Elizabeth Gotsdiner, 24
Home Town:
Iowa City, IA

Occupation:
Student
The introduction to politics in this past year has not only changed me, it has inspired and motivated me to do my part in a democratic society. I now know that as a citizen of this great country I ha ... See full Bio

McPalin vs. OBiden
Remember today
Non Partisan President
Hot Topic
Postponed Presidency
Biden barked at me.
Paulson-Palin Bailout
Sir Samuel Wurzelbacher
John Kerry
CONVINCE ME!!!
Paulson-Palin Bailout
September 30th - 10:54 am

When Palin entered the scene in this past month, critics and pundits were... well... confused? 

-- 

I had high hopes for her.  Clinton cracked the glass and Palin is going to shatter it.  Instead, her interviews have shattered McCain's campaign.  She constantly gets nailed on the foreign policy issues, and she should.  Hopefully in this next month time she can learn everything there is to know about where McCain stands, and stand behind him.  The biggest question regarding Palin was her experience.  Who is she?  What does she support?  Can we rely on her to lead our country?

Now we have entered an economic crisis, and Paulson had previously proposed to oversee the movement of finance, solo, independant, alone, with no legal backlash, period.  Did I miss something?  When a proposal of this magnitude comes to America's doorstep why aren't we all over Paulson, who we chose to save the country?  We should be asking the same questions.  Who is he?  What does he support?  can we rely on him to save our country in a time of financial crisis? 

I said this on camera in North Carolina, but who knows what will end up on the editing room floor.  It was in regards to the environmnet  and drilling offshore, but I feel that to decipher who's being honest, or who's preaching propaganda I have to do the field research for myself.  The whole Fanny Mae/Obama connection is a perfect example.  Why didn't Obama start taking action for this in 2005 when CEO of Fanny  Mae Daniel Mudd spoke of the collapse initializing?

I'm troubled.

Comments:
Tanya
CARL
October 15th - 10:00 am
"Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves - or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth. "
My favorite Rand quote, I have it on my Facebook page:)

I think when Fland talks about abortion you have to take into consideration that he doesn't view it as a service. He views it as murder, plain and simple. Where the real debate comes in, is if it IS murder. I think we can all agree that if you murdered an adult, it would be considered a crime for which you would deserve punishment, correct? I think we all agree that it would be just to punish that person and that murder should be illegal. Even, as a classic liberal/libertarian you would agree to that CARL, no?
OR, would you say that government should stay out of the action of murdering an adult and not punish them? If you say no, the government should step in when it comes to murder, then you are saying that killing someone should be illegal, and against the law.
Then is abortion? THAT is the question.

Hope that wasn't too confusing, I tend to blather on:(

Also, FLAND, I hope I wasn't assuming too much about what your position is on the subject. I just thought that's where you were coming from.
 
Carl Teglund
Anarchism and Classical Liberalism
October 14th - 7:09 pm
Tanya: I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine. ;)


Fland: Funny, you obviously do not know the difference between left-wing anarchism and classical liberalism/libertarianism and still you are using that as a method of comparison? Left-wing anarchists or syndicalist believe "in the live and let live philosophy without any structure prohibiting them from doing anything they want". Classical liberals believe in "in the live and let live philosophy" BUT with "structure prohibiting" people who want to harm others "from doing anything they want". We, unlike the left-wing anarchists understand that not only too much State but also an absence of it can serve as a threat to individual liberty. My freedom ends where your begins. It is that easy. We all have our bubbles of freedom and if I go inside your bubble without you voluntarily giving me the right to do so I defy and violate your freedom, and thus your basic human rights.
You are allowed to be an American with sc. "good moral values" how much you feel for it, Fland. I'm not going to stop you. It is when you want to go inside of my bubble and tell me how I should live my life in my bubble it becomes problematic.
Who the hell cares for why anyone chooses to use the service/product abortion? It is like to ask why you are choosing to eat at KFC and drive a Volvo. You have no right to decide over other people's demands, moralize (as you do) yes, but not decide and forbid.

//tegis.wordpress.com
 
Flandamier
October 14th - 5:55 pm
Carl - I appreciate your assessment of conservatives and socialists and lumping them together. Now allow me to do the same in comparing liberals to anarchists. Liberals believe in the live and let live philosophy without any structure prohibiting them from doing anything they want. Funny, so do anarchists.

I am also pleased to know that you will be more right winged than I will ever be, because I don't want to be right-winged or left-winged or any other chicken part. I want to be an American with good moral values.

Simplify and Lizz - "Abortion on Demand" is a term I use that means a woman can go into a clinic and get an abortion without any legitimate reason other than they don't want the responsibility of having a child. So many abortions are due to not using protection and being careless, then not wanting to own up to the responsibility of raising a child because of financial, educational, or whatever reason. You know, I wasn't ready to be a daddy when my then girlfriend (now wife) became pregnant. I didn't have a job or money or any kind of education. But you know what? I didn't run away either. I owned up to my responsibility.

So you can't afford to have a child? Ok give it up for adoption or think next time. Killing an innocent child because of two peoples night of indiscretion is absolutely ludicrous.

So what about those who are raped? What about those from incest? What about the mothers physical well-being placed in jeopardy? Hard fact is that those abortions account for about 3% of all abortions in America.
Tanya
CARL-Who is John Galt?
October 12th - 10:29 am
My father introduced me to Ayn Rand last year:)
 
Carl Teglund
Comments
October 10th - 2:34 pm
"I keep politics out of the structure of my morals"

A VERY sound idea I must say. This is basically the difference between liberalism (the real kind) and Conservatism/Socialism. Socialists and Conservatives can't help to separate their personal faith from their thoughts on these issues. Socialists and left-wing people see something unjust and unfair, e.g someone is driving a SUV meawhile others can't afford a car. Therefore they want to ban SUVs (for instance). Conservatives see something as they find wrong according to their beliefs and therefore want to ban it.
Liberals, or as you might want to call it - Libertarians, may have their private opinions but they make sure they stay just private. Even though I believe homosexuality is wrong I have no right to hinder other people's life choices.
Conservatives and Socialists have many features in common, whearas Liberals have never had anything in common with them both.

Lizz, to believe in freedom of expression doesn't necessarily go hand in hand with that you have to LIKE those opinions. I have had plenty of talks with Neo-Nazis here in Sweden (we have quite a lot), and I personally hate their beliefs but I would always fight for their right to express them.
If you want to know more about right vs. wrong in a general sense you first have to dig deeper down in the definition of what a basic human right is. There are negative rights and then there are positive dittos. They are not comparable. According to my beliefs, I know that everything that goes against these negative rights can never be right or correct, do you follow? This is basic liberalistic thoughts and was formed around 250 years ago by John Locke. He called them Natural Laws.

Fland: Again you are wrong. The "right" as you say is not per definition always against abortions. There is a larger spectra than so. Ayn Rand had nothing against that as long as it is payed for by the consumer of the service alone, and she, and I, are much more right-wing than you will ever be.

Btw Lizz, you have a comment awaiting you at tegis/wordpress.com . :D
hugs
Elizabeth
FLAND...
October 9th - 9:40 am
Man my head has been spinning from all this right wrong talk... I love it.

This is a hard idea for me to chew on FLAND. I keep politics out of the structure of my morals. I do, however, bring morals into my politics. I can't define my right and wrong as right and left. It makes me uneasy to look at it that way.

SIMPLIFY you funny. Please rebuttle for the "abortion on demand" FLAND. I'd appreciate it!
 
simplify
definition
October 9th - 6:09 am
how do you define 'abortion on demand'? is that a new HD channel?
 
Flandamier
Lizz
October 8th - 1:50 pm
Are you sure you aren't confusing "Right and Left" as opposed to "Right and Wrong"?

Take a hot topic like abortion on demand. On the right they are against abortion on demand and on the left they are for abortion on demand. Now ask yourself if abortion on demand is right or wrong.

Do you see the difference? When it applies to you it's a right or wrong issue. Collectively it becomes a Right and Left issue.
Elizabeth
CARL
October 7th - 11:39 pm
hm. Good question. Well, I hesitate to say this because I don't necessarily think truth is relative, I think it can be factually proven, but right and wrong can be relative. They seem more moralistic in definition, and I have to support others in their opinions of right and wrong, for the most part, because I believe in freedom. That includes freedom of thought and opinion. If, however, my country's (or my) direct safety is in jeopardy, then yea, I'll probably have a stronger opinion between right and wrong, my right and my wrong.

But I do think I will have to make some ammendments to my statement... I do believe America has a vague consensus of ideas between right and wrong.

In this context, I meant discussing politics period. I want to encourage people to not be afraid of discussing our government.

Damn your good. My brain hurts. I'm thinking really hard.
 
Carl
question
October 7th - 10:57 pm
Hi Lizz,

I have a question for you. You write in your introduction to yourself that there are no wrong answers. Of course that sounds neat and all but is it really true? What about an economic policy that can be pointed out as a failure due to historical examples and proofs?

hugs
Carl
tegis/wordpress.com
 
Flandamier
Blah!
October 5th - 3:16 pm
Im not going to copy and paste my response here from Tanya's page.
 
Carl
Palin
October 5th - 10:11 am
Palin supports first and foremost only conservative social agendas. That's her biggest concern, maybe also the energy policies and offshore drilling but that is just one other thing. She's occupied with that other social-conservative crap. She's folksy and popular but take a closer look on her political agenda. I mean it's awful. We live in the 21st century dammit, not the Dark Ages.

She’s a completely insane woman. She’s a creationist (meaning that she believes that God created mankind with hocus pocus in 7 days out of nothing) and she is pro censorship for almost everything. Say goodbye to all your porn, America. What’s worse is that she’s against abortion EVEN THOUGH the girl has been raped.

This cannot be stressed enough; the right-wing in America relies too much on hicks and superstitious religious idiots who believes that the world is 7000 years old and probably believes that the world is a flat pancake. It is a little bit scary actually that a party like THAT is the best alternative.
Why can't the market-liberals form their own Party? :S
 
Flandamier
October 3rd - 6:54 pm
Tanya - I know that question was probably directed at Lizz, but I would like to stick my 2 cents in there and say that I think she did a good job. She kept her comments mainly positive and Biden focused on the negative. It's ok to point out what the other guy did wrong but without backing that up with an alternative it just comes off as rhetoric. I am pleased that Sarah brought that out when she said (and I am paraphrazing here) "You can't bring change to the future if you keep pointing fingers and looking in the past." You learn from the past and look to the future.

There is enough blame to go around in this congress and in this administration, and it's a "breath of fresh air" that Sarah Palin had more balls than anyone on either ticket to say so. Finally someone is saying what Americans are feeling, which is "enough of the partisanship and get the job done."
Tanya
VP Debate
October 2nd - 11:11 pm
Soooo, how do you think Palin did?
Elizabeth
GOLDIGGEN....
October 1st - 8:43 pm
I think you misinterpreted me a bit. I never said I don't think she is capable, I said that her interviews have led us to question if she is. All that we have is what we see and hear, that's the bottom line. I'm sure if we gave her a week and every resource available she could probably write up a great foreign policy paper and cite her sources. That might actually be a great idea!

I will give her credit for being camera shy. I had an interview this last weekend with CNN, and it was terrifying! My brain got all scrambled and I rambled... and when it was over I said to myself, I should have said this and that, but I didn't! So yes, I can see the light on interviews. Thanks for the comment though.

I still have high hopes for her!
 
Goldiggen
Sarah
October 1st - 6:26 pm
Lizz, I think you are wrong about Palin's ability to understand the foreign policy issues. She may not , at this time, be able to verbalize in a precise manner, but she will. None of us have 100% knowledge when we start a job.
I would bet that by the time she and McCain take office, she will have it all under her belt. You, of all people, should understand that. You have that same ability and drive when it is important to you.