Rules for Republican and Democrats

[MililaniBuckeye]

Since I consider myself neither a Democrap nor a Repooplican, I've included rules for both, and I've marked with an asterisk the rules I think really hold true for their respective party.

25 Rules for Being a Good Republican:

*1) Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you are a millionaire conservative radio jock, which makes it an "illness" and needs our prayers for your "recovery."

2) You have to believe that those privileged from birth achieve success all on their own.

3) You have to believe that the US should get out of the UN, and that our highest national priority is enforcing UN resolutions against Iraq.

4) You have to believe that government should stay out of people's lives but it needs to punish anyone caught having private sex with the "wrong" gender.

5) You have to believe that pollution is ok, so long as it makes a profit.

*6) You have to believe in prayer in schools, as long as you don't pray to Allah or Buddha.

*7) "Standing Tall for America" means firing your workers and moving their jobs to India.

8) You have to believe that a woman cannot be trusted with decisions about her own body, but that large multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind with no regulation whatsoever.

9) You have to believe that you love Jesus and Jesus loves you, and that Jesus shares your hatred of AIDS victims, homosexuals, and Hillary Clinton.

10) You hate the ACLU for representing convicted felons, but they owed it to the country to bail out Oliver North.

*11) You have to believe that the best way to encourage military morale is to praise the troops overseas while cutting their VA benefits.

12) You believe that group sex and drug use are degenerate sins that can only be purged by running for governor of California as a Republican.

13) You have to believe it is wise to keep condoms out of schools, because we all know if teenagers don't have condoms they won't have sex.

14) You have to believe that the best way to fight terrorism is to alienate our allies and then demand their cooperation and money.

15) You have to believe that government medicine is wrong and that HMO's and insurance companies only have your best interests at heart.

16) You have to believe that providing health care to all Iraqis is sound government policy but providing health care to all Americans is socialism personified.

*17) You believe that tobacco's link to cancer and global warming are "junk science" but Creationism should be taught in schools.

18) You have to believe that waging war with no exit strategy was wrong in Vietnam but right in Iraq.

19) You have to believe that Saddam was good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney was doing business with him, and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.

20) You believe that government should restrict itself to just the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.

21) You have to believe that the public has a right to know about the adulterous affairs of Democrats, while those of Republicans are a "private matter."

*22) You have to believe that the public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades but that Bush was right to censor those 28 pages from the Congressional 9/11 report because you just can't handle the truth.

23) You support state rights, which means Ashcroft telling states what locally passed voter initiatives he will allow them to have.

24) You have to believe that what Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest but what Bush did decades later is "stale news" and "irrelevant."

*25) You have to believe that trade with Cuba is wrong because it is communist, but trading with China and Vietnam is just dandy.


21 Rules for Being a Good Democrat:

1) You have to believe that the AIDS virus is spread by a lack of federal funding.

*2) You have to believe that the same teacher who can't teach 4th-graders how to read is somehow qualified to teach those same kids about sex.

3) You have to believe that guns in the hands of law-bidding Americans are more of a threat than U.S. nuclear weapons technology in the hands of Chinese and North Korean communists.

*4) You have to believe that there was no art before Federal funding.

5) You have to believe that global temperatures are less affected by cyclical documented changes in the earth's climate and more affected by soccer moms driving SUV's.

*6) You have to believe that gender roles are artificial but being homosexual is natural.

*7) You have to be against capital punishment, but support abortion on demand.

8) You have to believe that businesses create oppression and governments create prosperity.

9) You have to believe that hunters don't care about nature, but loony activists who have never been outside of San Francisco do.

*10) You have to believe that self-esteem is more important than actually doing something to earn it.

*11) You have to believe that the military, not corrupt politicians start wars.

12) You have to believe the NRA is bad because it supports certain parts of the Constitution, while the ACLU is good because it supports certain parts of the Constitution.

13) You have to believe that taxes are too low, but ATM fees are too high.

*14) You have to believe that Margaret Sanger and Gloria Steinem are more important to American history than Thomas Jefferson, Gen. Robert E.Lee, and Thomas Edison.

*15) You have to believe that standardized tests are racist, but racial quotas and set-asides are not.

16) You have to believe that Hillary Clinton is normal and is a very nice person.

17) You have to believe that the only reason socialism hasn't worked anywhere it's tried is because the right people haven't been in charge.

18) You have to believe conservatives telling the truth belong in jail, but a liar and a sex offender belonged in the White House.

*19) You have to believe that homosexual marriages and parades displaying drag, transvestites, and bestiality should be constitutionally protected, and manger scenes at Christmas should be illegal.

20) You have to believe that illegal Democratic Party funding by the Chinese government is somehow in the best interest to the United States.

21) You have to believe that this message is a part of a vast, right wing conspiracy.

 

[LightningRod]

LOL - very good.

 

[tibor75]

You have to believe the NRA is bad because it supports certain parts of the Constitution

Private gun ownership is not covered in the Constitution despite what idiots like Charlton Heston and John Asscroft try to tell you.

 

[MililaniBuckeye]

"Private gun ownership is not covered in the Constitution despite what idiots like Charlton Heston and John Asscroft try to tell you."

Then just was does "the right to bear arms" mean?

 

[tibor75]

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

you can bear arms if you're in a militia. It has nothing to do with killing deer with an AK-47 using cop killer bullets.

 

[The KSB]

tibor is right. The constitution was not refering to private gun ownership. According to the Supreme Court the National Guard now fullfills the role of the militia.

EDIT: Or so the liberally biased media would have you believe.

 

[tibor75]

tibor is right. The constitution was not refering to private gun ownership. According to the Supreme Court the National Guard now fullfills the role of the militia.

EDIT: Or so the liberally biased media would have you believe.

Private gun ownership was pretty much unheard of in the 18th century anyway. Guns were a luxury item. "Common folk" couldn't afford them and it wouldn't make any sense to have any mention of it in the Constitution. I think it was after the Civil War that guns became "commonplace."

 

[MililaniBuckeye]

"the right of the people to keep and bear arms,"

and

"Private gun ownership was pretty much unheard of in the 18th century anyway. Guns were a luxury item. "Common folk" couldn't afford them "

Note the word "people", and not "militia". Granted, they felt that people should be able to own arms in case they were to be mustered (called to duty), but it still didn't restrict gun ownership to only those in the militia. The US hardly had the financial resources to fund an armed military at that time, and had to rely mostly on citizen-owner firepower.

As for gun ownership being "unheard of" in the 1700s, I don't know what history books they had in your school but gun ownership was far from a rarity then, especially for those who lived on the frontiers of the country (which constituted the majority of the territory). In fact, it's probable that a higher percentage of the general population (at least in the frontier regions anyways) owned guns than the overall population of today does.

 

[Nixon]

No, Tibor is not right. The SC has upheld the 2nd Amendment as protecting individual gun rights. It's great how lefties want us to believe that the Constitution includes some blanket, far-reaching "seperation of church and state" which exists nowhere in the document, that there is a general right to privacy, that abortion is Constitutionally mandated, that fake kiddie porn is Constitutionally protected speech, but that there is no right to bear arms.

Anyway, the Ohio Constitution is even more explicit in the right to bear arms than the US Constitution anyway.

 

[BoxCar_Willie]

Private gun ownership was pretty much unheard of in the 18th century anyway. Guns were a luxury item. "Common folk" couldn't afford them and it wouldn't make any sense to have any mention of it in the Constitution. I think it was after the Civil War that guns became "commonplace



Huh? How did people eat then??
Check out a history book next time you make up facts to support your argument.

 

[LightningRod]

Nixon

Which US Supreme Court case do you cite for your position that the Second Amendment protects individual gun rights? Only one Supreme Court case (1939 case US v Miller -free link to the case: US v Miller )to date expressly touched that issue, and the Court stated in its opinion that the right was in the context of a militia or other police matter. The Supreme Court failed to hear Haney v. US, where the Bush administration tried to advance an agenda that the US Constitution protects an individual's right to own guns. Also, if the Second Amendment protected the individual's right as you state, how is it that Congress can regulate matters dealing with gun ownership?

 

[tibor75]

actually Nixon, I don't care about the Supreme Court. I was just referring to what the second amendment actually says. Obviously, it has been construed to mean private gun ownership, but I doubt that that's what the framers had in mind.

 

[Nixon]

Also, if the Second Amendment protected the individual's right as you state, how is it that Congress can regulate matters dealing with gun ownership?

If the First Amendment protected the right to free speech, how could Congress ban political ads by issue groups 60 days prior to an election? If the First Amendment protected the right to free speech, how could the FCC regulate what Howard Stern can say or who can own TV stations?

And actually you are right that about the SC. But lower courts have in cases like US v. Emerson and the SC did nothing to stop that.

 

[The KSB]

It's great how lefties want us to believe that the Constitution includes some blanket, far-reaching "seperation of church and state" which exists nowhere in the document, that there is a general right to privacy, that abortion is Constitutionally mandated, that fake kiddie porn is Constitutionally protected speech, but that there is no right to bear arms.

1. I believe that first amendment does refer to the seperation of church and state. Among others who believe as I do

Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together James Madison

also

Believing that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their Legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church and State Thomas Jefferson

2. I dont believe you need to be a "Lefty" to believe that the forth amendment gives the right of privacy

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

3. The Supreme Court ruled in Miller vs. the U.S. that gun ownership is only a constitutional right as it relates to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia. Gun ownership is not a right that parrellels freedom of speech. If it were then we would not be able to make laws against criminals owning guns.

While I am a gun owner and generally support gun responsible ownership, it is not something I view as an absolute right. There is a difference between a handgun and an M60. Nobody outside of the military needs fully automatic assault rifles.

 

[LightningRod]

The Court has held in more than one case that Freedom of Speech is not absolute. US v Schenk was mentioned in a post on this board where the Court held that the First Amendment did not give one the right to shout "fire" in a crowded theatre when there was, in fact, no fire. Regarding the 2 questions you posed on political ads and Howard Stern, federal courts, in line with Supreme Court precedent, have held that government may restrict fundamental freedoms (most people believe all of the Bill of Rights are fundamental freedoms, but the Court has not taken that view) such as freedom of speech when the government can show a compelling interest to do so provided that the restriction is the least intrusive method used by the government. In Howard Stern's case, I would imagine that Colin Powell's son, the FCC Commissioner, takes the view that many of Stern's remarks fall into that category of speech bordering on pornographic content in which the government has a compelling interest to regulate. In the political ad arena, Congress believes it may restrict one fundamental right when to do so would protect another fundamental right (the right to vote in this case), provided once again that the restriction on advertising is the least intrusive means used by the government.