Maybe if you respected him more it might do wonders for your expectations. Seriously though you think Slander is no big deal?

Bottom line is I don't respect the Bush administration because they don't seem to have any respect for us. I'm only talking about people who live in the United States when I say that. People who don't live in the United States don't even seem to count as human beings to them so I think it would be unfair to even use the word "respect" in that conversation. My father and my grandfather always taught me that respect is earned not just given...no matter who you are or what your title. George W. Bush has done nothing in his life up to this point to earn my respect. To me Pat, respect is a big word and it does not come with any title or any job...and certainly not with any elected office. All elected politicians are first and foremost public servants and it is THEIR JOB to earn our respect each and every day they SERVE US.      

Here's where you go wrong and it is where most liberals go wrong. They can't understand our feelings and beliefs could be possibly be ingrained without either a)Questioning my intelligence or b)right wing radio caused it. I have always felt this way Reg...ALWAYS. Why do you think Hillary is running for the center. I tell you why, because the left wing base will never win an election in the United States. They can't win on their own agenda because Red America does not buy into it so they only attack the other side instead of offering viable solutions

The bit I wrote that said:

"You learned and adopted your beliefs. They don't belong to you."

Was not really directed at you specifically, Pat. It's the signature I put in my DBIS profile. Dan gave us a couple options to put a picture and a little line to sort of personalize our posts. I still don't know how to do the picture thing but I did add that line the other day. I'm gonna remove it though now. I'm happy you caught it and read it though. Now you've given me a chance to talk about it. I am not questioning your intelligence with that remark, that's not at all what it's about. I'm not trying to tell you I think you get all your ideas from right wing radio. Those little lines are sort of a reminder to myself and what I'm saying I think is very true. I'm saying that all of our beliefs, for most of us, are learned as we grow and are adopted as our own. 

For example, before you existed fire was hot. You believe it's hot now but that belief does not belong to you, it existed before you were born. 

You might be part of some religious group. A catholic, baptist, jew, muslim...whatever...but they all existed before we got here so you adopted one of these as your own and call the belief yours.

You are most likely to adopt beliefs that are popular in the country where you are raised. None of the beliefs are really yours, you learned about them at some stage and took them as your own because they resonate with you somehow. 

Now, answer me this...how many things that you believe are yours and yours alone...that you came up with?

Would you agree that all the ways you see the world were thought up before you got here and you've gone through a process by which you narrowed your worldview down to the beliefs you feel the closest to? Hence, you've adopted these beliefs as your own.

To take it a step farther, to find out who Pat Brown really is you'd have to strip away all those things that other people just passed down, all those beliefs that belonged to someone else before you adopted them as your own, and then see what really is left that is Pat Brown. Of course whatever is left also would not be called Pat Brown because that too was just given to you.

Peace my friend.