Like what?

Not so much a shortboard anymore... my thrust-to-weight ratio kinda went downhill - lol. I can still do a longboard though.

My home beach was Ave I in Redondo... but I got around. Portuguese Bend or White's Point if I wanted to catch those southern swells.

I've been in Philadelphia for the past 18 months working on a project. So no ski slopes or waves for me. How long has it been for you?

First of all, I register as "unaffiliated" because I don't support ANY party. I take position on issues not parties. That being said, I *do* support legal abortion in the first trimester. My reasoning is going to sound ironic to you but I think in the big picture legal abortion, saves more lives.


I make no such assumptions about my wisdom OR my creator.


Are you assuming I don't believe in God? Did I *SAY* I don't believe in God? I was talking about religion, not faith. Some of us can tell the difference.


No offense, but I have too much respect for God to make the arrogant assumption that He can be qualified in a book of stories written by grungy Semites. I say the same about the Koran, which also claims to be an "authority" on God.


Well, now that I know your view of God is dictated by the men who wrote the Bible, let me just say I disagree. What seems obvious to me is that you think being good is submitting to the control of other men. Have fun with that.


Again, we have very different views on this. I think YOU are the one supporting the killing of the unborn by sweeping the issue under the rug. That's essentially all prohibition does. It takes a complete moron to think that people stop doing things just because they're illegal. Women get abortions because they get pregnant when they don't want to and that can be a desperate situation for them. I don't see ANY effort by the anti-choice assholes to actually prevent that from happening (other than demanding abstinence, which is downright naive). 100% of their organized efforts are focused on prohibition which will force uncounted mothers in desperation to abort in the shadows, more likely in later trimesters. But hey... out of sight, out of mind, right?


I certainly don't think I have control over my destiny. I think I can influence it to some degree (and I have) but I can't "control" it. But you got the first part right. The way I see it, we are ALL our own ultimate authorities. YOU answer to the Church because YOU decided to submit. You have no obligation to do so, it was your own choice. Be a man and embrace that. Take some responsibility for yourself for crying out loud.



Is that "obvious" to you because you think the only way anyone can possibly believe in an afterlife is if they submit themselves to religion? Truth is, I don't think I know and I'm ok with that.


I don't think I have to "worship" anyone. I can respect things without having to worship them. Religion is a man-made power structure designed to control you and it gets in the way of any direct relationship with God. I'm thoroughly convinced that I have a closer, more direct relationship with God than you do... I think your reverence for God is hijacked by mortal men who use religion to control you.

BTW, this was the same point the reformist made about the Catholic and Anglican Churches during the Renaissance.


Yeah, I'm not falling for that BS. If you want to control me with fear use a gun.


I make no such assumptions. And I'm getting a little tired of YOU telling ME what I think and how wrong I am. It's incredibly arrogant of you.


Here's what's going to happen... God and I will sit down and light up a joint and have a little chat. He will remind me of that time I ran into that little man who lectured me.

God - "I'm glad you didn't fall for his crap."
Me - "Yeah, me too."
God - "I'm glad you didn't fall for any of those idiot bible-thumpers. BTW - Did you read the Bible?"
Me - "Dude - you KNOW I did"
God - (laughing) "Yeah, I just act like I'm not omnipresent for the sake conversation."
Me - "uh-huh"
God - "It's really a stupid book, isn't it?"
Me - "I always thought so."
silence
Me - "God, why DO you make people so stupid?"
God - "I give everyone brains but it's up to them to use it... Ya know... free will and all that BS".

Now here's the thing, tbut... There is NO reason why YOUR story is any more probable than mine. You've just been programmed to believe in ONE of thousands of stories humans have told about the afterlife from cavemen to you.



Me - "are you actually calling him?"
God - "shhh!"
ring, ring...
Devil - "Hello?"
God - "Hi this is Amazon Prime, there's a problem with a delivery... someone who logs on OPP as tbutkovich"
Devil - "Yeah, WTF?"
God - "It seems he cast the Bible aside and switched his brain on, so..."
Devil - "That's BS!!! He's mine! Hook line and sinker!"
God - "Well, if you hold I can connect you to the false profit help desk."
Devil - "NOOOO!"
click
Me - ha, ha, ha!
God - "'drives him nuts."

True Story - if you don't believe it you will burn in hell. ;)

LOL - good question!

Speaking for myself, I consider a good person, anyone who treats others as he would treat himself.

yup, pretty much.


It depends on how you look at it. Back in the agrarian age power was held mostly by the aristocracy per their land titles with the "royal" family owning the top level title ie... "England". A monarchy is the ultimate "private property" title. When an entire country is your private property, you can call yourself a king. There are very few monarchies that retain that kind of power today... Saudi Arabia being one of them. So from this perspective, you can certainly say the monarchy in England is not what it used to be. (Thank God).

Thing is... we live in a different age now where most of the power is held by capitalists per their investments. So from this perspective, any of the aristocratic families that managed to convert their power to investment holdings are still in the game and that goes for the House of Windsor, who happen to be very powerful capitalists. This form of power is not as overt as the pomp of aristocracy. Capitalism is more fluid and obscure. But for the benefit of tradition, that pomp has been preserved symbolically in the monarchy. The Queen is the symbolic head of state, not just for England but all of Britain, Canada, Australia and many other former land titles.

It's really not such a bad deal for any of these countries, the queen can handle all the ceremonies etc, expected from a head of state so the prime ministers can focus on on the work of government. In the U.S. the president is expected to do both. It's more expensive for Americans too because unlike the UK, where the royal family owns (and covers the expenses for) all their facilities, including Buckingham palace, American tax-payers have to cover the presidential expenses of the White House, Airforce One, and a $400K salary on top of that.


Yeah, that's cool... We're good.

This is probably the 5th time that I've seen you do this. LOL... So, were you one of those kids in grade school that went around spreading rumors about other kids behind their backs? Ya know, it's kind of a weasel thing to do.

But since you brought it up... Sure, I immigrated here from the UK with my parents when I was a baby. If we came illegally I would be what you call a Dreamer. But not only did we come here legally, we were invited here because the U.S. aerospace industry was desperate for qualified engineers, which they had to get from Europe. My dad was one of them. In fact, they gave him citizenship and national security clearance almost immediately.

I had to wait until I turned 18 to naturalize as a U.S. citizen, which means I had to pass that U.S. civics test that natural born citizens are not required to take but studies have found that when they do the vast majority of them fail miserably.

But enough about me... Let's talk about what America had to overcome to become a constitutional republic (which is not a proper noun, so you don't have to capitalize).

Let's start with the fact that Britain was already a constitutional monarchy, where the king might have been the head of state but the government was controlled by representatives in Parliament and the biggest influence on those representatives was the merchant class that basically owned the colonies through corporate charters.

What this means is that before America became a republic or even a sovereign nation it was a profit seeking business and as such, many unfair policies were deployed, mostly based on maximizing profit for the owners at the expense of both the colonists in America producing the raw material and the workers producing finished products in Britain (where the Industrial Revolution was already starting). And if that wasn't bad enough, Britain was also starting it's abolition movement which threatened to squeeze the plantations even more.

So... some local slave-owning businessmen got together and started forming a resistance movement. This created a division on both sides of the pond as the conservatives (Tories) we're concerned about protecting the business and the liberals (Whigs) were excited about sticking it to the Tories.

The resistance movement gathered momentum (at least among the Whigs) and recruited militias from 13 of the 29 colonies then wrote an FU letter to the king. So the king sent in some troops that basically kicked ass, but then the French, who were still smarting from losing the last war to Britain saw the opportunity to screw them out of their colonies... So THEY sent in some troops and advisors and that changed the game. In response, the king (who was actually German) hired some German mercenaries (Hessians) to supplement his regiments and of course all the slaves that weren't chained down jumped on the British side. There was a bunch of smoke and blood and flags and eventually, The redcoats cut their losses and left. Kinda like we did in Vietnam and for much the same reason. Political pressure. The Whigs (in Britain) were opposed to the war.

I know this isn't the version you're familiar with and it makes sense that it wouldn't be. Most countries resulting from a revolution take the same approach to their own history... The revolution is always glorious and the peasants always drive the highly trained military forces out with their pitchforks and the will of God. It's just not a proper birth of nation if it doesn't in some way retell the story of David and Goliath.

In any case, we're not at the republic yet. The second part of what America had to "overcome", was the disputes among their own leaders as to how to take over the business. They needed a new system of authority to replace the Crown. But should that be left up the 13 colonies states as individual sovereignties? Or should they go with a confederacy, which was kind of the default at the time?

In the end, they decided on a more centralized but federated government. So the next question... Monarchy or republic? Indeed, there was a serious argument for making George Washington the new King of America, which invalidates all that glorious nonsense about the revolution being a war against monarchy. They decided to make Washington a president, thereby making the new nation a republic. (Republic = ANY form of government where the head of state is an elected president).

Everything else they pretty kept the same but with new names... so the House of Lords became the Senate and the House of Commons became the House of Representatives... Common Law of course and a judicial branch to uphold it. A Constitution with a Bill of Rights... all adopted from the old British system in the interest of minimizing disruption to the business they were now in charge of.

A few years later the Tories became Federalists with close ties to the British corporations that continued to profit from the plantations even though they could no longer force their will through the Crown.

In the end, nothing really changed. America is still primarily a business where we toil under a centralized authority that serves the corporations that serve the wealthy class. Maybe we're a little more delusional now because we are told we can vote, but being flooded with so much misinformation, many of us don't really know if we are actually voting in our interest or against our interests and half of us don't even bother. We don't even elect our president... the EC does... on behalf of Congress. Technically, a vote for the president is a vote for which party gets the electoral vote for your district, but the EC can still dissent, so ultimately we get what we get... and how different is that really from a monarchy?

LOL... Some people need more guidance than others... I don't need religion or political affiliation to tell me how to be a good person and that doesn't make me a Man God, it just makes me low-maintenance. ;)

Whatever you want to call it.


Be specific Flo... your broad generalizations and gut feelings aren't proving any points. What is the science about the unborn that the left isn't "bending" to?


Not when Republicans keep cutting education budgets and limiting curriculums to exclude critical thinking and creativity.


Yeah, they're perfectly satisfied with their anemic salaries.


EVERYONE does! Are you not getting this? I just asked you to be more specific and I even gave you an example of a more specific argument about this. But you can't can you? You're basically making excuses for for false impressions so you CAN'T get any more specific without screwing that up.


Of course we do... the difference is that we would like to give ALL children an even start with the basics so they can make their own choices when it's time for specific studies to qualify for careers of their choice. On the right, it's the parents making the decisions for their children when they are too young to know any better.

Both my kids went to public school to learn the basics. Then they went on to choose their own paths, picking universities that offered what they were looking for.


So are we talking about scoffing or forcing? Make up your mind. Yes, some people on the left scoff at religion but they aren't forcing people to give it up. And evangelicals might not be forcing people to convert but they DO scoff at the non-believers.

So again... your words are utterly pointless.


Dissent can be defined as a threat to power and control. You just said all politicians want control then tried to imply that only the left and Islam allow no dissent. Look, I keep forgetting this about you. You're arguments are based on your rabid emotions, making any rational argument impossible. So I'm going to leave now, further convinced of my own conclusions.

Have a nice day Flo.

Oh and the right doesn't? Ha, ha! Let's not be idiots... anyone involved in politics wants control.


It's always government Flo... Whether it's the clerics or elected legislators, they always do it through some form of government. Even the Papacy is a form of government.


Everyone does that in one way or another... I bet you can't be any more specific. ;) I can because I'm not promoting BS like you are. The left recognizes the differences between people as a matter of consideration while including them in society. The right separates people based on their differences as a matter of exclusion and often times, targeting. The left promotes cultural co-existence, religion doesn't. The right promotes cultural purity and so does religion. The left accepts the existence of homosexuality, the right (including the religious (Muslim or Christian) do not. The left accepts women as equals, the right (including the religious (Muslim or Christian) do not. I can go on and on, but I think you get the point.


Oh, but not the conservatives who will never, ever send their kids to public school, right?

BTW, the only thing the left "dicatates" is that education is based on the scientific method, which is a way for people to think for themselves. Religion on the other hand "dictates" by convention, so that people DON'T think for themselves.

Throughout history religion has always been opposed to independent thought and the knowledge that results, from the time Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge and got punished for it, to the house arrest of Galileo for suggesting the Earth revolves around the Sun, to the humorous efforts made today to make biblical claims look like science.

You can go to Iran and see the same contention we see here between secularism and science on the left and the religious attempt to monopolize ideas on the right. Listing off characteristics common to all forms of politics does nothing to disprove that.

This is a problem that often occurs when socialists and capitalists compromise. A capitalist will always charge as much as the consumer can afford. So if a socialist subsidizes a consumer so they can afford something without going broke, the capitalist will adjust and charge more. You don't need a socialist in the picture either. Private insurance companies do the same thing with the same results.


I'm aware that there are numerous coronavirus-related bills in both the House and in Senate right now. I am also aware of the "Democratic Pork" rumors which never appear anywhere but in right-wing fringe sites that are sure to add "Wuhan" to the name of the virus and the supposed number of pages (always good for an outrage) in "the" bill but fail to include any direct reference to the actual legislation.

So, let me ask you something... Which specific bill do you think you are referring to? And how many pages are there in that bill? Are you going to tell me it's exactly 1,400 pages because that's what the rumor mill says or are you going to actually verify by looking at actual the bill?


That's just a matter of individual personality and has no consistent correlation to economic status. Try not to overcomplicate things... The difference between rich and poor is how much money they have.


I agree. The difference between us is that I'm willing to walk the walk but you're only willing to talk the talk. As an anti-Federalist I have often stated that we should get rid of the federal government and the response from all those "small-government" conservatives is always the same... "Oh, well we can't actually get rid of it."

So if you can talk the talk but can't walk the walk, then I don't know what to tell you.

Yeah, you wouldn't want them to learn anything you don't approve of. Knowledge is a threat to any system of oppression and religion has always been the best way to safeguard against it. Muslim extremist group, Boko Haram literally translates to "education is evil". You folks have a lot in common, you should do a meetup or something.

First of all, it would take more than a few minutes to "check" enough posts to make any assessment worth mentioning. At most, I could confirm that there ARE some hate posts from the left, just as there are hate posts from the right. I suspect you NOTICE it more when it comes from the left because those are the ones that piss you off. Maybe I suffer from the same situation.

But in the wider world there are some very real references that prove my point. For one, there is the overwhelming popularity of American right-wing political sites that webmasters in Russia syndicate as click-bait. They overwhelmingly choose right-wing media content because it attracts more traffic than liberal media does. We also see this in the fact that Fox News continues to attract more viewers than any of the liberal media stations.

Now, I've listened to Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones... I've read articles by Ann Coulter... these are hateful people with hateful things to say. While liberals like Bill Mahr, Jon Stewart and Stephen Cobert might crack jokes about the right, these right-wing lunatics I just mentioned are shaking the cages furiously... spewing out lies, insults and... well vitriol.

Then there's the hate speeches. Notice how every case is the same? It's always the liberals calling out the hate speech and it's always the right reacting defensively by saying it's not hate speech or by inciting their 1st Amendment right to say whatever they want. It's never the other way around. That's because there's never enough evidence to justify a court procedure on leftist hate speech. In contrast, there's a long, long list of cases involving right-wing hate speech.

OK... and how does that change anything I've said.


First of all I'm not a millennial, although I have a son and a daughter who ARE millennials and they both went to college as did I. All of us went to community college first, and all of us worked jobs to help pay our way and but unlike me when my kids got to university they found that jobs didn't pay enough to cover it.

Now, I don't know how old you or your daughters are but I went to college in the 80's and my kids went to college within the last 10 years and the difference is mind-boggling. I didn't have to take out loans because in the 80's tuition could be covered with entry-level wages but these variables have changed drastically. Tuitions have skyrocketed and far beyond the the reach of a minimum wage job.

I gotta say, I get little tired of old geezers lecturing young people on what is when they think it's still 1975.

BTW, My son followed my footsteps and got a degree in computer science and my daughter is studying law. Those are not the easiest path (which happens to be a business degree).


I might if it were true. Have you even looked at the bill? I'd be willing to bet $5 right now, you haven't. If you have you would know that there's a slew of bills related to covid-19, not just one. Go to www.senate.gov and look up coronavirus and see for yourself. Let me know if you see ANYTHING about debt forgiveness or funding for abortion.

The problem is that the Democrats know Republicans are trying to take advantage of the people so they are trying to add stipulations to insure we don't get ripped off and instead of just agreeing to be fair the Republicans are playing the smoke and mirrors game while right wing media is just tossing out nuggets they think conservatives can latch on to, like funding abortion and free money for lazy liberals. It's all BS.

Go to the senate site. Look up the bills and stop drinking that damned Kool-Aid.


Again, that provision doesn't exist. But I'm curious about your reaction to the idea. I applaud you and your wife for the sacrifices you made. My wife and I made sacrifices too. It's what parents do. But are you really opposed to student loan forgiveness just because YOU didn't get it? Are you pissed off because you had to make sacrifices so now you want everyone else to make them too?


That's not taxation without representation you drama queen. The senators YOU voted for are in there fighting over the bill right now. Representation doesn't necessarily mean getting your way... it means you have someone fighting for you and maybe he wins, maybe he loses. Either way, you're still being represented.

For the sake of reference, there are millions of resident aliens that have to pay taxes just like we do but they don't get to vote. THAT is taxation without representation.


Again, that provision doesn't exist. So, I guess you are outraged by your own delusion and your self-centered obsession with what you think other people are getting. I'm not bothered by the the idea of debt forgiveness even though I had to work for every penny I spent on my own education. The way I see it, anything that makes a college education accessible to as many Americans as possible is an investment in my future. When I get older and more dependant on professional services provided by a younger generation, I want my choice of doctors to be determined by their ability not the wealth of their families.


The uptighty-righties need to grow up and stop freaking out about what they think other people are getting.


It's education dingbat, not a car. Their education is in YOUR best interest. It's the difference between living in a society filled with uneducated ditch diggers or a society filled with capable professionals. Your choice.


I figured you were at least in your 70's. Good luck with your retirement plans.

Who says? I haven't actually researched that specific question but I know that most of western Europe is just as diverse as we are, if not more. I also know that India, the world's largest democracy, is incredibly diverse. They have 24 different languages. Not dialects... languages! So, get real.


I can't tell if you're being serious.

No, I'm not. Have you read any of the threads on this site? That's just a small sample. In fact, I'm convinced that a lot of the support for Trump is pure spite. I know so many Trump supporters that don't like Trump but they hate the Democrats more.

Just so you know, I don't think it's a one-sided deal. I think it's more a matter of extreme than it is a matter of which side, but I do get the sense that if the left is 80% moderate and 20% extreme, it's the other way around on the right with 80% extreme and 20% moderate.

This is just my opinion based on personal observations.