politician associates himself with. He or she could be a fundamentalist Christian, he or she could be a devout Muslim, I couldn't care less. If he or she believed and adhered to Libertarian principles I would vote for them as many times as I possibly could. However, I think you overestimate the overall importance of religion to voters. While you probably can't get elected without saying you are a Christian, you also can't get elected to significant office and be a fundamentalist. That demographic simply isn't large enough to carry anything beyond a local election. See Richard Mourdock in Indiana. The kind of Fundamentalist that you and others try to imply that certain politicians are simply don't get elected. Either you have a misconception of what Fundamentalism is, or you don't fully understand politics in this country. A leaning one way or the other on certain moral issues does not make you a fundamentalist.

As for the direction of the Republican party, it's hard to say. My guess would be that the election was close enough in the popular vote that the party leaders will place the blame on the Romney/Ryan campaign rather than on the party platform. When it comes to winning Presidential elections, catering to the center doesn't really help, at least not for the Republicans. Romney was actually himself an attempt to do that because of his record as Governor of Massachusetts. Bush didn't get elected twice by pandering to the moderates. The key for Republicans in those elections was energizing the small-government base of the party. The Tea Party emerged as a response to Bush's moderate Presidency and a direction that lead to the nomination of a moderate like John McCain. The Tea Party's original vision was a strong one, less government and a non-intrusive foreign policy. My fear about the tea party is that it has been infiltrated by Republicans like Ryan who simply want to manipulate it to their own ends. Ryan clearly wanted to continue the Bush/Obama war mongering, so he is not a genuine Tea Partier. But my guess is that Republicans will focus on their base supporters and try to become more organized in their efforts "on the ground".

It is unfair to label Mitt Romney as religious fundamentalist. That is just more ignorant hyperbole, like calling Obama a Muslim. Most Christians if you pinned them down would admit that Romney is really not even a Christian. Mormon doctrine is incompatible with orthodox Christianity at its foundation, and is considered to be a cult by most Christian sects. It really amuses me when people on both sides of the religion debate use that as a reason not to vote for a candidate. Religion means almost nothing to these candidates, it's merely something they use to manipulate their voter base. Hopefully someday people in this country see through that nonsense and realize that both parties are pushing us closer and closer to the precipice.

In other news, I'll be checking my mailbox for my Obamaphone:

I don't know what's worse, retards posting statues updates and/or tweets declaring the sky is falling because their shitty candidate lost, or dickweeds posting smug comments because their at least as equally shitty candidate won. The hyperbole from both sides is ridiculous. Obama is a wicked antichrist and Romney is a racist who hates poor people. Ffs, fuck off please.

Well it should be neither. The only place where their foreign policy beliefs differ is in the realm of rhetoric.

The projections I have seen show Obama is likely to win.

I actually haven't gotten married yet. May 31. You're all invited.

Yea, but she likes it and she gets what she wants so that I get what I want.

That one's blurry, but she's wearing a VERY sexy top.

It's a frightening thought. But I'm too busy being paralyzed by the fear of Obama winning.

The last polls won't close until like 5am your time, maybe even later. However, most of the swing states are in the east so they might be able to call the election before polls close in California, Hawaii, etc.

A classic example of reductio ad absurdum that supporters of both parties like to engage in.

By the way, I am unashamed to admit that I wanted to do sexual things to Tiffany when that song came out.

Was this a real thing? Because I heard this song played for the first time in like 20 years on Sunday.

This was my favorite picture:

As if either of those are legitimate reasons not to vote for someone. There are plenty of legitimate reasons not to vote for Obama.

I'm a Libertarian in pretty much the strictest sense of the word. I believe government exists to protect me and my stuff from would-be assailants of both foreign and domestic origin. I voted for Gary Johnson today, which is a lot like voting for no one but at least I feel good about it rather than the empty feeling of sadness for having voted for someone like Obama or Romney who is just going to doom us all. Plus if Johnson can manage 5% (unlikely) the party will automatically get placed on several states' ballots and get some federal funding in 2016.

There is a misconception in this thread I feel like I must clear up. Apparently some of you think right-wing politicians are bible thumpers, and left-wingers are gay-loving champions of the poor man. Most are not. They simply project that in order to manipulate their voter base. The left-wingers manipulate the poor and minorities, and the right-wingers manipulate the Evangelicals. Politicians in the USA are mainly concerned with only thing: themselves. They take lorry-loads of money from special interests and they all (with very limited exceptions) tow the party line only because it ultimately increases their own bottom line. 99% of them have no discernible principles and we're all probably screwed because people are blind to it and enjoy being manipulated. Tonight most of the country will watch the election returns and cheer like it's some kind of football match, oblivious to the fact that the candidate they voted for doesn't give two shits about them and is probably going to work tirelessly to ruin their lives.

I bet this is easier for you over there than it is for me. You probably just have to help them understand how to run a training session because most people there already have a working knowledge of the game. When I started that youth club there were a couple of coaches who knew very little about football. I basically had to teach them the game and then run their training sessions for them until they were comfortable. Then I had another coach who even though he never played he thought he knew everything and wanted to implement his own system that was in conflict to the philosophical direction we were trying to take the club. I wanted all of the coaches pulling in the same direction so that the players had continuity from one level to the next but he wanted to pull in his own direction. It was pretty frustrating.

I've coached at various youth levels for about 14 years now. I've coached about every age group from U8 up. I've helped get a youth club started, and I started a program at a Private School which this spring will consist of three teams, a middle school co-ed team (basically U14), and high school boys and girls teams (u-18). It's work, it can frustrating but I've found it incredibly rewarding and I honestly hope that I can do it until I die. Right now I possess a USSF C license, not sure what that is equivalent to for you.

For United States Competitions:

All of the PDL Divisions do not have the short name set, it's still showing as "ADL Whatever Division". It should be, "PDL Whatever Division". Also, it should be "PDL Heartland Division", instead of PDL Hearltand Division (164022).


Competition 72023762 should be
long name: United States Soccer Development Academy
short name: U.S. Soccer Development Academy
3 letter: USD

I don't know if you guys mess with the 3 letter names but there are a couple that should be changed. The NASL (42) 3 letter should be set to NASL. The USL Pro (43) should be set to USL. The PDL (981733) should be set to PDL.