TV Ads Advocate 'Amend for Arnold'
Schwarzenegger backers campaign to change the U.S. Constitution on presidential eligibility.
By Robert Salladay
Times Staff Writer

November 13, 2004

SACRAMENTO — Television ads supporting a constitutional amendment that would allow Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other foreign-born citizens to run for president will begin appearing next week on cable stations across California, a newly formed group based in Silicon Valley announced Friday.

The ads feature Lissa Morgenthaler-Jones, a mutual fund manager from the Bay Area and major donor to Schwarzenegger's campaign, telling viewers: "You cannot choose the land of your birth. You can choose the land you love."

It's the first large-scale effort to generate public support for allowing Schwarzenegger to run for president. The Republican governor, who was born in Austria, has said he would be interested in running if the law allowed him, but Article 2 of the U.S. Constitution requires presidents to be "natural born" citizens. He has not actively pushed the subject, but others have.

"Twelve million people have chosen America. Now America wants to choose them," the TV ads say, referring to the number of naturalized citizens. "Help us amend the Constitution…. Help us amend for Arnold."

Morgenthaler-Jones is helping finance the effort and already has a website — http://www.amendfor arnold.com — supporting Schwarzenegger and others who might qualify. Her group said the ads will run on cable TV in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Sacramento, Stockton and Los Angeles starting Monday. The size of the ad purchase was unclear.

The group has an uphill job: Public opinion polls show weak support for changing the Constitution to accommodate Schwarzenegger. Congress recently held its first hearing on the subject since the 1870s but did not advance any of the four proposals circulating to amend the Constitution. If Congress did approve the measure, 38 states also would have to ratify it.

Schwarzenegger, who came to the U.S. in 1968 and became a citizen in 1983, has said he thinks immigrants who have lived in the country for a long time should be allowed to run for president. "There are so many people in this country that are now from overseas, that are immigrants, that are doing such a terrific job with their work, bringing businesses here, that there's no reason why not," he told NBC.

No.

No.

People born here already have a hard enough time getting elected.

No, for what jsk2001 said

If you've lived the majority of your life here, there's no reason they shouldn't be able to run. I do however believe that we need more then a two-party system or at least a more direct democracy when it comes to creating/repealing laws. Getting a law passed just requires a majority of the 536 federal politicians (435 reps, 100 sen, 1 president). It's far too easy for big business to buy their own laws and corrupt our politicians.

P.S. Demolition Man is coming true! Dinner and dancing at Taco Bell soon!

No, no, no, no, no.

Why is it that the Republicans bitch about Hollywood, but yet want to change the frigging Constitution to put an action hero in the White House?

Great...now they want to outsource the president's job, too.

FACE IT! the constitution is no more than kindling for congressional fires and toilet paper for capitol hill bathrooms.

I've grown up a massive patriot, but i no longer think democracy exists here.

If people need to be cajolled with marketing blitzes to think the way you want them to.. it is no longer a free democracy, but a neofascist regime.



I personally dont believe anyone who has not been raised in this nation fully understands the american concept of freedom, but I'm also not sure we really win from excluding potentally better candidates, like those brave marchers from tiennenmen square who actually KNOW what it is to fight for their freedom.

I'm not totally against this idea, but i DONT think republicans should be writing it.

I personally would lend more support to lowering the age requirement for presidential candidates substantially.

I don't appreciate the ancient ones who watched the dinasaurs rise from the primordial ooze determining regulation of information superhighways whose structure, use, and infinite potential they can't comprehend.

I agree with awehr when s/he writes "FACE IT! the constitution is no more than kindling for congressional fires and toilet paper for capitol hill bathrooms."

The USA is governed by individuals and corporations with lots o' bucks. That is the governing class in the USA and just about every major public policy decision in the USA is left to Big Business to decide either directly or indirectly. There is essentially no power in the hands of the people (with a little 'p' ).

However, I do not think that the USA regime is a fascist one - Fascism comes from the idea of bringing the people together into an unbreakable whole. It comes from the Latin/Italian word for a bundle of sticks (related to the English word "faggot" ). The concept being that a bundle of sticks is more difficult to break than a single branch. In and of itself, the concept of assembling the people into a united, solid whole is not bad, BUT it also brings in rascism and xenophobia (those other guys can't be in our bundle of sticks because they are not made of the right wood) and that is where Fascism goes horribly wrong. The people governing the USA are not interested in assembling the population into an unbreakable whole, from my point of view they are interested in dividing and subjugating the population in order to make sure that they (the governing class) remain rich and get richer. The USA is not a democracy and it is not fascist, it is a simple Oligarchy motivated by greed. IMHO it has more to do with feudalism than fascism.

Anyway, in a sense it does not matter if Arnold can be president or not. The amount of money that he has amassed and his marriage (another thing that has been used since time immemorial for achieving power) has already elevated him into the oligarchy. The rest is just a matter of public recognition of his status within the oligarchy. This recognition can give him a warm, fuzzy feeling, but it does not change the situation that he is in the ruling class.

This issue of whether or not foreign-born people can be president of the USA is just a show to occupy the American public, to keep them focussed on something that does not seriously matter, to keep them sedated and in their place. It is similar to any other reality-tv-show drivel. There are much more important issues for Americans to worry about.

"Fascism comes from the idea of bringing the people together into an unbreakable whole."

I suppose using specifically engineered marketing to manipulate the public into a "solid whole" in order to foist your agenda on nations or the planet as a whole is not fascism?

this marketing is not persuasion, it is developed by highly paid professional psychiatrists, behavioralists, anthropologists, and sociologists using research designed to boil down human motivations to their smallest common denominators, or "triggers" which can then be flipped using subtle technique.

Much like hypnosis, but a lot more subtle.

a fictioinal example is as gaelin says in babylon 5.. the proverbial set of words that will make a person love you, guaranteed.

check this out:

http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~awehr/brainwash-The-Battle-For-Your-Mind.mp3

i believe the "repetitive montra chanting" "abnormally high amounts of fear, tension, anger, or discomfort" apply here, as well as the presentation of elements the parties want to remove from society as an "immanent and tremendous threat" to our security or economy, presenting their way as the only way of cathariss..

this worked with the jews in the 1930's, and its working for the RIAA with filesharing as well as the republicans with liberals.

awehr - what I meant is that the USA is not a fascist regime in the classical and idealistic sense of what fascism is about. (Also, I am not a fan of fascism in any flavor, idealistic or otherwise.) You are right, the governing forces in the USA want to gather the people into a bundle but not too make a stronger nation (as classical fascism would promote). The people governing the USA want to have the population at large in a bundle because it is easier to control a homogeneous, hypnotized population. To me that is simply oligarchy and avarice and not really fascism. The ruling class just wants to make sure that its position of power is safe. I do not think they are thinking about anything more complex than lining their pockets and making sure that when they go to sleep at night and then wake up in the morning, their position is safe and sound.

You are right about the various messages sent out into the general public in the USA - they are developed by people who have studied well how to control societies and it is being used by the ruling class in the USA to keep the population of the USA submissive and sedated.

Thank you for the link, I have downloaded it and I have listened to a little of it but since it is about 33 minutes long, I do not have the chance to go through it all right now. But already from the general message, I think that you are right - the ruling class in the USA is definitely using these tactics (just look at what is on TV or Radio or available from RIAA-approved artists) to control the population so that they can assure their situation. Thanks for posting this link.

Kind of reminds me of the Roman Empire saga.....

It seems that at the end, the Romans grew so lazy and corrupt that they outsourced practically everything that resembled effort....Including their own defense.

The results were that the outsourced army joined the agressors from their homeland to invade and destroy the city of Rome.....Only then did the people of Rome realize that they had a serious problem.

Definitely NO.

George, your responses are so funny, but right on the mark! You, too, pinemikey - "outsourcing the presidency"! LOL

Just as fredde (above) said, I believe that the Republicans (ruling class), for example, repeated their mantra to the masses over the past year. They were successful. They used fear. Fear of change (in the war on terrorism, allowing gays to marry, immorality to flourish, social security, health insurance, minimum wage). Now Bush keeps talking about spending "capital" everywhere.

gdziemann wrote: "Public office should be like jury duty -- forced, not funded.

When two guys spend a total of a billion dollars competing for a job that only pays $400k a year, it sets a precedent of stupidity. Can you imagine if you had to pay $100,000 to get a minimum wage job at McDonalds?"

I suppose what i would describe would be properly termed neofascism.

It is about ideology though, not just money. Far right christians and neocons want society to hold certain values in order to satisfy their limited ideals of utopia. (perfect christian society, or american as the new roman empire respectively)

Here's why.

Google: Prescott Bush Nazi


Google holds the mysteries of the Universe. And I deal in the obvious.
And I am not a democrat. Never was. I am a man of few words and constant sorrow.

They are back.

This country would have been fascist long ago, with the likes of Henry Ford, Joseph P Kennedy, and Prescott Bush running around.

Who stopped them? Basically one man.

lol... ?

Who stopped them, leflaw? FDR?

You forgot to mention that Charles Lindbergh was part of that group. He wanted to get elected President and appease Hitler. In fact, I think he actually believed the drivel that came out of Hitler's mouth.

I don't think we should change the Constitution to allow Arnold to run. That just opens the door for others foreign born to run and, potentially, to support their homeland. It could very well be a tool used by the terrorists. Just get a wealthy person of the likes of Bin Ladin to come over and become a citizen, act normal for about 20 years, then get elected president. Then he'd control the friggin' army and could convince Congress that a threat exists (hey, our current President managed to do that) and use that army, potentially against non-Muslims. Then things get really bad and our hypothetical president dissolves Congress and becomes a dictator.

It's the one thing this country has managed to avoid for the past 225 years. Look at other countries that have fallen to coups, both bloody and bloodless, and become dictatorships. In almost every case, the person who took over wasn't even a citizen of the country they were taking over! Most often, these dictators had moved to France or some other Western European country because they hated the conditions in their own. To show how bad they hated their homeland, they'd dissolve allegiance to that country and become a citizen of their new home. Twenty years down the line, having got an education from their new home, they go back and take over their old home, even though they're no longer a citizen there.

Closer to home, we can look no futher than our friends down in Mexico. 140 years ago, they had the notion to become an empire. But instead of a native Mexican citizen taking the throne of this new empire, a native Austrian citizen (one of the old Austrian princes) was appointed to the throne, with French backing, of course. And, as many of us know, once the North won the Civil War, the Mexicans got smart (well, we helped) and got rid of their Austrian ruler.

Must we go through the same thing? Must we allow the foreign born, those who still may have lingering thoughts of their homeland, to lead us? It may be ok for a naturalized citizen to represent a district of people, or even a whole state (the voters elect them, afterall), but the entire nation? Can anyone actually believe that voters in all 50 states and the District of Columbia would elect a foreign born president? I think not.

"New York attorney Jacob Chaitkin, father of coauthor Anton Chaitkin, took the cases of many different bondholders who rejected the swindle by Harriman, Bush, Warburg, and Hitler. Representing a women who was owed $30 on an old steamship bond--and opposing John Foster Dulles in New York municipal court--Chaitkin threatened a writ from the sheriff, tying up the 30,000 ton transatlantic liner Europa until the client received her $30. (New York Times, January 10, 1934, p. 31 col. 3).

The American Jewish Congress hired Jacob Chaitkin as the legal director of the boycott against Nazi Germany. The American Federation of Labor cooperated with Jewish and other groups in the anti-import boycott. On the other side, virtually all the Nazi trade with the United States was under the supervision of the Harriman interests and functionaries such as Prescott Bush, father of President George Bush."

http://www.tarpley.net/bush2.htm

Is Chaitkin the hero that you are referring to, leflaw?

My prediction. Keep your antenna alert for a full-scale blitz of Fox advertising promoting Schwartzenegger Brand.

I will take a page from the evangelism crowd and pray for Rupert Murdoch's death. I don't think much of the weak genetic inheritance of his son Lachlan.

The more you find out about Murdoch, the more you realize some horrible movie plot straight out of The Manchurian Candidate. (Or a Citizen Kane media magnate creating a clueless rube like Lindberg as a front for Fascist interests---)

So consider the ironies of the following plot. Murdoch violated US rules for ten years (that foreign owners cannot control networks)--before someone in Congress got around to asking about his citizenship. Never mind that he created Maggie Thatcher and got her elected... Next he turned his attentions to subverting America.

In the last month, Murdoch's News Corps has finalized the business details to become a US corporation. Does changing his own citzienship or creating phony corporate front groups blind anyone to the global schemes he pursues? (People like Kissinger and Murdoch sell out what's best for America by placing the intersts of corrupt Chinese communists first) (James Baker and Poppy Bush long ago sold out America to the Saudi royalty.)

Consider the long odds against electing a weighlifting bikini-wax steroid-eating Nazi rapist. Stranger things have happened--look at Bedtime with Bonzo in the White House. That was a Mafia MCA production.

People talk about Godwin's Law without nailing it down. Since I use Nazi comparisons a lot...I got interested in what it really says.
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/legends/godwin/
"I. The Basics
1. What is Godwin's Law?

Godwin's Law is a natural law of Usenet named after Mike Godwin
(godwin@eff.org) concerning Usenet "discussions". It reads, according to
the Jargon File:

As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison
involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.


2. What does it mean?

It pretty much means exactly what it says - as a Usenet thread
goes on, the chances of somebody or something being compared to a Nazi
approach one.


3. Yes, but what does it *mean*?

Aah, now *there's* the real question.

In case your head has been buried in the sand for the last sixty
years or so, the Nazis were a German political party lead by Adolf Hitler
that slaughtered upwards of ten million people that didn't meet their
standards of "ethnic purity" and set off to conquer Europe and the world
in World War II. They are generally considered the most evil group of
people to live in modern times, and to compare something or someone to
them is usually considered the gravest insult imaginable.

As a Usenet discussion gets longer it tends to get more heated; as
more heat enters the discussion, tensions get higher and people start to
insult each other over anything they can think of. Godwin's Law merely
notes that, eventually, those tensions eventually cause someone to find
the worst insults that come to mind - which will almost always include a
Nazi comparison.


4. That still doesn't answer my question. What does it *MEAN*?

The Law is generally used on Usenet as an indicator of whether a
thread has gone on too long, who's playing fair and who's just slinging
mud, and who finally gets to "win" the discussion. It has, over time,
become the closest thing to an impartial moderator that Usenet can get.

So, what this means in practical terms:

o If someone brings up Nazis in general conversation when it
wasn't necessary or germane without it necessarily being an
insult, it's probably about time for the thread to end.
o If someone brings up Nazis in general conversation when it
was vaguely related but is basically being used as an insult,
the speaker can be considered to be flaming and not debating.
o If someone brings up Nazis in any conversation that has been
going on too long for one of the parties, it can be used as
a fair excuse to end the thread and declare victory for the
other side.


5. So - *WHAT DOES IT MEAN*?

Fine, fine - it means that somebody's eventually going to say
something about the Nazis in any thread that lasts very long. When it
happens, the thread is going to start either degenerating into a long
flamewar over Nazi Germany or about Godwin's Law. Either way, the thread
is effectively over, and you can safely killfile the thread and move on.


II. What does it mean?
1. Didn't we already spend the last section talking about this?

Well, yeah, but people don't seem to get the point...


2. What happens if we're actually talking about Nazis?

Then you've already invoked Godwin's Law, and the chances are that
your thread isn't going to last all that much longer as a sane discussion.
Them's the breaks.

That isn't to say, of course, that you can't talk about Nazis and
such on Usenet - this *is* Usenet, after all, where virtually every
conversation that goes on is fairly ludicrous in the first place. It's
just going to take you a lot more effort to find real information out of
there and to avoid getting yourself off on side-threads - which you'll
eventually do regardless, but you can try to put it off.

This also applies if a thread mutates into an actual discussion of
Nazis, of course. "
==SNIP=========
So, Godwin's Law really, in its most basic form, is that the longer a USENET (notice I said Usenet, not BBS board) continues, the probabiiity of the word Nazi coming up increases toward one (we are not told if this is an asymptotic
curve or not, meaning that it could approach one extremely closely, but never actually hit "1"). Thus, in its purest sense, it only deals with the probability of the word Nazi showing up.

It's all these extrapolations of Godwin's Law (like it being a thread breaker) that people often associate as being a part of Godwin's law. People did the same thing with "Murphy's Law", named after Captain Edward A. Murphy was an air force engineer who worked at Edwards AFB on a 1949 project studying how much sudden deceleration a person can stand.

Upon discovering that a technician had installed all 16 incorrectly, Murphy exclaimed angrily, "If there is any way to do it wrong, he'll find it." Murphy's comment was quoted at a press conference and, due to its nugget of universal truth, a generic form of the "law" quickly spread. It even made it into the dictionary in 1958.

People started misquoting Murphy's law (something that really aggravated Murphy) and saying that it was "If anything can go wrong, it will."

This is actually NOT Murphy's law, but instead, is "Finagle's Law"

http://www.science.uva.nl/~mes/jargon/f/finagleslaw.htmlFinagle's Law: n. The generalized or `folk' version of Murphy's Law, fully named "Finagle's Law of Dynamic Negatives" and usually rendered "Anything that can go wrong, will". One variant favored among hackers is "The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum" (but see also Hanlon's Razor). The label `Finagle's Law' was popularized by SF author Larry Niven in several stories depicting a frontier culture of asteroid miners; this `Belter' culture professed a religion and/or running joke involving the worship of the dread god Finagle and his mad prophet Murphy. Some technical and scientific cultures (e.g., paleontologists) know it under the name `Sod's Law'; this usage may be more common in Great Britain. "

Supposedly, the real, honest to goodness version of Murphy's Law is:
"If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it."

Thus we see, this really puts the focus on the human as the weak link in things, which is contrasted with another representation of Murphy's law, which really is NOT Murphy's law, which says "Nature sides with the hidden flaw."

Thus, as I interpret Godwin's Law, although people have extrapolated it to say the use of the word Nazi is a thread breaker....this was not Mike Godwin's original premise.

Also, it in no way asserts that one or the other comparison with Nazis is improper.

Now, the "One Term-inator" did say he admired Hitler, and his father was a Nazi, and like Hitler, he is Austrian born.

We don't need no stinkin' Arnold for President!

He seems "Nazi-like" to me. Now, see, this is NOT a Usenet discussion, so if Godwin's law only applies to UseNet...then one cannot invoke Godwin's law.

Thanks for researching Godwin's Law and clarifying Murphy's Law, Code. But Finagle? It looks like Arnold is trying to "finagle" his way into the White House.

In one way, having a president who came from complete poverty in a foreign country could be benifical to the middle and lower class, but yet as pointed out, it could be dangerous too. I say it all depends on the here and now. 08' Schwarzenegger!! Seeing as what he's done in CA, I'd say, if i could vote for him, I would vote for him. The biggest thing hes done that I support, is funding stem cell research, as I have a great uncle (Dr. John Gearhart from John Hopkins University) who is a researcher for stem cell research. Bush and his "Hey, you can do the research but were not gonna give you any money so HA" crap is just serving the intrests of the right wing rich @$$ holes.

...with a little help from his "Fox and Friends".

Feldman's Riddle of intended consequences of obviousness:

What are the chances that if I google an image of Karl Rove and Mike Godwin and
Heinrick Himmler, that they would all rsemble each other?

http://www.hillnews.com/photos/021204/Rove-Karl.gif


http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:kV-KguSco7EJ:www.h-ref.de/dk/vern/himm/himmler.jpg


http://www.cnn.com/US/9612/06/internet.indecency/godwin.jpg

As a conservative, I oppose Ah-nuld. He's no conservative, and he's (literally) in bed with the Kennedys.

I oppose any such amendment on principle. If it passes the Congress, I believe it will die the death in the legislatures of the red states. I hope this isn't just wishful thinking.

On the other hand, Ah-nuld might be better than the socialist candidate the Democratic left wing nominates for the next go-round. Socialism, after all, has been responsible for the death of more innocents in this century than Nazism. Nazism might be the lesser of two evils, even if the governator was a Nazi.

I keed, I keed.

to say nothing of Philip Seymour Hoffman

http://www.imdb.com/gallery/ss/0307901/Ss/0307901/CT-173R.jpg?path=pgallery&path_key=Hoffman,%20Philip%20Seymour

.....and communists are clearly morally superior to nazi's.


signed

Leflaw
director,
department of internet traffic generation
Dmusic LLC.

Leflaw...you're right!

Have you ever seen that book...Separated at Birth (or a name like that)...which shows famous people that look alike>?
http://babelogue.citypages.com:8080/canderson/2004/06/16

http://www.citypages.com/blogmedia/canderson/separatedbk.jpg

Invoking a meme from the Well back in 1995 is a lifetime ago. It is no longer relevent in an era in which we very well be witnessing the end of the admirable experiment known as American Denocracy R.I.P. (1776-2000)

Here's a quotation from LA Times editorial this morning:

"As Alexis de Tocqueville warned prophetically of France's invasion of Algeria in 1830, no nation can acquire an empire without finding itself radically transformed. Rome was a republic when it acquired its empire. It ended its days as a tyranny."

Tom says in response:
We don't need no stinking Godwin's Law which is no longer relevant. It would be as approprate as quoting something like, "If God intended men to use gasoline rather than buggy whips, He would have put training wheels on Man's ass."

Or something like that.

By the way, for those of you who persist in embarrassing yourself defending the Intelligent Watchmaker or Cretinsim, be advised that a Grand Caliphate of Iran for years held an open intifada for anyone who believed in the round earth theory.

He suspended the death warrant when a Russain cosmonaut told him, yes, indeed, your Holiness, I have witnessed the round earth with my own eyes.

How did this thread get derailed anyway?

Fuck Schwarzenegger. Back to the conpiracy theories, please.

Hey, Code, looking at that picture of Titney's cleavage, you should google for a photo of Schwarzenegger's breasts and leather 'n lace trainer bra from the Conan days. He looks like striated beef.

Code, you can research Godwin all you want, but the truth is that 89% of us have really tired of calling everyone Nazis. That means when we encounter it in a thread, we stop reading. At this point, the same is true for references to Orwell.

My point, which I do not expect to be well-taken, is that if you cannot make a persuasive argument for something without resorting to flash-point branding (Nazi, Catholic, liberal, conservative, Jew, redneck, etc.), then many of us will simply turn away.

It's kind of like when the judge told the RIAA lawyer to stop using words like "pirate" and "thief" and to argue the real case.

So if your only real objection to Arnold is that you think he's a Nazi, you're going to move me over to the other side to support him, even though my initial response was "No, no, no, no, no."

This is also primarily why Bush won the election.

Bush won because no one googled Prescott Bush and Nazi. If they had, he would have lost. If he still would have won, that's all the more cause for worry.


Q.E.D.

Leflaw's collary to Godwin's law.

You are allowed to call a Nazi a Nazi.

Leflaw's 2nd collary:

I may not know a liberal, conservative, democrat, republican or socialist or libertarian when I see one, but I can spot a Nazi a mile away (especially with a scope).

BTW George, where do we stand on Bertrand Russell?

You are speaking for yourself, George Z. Don't pretend to speak for the 89% Silent Majority. Who says? You?

Yawn.

I wonder if there's a website somewhere wherein people discuss the music busines...

George..I think you are looking for RIAA.com
They put the emphasis on BUSINESS...

George the Z said:
"This is also primarily why Bush won the election."

Maybe he didn't really win...perhaps its only a win in name only...
http://codewarriorz.blogdrive.com/
"DID KERRY REALLY WIN THE ELECTION?"

I thought everyone would be happy to see Arnie run, i think he's the perfect American president.

An Arnold Swartzenegger movie is the perfect metaphorical representation of America herself.

They're loud, brash, expensive, exuberant, have lots of guns action and hot blondes. they celebrate vigilantes and are usually philisophically simlistic, pandering to base human emotions rather than intellect.

And it requires amazing amounts of resources in the form of money, material and technical expertise just to allow one to exist.

I doubt this will ever pass. Honestly even if it did. Who would vote for Ahnuld for President. He would truly be America's Terminator.

Code
Have you ever read anything by Michael McClellan.

NewsteamgdZiemann
Date: November 14, 2004 @ 1:38 PM ( delete )
Yawn.

I wonder if there's a website somewhere wherein people discuss the music busines...




velvetrope.com

"Is Chaitkin the hero that you are referring to, leflaw?"

I think he is referring to Theodore Roosevelt with the Trust Busters and all that.

Its just not a good idea, period.
The constitution just gets so abused/misused/misinterpreted that its not funny. It is supposed to be a foundational document. You build on a foundation, not change it whenever you want something different.

"
seeing as what he's done in CA, I'd say, if i could vote for him, I would vote for him."

I would NEVER vote for the man.. his idea of financing the deficit is to jack up tuition a full hundred percent to an unmanagable 40 grand per semester! (at least for my brother's lawschool)... to give you an idea of how bizarrely high that is, private institutions charge that much.. this means that right now arnold basically has the states running a private chain of institutions which is gaining obscene profits from college kids who cant afford it.

The man is a social preadator who could care less about anyone under the age of 45.

Has anybody here seen Demolition Man? It's a horrible movie starring Sly Stallone and Wesley Snipes.. here's a snippet from the movie (to the best of my memory):

"The Schwarzenegger library?"
Yep.
"Is that...."
Yep.
"Arnold Schwarzenegger was president?? But he wasn't born in this country!"
We changed the law since he was so popular.

If it's any consolation - in the movie they also said he was a good president =)

I probably hacked up the quotes, but you get the point. Rent the movie and watch in amazement. It was a prophecy.

"..that there's no reason why not"

I can think of a few. And I don't want anybody named Mohammed Al-anything running the country and appointing lots of people to various positions of power.

If that makes me a racist, fine. So sue me. Or better yet, fly a plane into me.

"This is also primarily why Bush won the election."

I wasn't going to post this thread but what George said is so right on I have to afirm it. Hate pushes people away.

Bush won the election because people are wary of Janet Jackson's tits in our face, the emerging gay majority and federal funding of killing fetuses.


ok?

NOOOOOO!!!!!

Don't these dumbshit politicians realize the framers of the Constitution did what they did for a reason?

The framers were also infinitely more intelligent than the braying jackasses who manage to bamboozle the voters into electing them.

So that means the Bushies are actually afraid of more things than we are.

I agree with George; the nazi-talk is getting old.

"Code, you can research Godwin all you want, but the truth is that 89% of us have really tired of calling everyone Nazis. That means when we encounter it in a thread, we stop reading. At this point, the same is true for references to Orwell.

My point, which I do not expect to be well-taken, is that if you cannot make a persuasive argument for something without resorting to flash-point branding (Nazi, Catholic, liberal, conservative, Jew, redneck, etc.), then many of us will simply turn away.

It's kind of like when the judge told the RIAA lawyer to stop using words like "pirate" and "thief" and to argue the real case.

So if your only real objection to Arnold is that you think he's a Nazi, you're going to move me over to the other side to support him, even though my initial response was "No, no, no, no, no."

This is also primarily why Bush won the election."


George: there is a difference between using "nazi" as a derogatory name and making intellectual comparison to nazi's.

If you stop reading at the citation of orwell's 1984 you have problems, not the people citing orwell.

If you choose to ignore when people notice actual correlations you choose to ignore the truth.

Just because something comes up a lot in usenet boards doesnt mean its not true.

in other words.. to ignore such comparisons is both arrogant and and invitation to reintroduction of fascism to society.

"it'll never happen again, i think youre crying wolf"

guess what.. the wolf was real the last time the boy cried it.

Sherminator, if that part of Demolition Man comes true, then at some point The Earthquake will happen and Los Angeles will be destroyed.

Of course then it'll be replaced by the Santa Barbara-Los Angeles Complex (San Angeles) and that Roddy McDowell wannabe will take over and you won't be able to cuss anymore. Hey, wait a minute, isn't that already happening? Maybe Bush is the man to save LA.

Thanks for the link leflaw, www.velvetrope.com

This needs to be a DMusic thread too!

http://velvetrope.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB1&Number=523368&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=2&fpart=1

leflaw I agree that may be part of it but it's a lot more complicated than that. Bush won because more people voted for him. the reasons are varied. I'm amazed that people think felons and drug dealers should vote but complain because people with right winged christain views exercize their right. every law biding citizen has that right. To complain that the election wasn't fair or legitimate or rigged or what ever excuse one makes, just because more people with an oposing view votes for the candadate one hates is being nothing more than a sore looser.

Still takes the legislatures of 38 states to ratify a new ammendment. Not enough time for the 08 or possibly the 12 campaign.

Don't look for the guvanator any time soon.

I still think they should at least amend the requirement to allow for diplomat and military children born overseas when their parents are working for the US

Well, hey--the Constitution also says that the Vice-President and the President can't be from the same State! Riddle me this--how did they squeak through on that one.

"...then at some point The Earthquake will happen and Los Angeles will be destroyed."

Thank god!!

And this stuff about Bush winning because people are afraid of Janet Jackson's titties is kidn of stupid. Granted, people who were the most apalled were probably Bushies because they were probably religious, but most people aren't religious to that extent in my experience.

People voted for Bush because the Democrats offered up nothing. I really believe that's all there is to it. I really wanted to vote democrat.. so did my mom, and so did a lot of other people. Some people think Kerry was legitimate, but most people didn't - so much so that they chose Bush over him.

felons and drug dealers shouldn't be allowed to vote because if you don't know how to participate and are nothing but a detriment to it, then why should you be allowed to participate on election day? You're an outcast. You don't belong. You're a fuckup - you're a felon and a drug dealer. This society doesn't like you.

make that "..don't know how to participate in a society"

I would like to submit a request for an Edit Post feature

"People voted for Bush because the Democrats offered up nothing. I really believe that's all there is to it."

Wrong. People voted for Bush for two reasons:

(1) Cowardice - "Ooooooh, we're all scared of terrorists!" - "We're so scared we have to attack countries who can't defend themselves to make us feel secure."

(2) Guilt - "We are fighting for freedom and to liberate these poor ignorant brown people from their own poor judgment, not for oil and power, becuase that would mean that we are all responible for the murder of over 100,000 innocent people."

"felons and drug dealers shouldn't be allowed to vote because if you don't know how to participate and are nothing but a detriment to it, then why should you be allowed to participate on election day? You're an outcast. You don't belong. You're a fuckup - you're a felon and a drug dealer. This society doesn't like you."

Are you out of your ever loving mind?

"you're a felon and a drug dealer" or maybe just a 12 year old girl who likes bad music.

Excuse me but criminal copyright infringement isn't an infraction. So they can convict you of inducing piracy by partaking in the RIAA boycott, thereby, convicting you of a felony, thereby, preventing you from voting for those who would overturn the poor laws forced into being by the RIAA, and you're ok with that?

The people who voted for Bush, more often than not, think that downloading a song is theft and those who download should not vote.

The Constitution has only been amended 27 times. And how long have we had this amendment?

It doesn't get amended much, that's for sure.

The Republicans won't get their gay marriage amendment passed. And there's even less support for this. I doubt a majority of the Republican majority supports it. This woman can run all the ad campaigns she wants. It isn't going to change anything.

There's a very good reason why the Founders said that only native born Americans could be President. They didn't want somebody from Britain taking over the government they just created. They wanted to prevent a "hostile takeover".

Ever seen the Manchurian Candidate? It relates, in a way, to this discussion about immigrants being able to run for President. It's just a no-no.

Not something we ever want to allow. There's a lot of wisdom in the Constitution. We don't need to tamper with that document.



:-:~ Phantom

sorry raoulduke1 I know many people who vote for Bush and they're neither. they voted for him the same reason many voted for Kerry. they believed in him.

No No

"Wrong. People voted for Bush for two reasons:"

Thanks for the enlightenment

I voted for him for niether of those two reasons. So much for that theory. Better luck next time.

""you're a felon and a drug dealer" or maybe just a 12 year old girl who likes bad music."

Yeah.. right. I was explaining why felons aren't allowed to vote. And that's precisely why. I didn't ask you if you liked it or not. The fact that the RIAA has misconstrued file sharing has nothing to do with that explanation since the rule was made long before file sharing ever existed.

Just because file sharing is now looked at as a felonous act doesn't change the original reasoning behind prohibiting felons from voting.

"The people who voted for Bush, more often than not, think that downloading a song is theft and those who download should not vote."

Based on what scientific poll? The poll of raoulduke1?

People who voted for Bush believe all that? Is that really true? (obviously not). You're pretty good at being prejudiced. Do you hate black people by any chance?

Pull your head out of your ass and stop bashing everyone that voted for Bush. I say something perfectly legitimate and I get stereotyped to hell by some "hate-mongering" dick. You actually had the nerve to tell me I was wrong about why I voted for Bush. Wow, next time I'm not sure why I did something, I'll just ask you.

Hmmm.... being a foreign born citizen I feel like I should support the change but I know that I would not be able to remain partial toward my home county of CCCP or whats left of it. I know that it would be the same case with Arnold and Austria. Also if we get a Mexican president in 2032 we can kiss our borders good - bye, he would prb eliminate any security measures toward spanish ppl and kids like Gonzalez would never be let back.

Yes, it is extremely hard to get an amendment ratified. The first ten amendments were a necessity, as was the 12th amendment. The 11th was passed only because it wasn't right for states to sue individuals in another state(though it seems perfectly ok for a citizen of one state to sue another state) Of course we all know what the 13th amendment does as well as 14 and 15. After that, though, it was nearly fifty years before they got the constitution amended again and that was the stupid amendment that lets the government tax you to death and fund programs like Dubya's various military adventures overseas. Then a few years later they decided that Senators should start representing the people (yeah, right) so they took that away from the legislatures (who were elected by the people anyway). A few more years passed (they got a lot done in the late 1910s and early 1920s) and they had the idiocy to make alcohol illegal. And thus was born the organized crime that still exists somewhat today. Then they finally allowed women to vote, even though it took years and years just to get the required 2/3 in each house.

Then they decided to change the inauguration to January 20, which was good since it was a long time between November and March and Hoover just didn't do much between November 1932 and March 1933 to ease the Depression. Number 21 repealed number 18, the only time that's happened. After that, it was the 1950s before they amended it again, this time making it law that the President could only serve twice (even though now they're trying to repeal that one.) The 1960's saw two amendments, one giving the vote to the District of Columbia and the other one abolishing the poll tax (which had been used to keep black people from voting). The 25th amendment set the succession of the Presidency in stone and the 26th finally lowered the voting age to 18.

The 27th amendment, limiting Congressional raises, was finally ratified in 1992, 202 years after being submitted to the states as one of the original twelve submitted amendments (the other one dealt with limiting representation for each state in the House to 200 Representatives!)

Of course, though, there have been a few amendments to fail ratification. The two notable ones are the Equal Rights Amendment, which would have guaranteed equality for women. It failed because many men and even women feared that equality. They actually feared it would mean the end of men's and women's bathrooms. And thus it failed.

The other one, which is rarely mentioned, but important anyway, was an amendment (it would have been the 13th) that would have stripped US citizenship from anyone taking a title of nobility or honor. This would have effectively outlawed lawyers and judges, since they used the titles "your honor" and "esquire". Life would have probably been much better for us since there'd be no lawyers in Congress. Of course, this amendment failed ratification by one state, identified, after careful research, as Virginia. Some say that Virginia did ratify this amendment, thus making it a part of the Constitution. But others say it wasn't ratified by Virginia and, in this day of armies of lawyers, what they say goes.

incredibly informative, thanks Niceguy

Don't amend the constitution for this.

If you are going to amend it for foreigners, at least don't say "so Arnold can run". Still can't believe he got elected Governor.

I read the 16th Amendment (income tax) was never ratified by enough states to pass.

Before the 17th Amendment, the Senate was suppose to represent the interest of the state government while the House of Representatives was suppose to represent the interest of the people. As Michael Badnarik put it, we now have a small House of Representatives and a big House of Representatives.

Some people voted for Bush because he wasn't John Kerry. One poll said 70% of the people who voted for John Kerry did so because he was not Bush.

To tie the two topics together, since there is some talk of the Kerry states succeeding, be aware that the Constitution does not forbid a state to leave the Union. But it did not work out so well last time it was tried.

The colonies declared that they wanted to be independent from the mother country (England), but the mother country refused to permit colonies to secede from that union...and war was soon underway.
A little over eighty years later, the nation created from those colonies refused to permit states to secede...and war was soon underway.

If this change were to be made to the constitution, we as americans need to be careful how we change it. Yes, you might use Arnold as a reference point, but really to do it right, you have to forget about Arnold and concentrate on what the end result would be, and the long term effects of this change.

I think everyone in the world should succeed from their government...

...and also withdraw from their church/religious organization...

...and go awol from their military unit...

...and quit their job...

...and start a rock and roll band!

Hey 51 million Americans can't be wrong right?

I am with schmoo on this.

No. I have a hard enough time understanding the President as it is.

I do not want to amend just so we can infantilize our country more by having a completely issues-less campaign to railroad a popular foreign actor into power.

Instead of paving the way for a Hollywood darling to get elected lets focus as a country on our more pressing problems.

I'm sorry if you immigrated here and you love this country and want to serve it. That's not what being President is about anyway, run for some other public office.

Moment of inspiration, NiceGuy?

Seems most people are against this - not a surprise.

Good conclusion, Schmoo. Wish I could start a rock and roll band.

Shmoo for Prez in 2008 (If there IS a 200

Ohh NOOOOOO!!!!

.. can we repeal the "tax" amendment??

I can't imagine a good reason for voting for Bush. Why did you do it Sherm?

dunno. I can't imagine a good reason for voting for Kerry.

The same argument as before. There's more bad things about Kerry.