<font color=blue> Yes they took some donations, but the Democrats took as much if not MORE while they were in the White House.</font color=blue>
<font color=blue>I have noticed on other boards, those that have radical leftist/socialist ideals often become abusive or threatning and usually do not identify themselves, or they change their identity often. Wonder why that is?</font color=blue>
Ah yes. Chuck here. Almost the only semi-liberal voice crying in the wilderness it sometimes seems.
First, where are the numbers for the first statement from? At least so far as Enron is concerned, all the numbers I've seen say the Republicans received more total money by quite a bit than did the Democrats. However, like the fella said, a few million here and a few million there....who cares? If one wishes to put the best light on such political contributions, it is only necessary to suggest that the Enron officials involved felt the Republicans might be more business oriented and therefor more inclined to support legislation favorable to them. That makes it much more palatable, doesn't it? However, I would just like to point out that having publicly declared "conservative" ideals is not a guarantee of honesty. I would like to know what was discussed in the Cheney talks with Enron and other energy industry types. I doubt public disclosure would hurt the communication between the administration and those folks, unless they were maybe talking about things they really wouldn't want the public to know. I have a little trouble understanding how one could demand full and complete disclosure of all details of Clinton's *** life and also feel that Vice President Cheney's discussions about public energy policy with energy industry are sacrosanct, as some folks who identify themselves as conservative do, but that probably doesn't apply to anyone here.
Since I am not anonymous I guess the second comment doesn't apply to me. However, again, I would like to point out that these discussions often seem to imply that anyone the least bit liberal in their leanings must be at best non-patriotic and/or a fool who simply does not understand how this country should be run. Complain as we all might about the problems with the Social Security system, it is a fact that many people in this country would have little or nothing to retire on without it. My mother, for example, worked hard to support four children after my father died at 43. She was a bookkeeper for a small company which did not and probably could not have afforded a real retirement plan. Because she has four reasonably successful children, my mother is not totally dependent on SS, but it does give her some independence. There are many, many, many older folks who are <font color=red>totally</font color=red> dependent on SS. Is that good? What is the alternative? Who's fault is it? I think it might be difficult laying all the blame for the demographic and societal changes this country has undergone in the last century at the feet of the "liberals", but by gosh it sometimes seems to me in reading these discussions that not only are all the problems due to the evil liberals, but Bill Clinton himself, or maybe Al Gore, caused it all, perhaps by going back in a time machine to take care of anything they were unfortunate enough to have been born too late to affect in the normal timeline! /w3tcompact/icons/tongue.gif
Chuck
