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Q: WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT TO really HAVE TWO AMERICAS, LEFT AND RIGHT? ( No Answer,   12 Comments )
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Subject: WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT TO really HAVE TWO AMERICAS, LEFT AND RIGHT?
Category: Relationships and Society > Politics
Asked by: toughlover-ga
List Price: $2.00
Posted: 13 Aug 2004 18:35 PDT
Expires: 12 Sep 2004 18:35 PDT
Question ID: 387616
I can dream can't I.  Since the left thinks it could be such a
peaceful world if the right would only beat our swords into
plowshares, and grow flowers to thrill the Amalekites when they come
to get them.

We would take all the weaposn to the right.  We would watch them raise
taxes to 99% and let all murderers rome free and try to strengthen the
poor by weakening the rich.  We would look over the fence and watch
them try to counter Darwins survival of the fittest by removing
incentive from anyone who even seems to be succeeding and transferring
it to those who are on the dole as Russia did...
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Comments  
Subject: Re: WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT TO really HAVE TWO AMERICAS, LEFT AND RIGHT?
From: scriptor-ga on 13 Aug 2004 18:47 PDT
 
Interesting concept - but who would be on the left side of the fence?
After all, the USA do not really have an important "left" part. No
social democrats ... no socialists ... let alone communists. From my
European point of view, I'd call both Republicans and Democrats
moderate conservative. So the left half would be empty except for a
handful of loners, while the entire rest of the US population would
crowd in the other half?

Scriptor
Subject: Re: WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT TO really HAVE TWO AMERICAS, LEFT AND RIGHT?
From: toughlover-ga on 13 Aug 2004 19:10 PDT
 
Hi Scriptor Gee you are even quicker on the draw than Pinkfreud:)
You ask who would be on the left? The Party-Animals who inexorably
allow loyalty to trump honesty. The extreemists LIBS who have HIJACKED
my JFK party. What this world needs now in Love, "TOUGH LOVE".
Subject: here we go again
From: daytrader_7__6-ga on 13 Aug 2004 19:20 PDT
 
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=385193#a
Subject: Re: WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT TO really HAVE TWO AMERICAS, LEFT AND RIGHT?
From: omnivorous-ga on 13 Aug 2004 19:49 PDT
 
"Left" and "Right" -- how vague.  Is a "liberal" trade policy the
opposite of a "protectionist" trade policy?  Are the conservatives the
ones that support the mullahs -- or oppose them?  Let's get down to
real issues:
Why not one slave and one free?
Why not one Calvinist and one for the others?
Why not one with Yankees fans and one for the rest of us?
One that's a matriarchy, one that's a patriarchy?
One that belongs to the tribes that were here pre-1492, one that
belongs to those who arrived since?
One for those who practice what Jesus taught vs. the those who don't?
One for brown-eyed people, one for blue-eyed people (the others are nationless)?
One with nuclear weapons, one without?
One with flat taxation; one with no taxes at all?
A socialist one where the roads are open to all; one where they're all toll roads?
One that vegetarian; one that's carnivorous (omnivores are stateless now)?
Subject: Re: WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT TO really HAVE TWO AMERICAS, LEFT AND RIGHT?
From: toughlover-ga on 13 Aug 2004 20:41 PDT
 
Thank you, Thank you Omniverous for trying to muddle my dream, but this a dream
not a night mare.
There are those who make mountains out of mole-hill and endure doing
so, and are those who make mole-hills out of mountains and enjoy doing
so. Which are you?

I would remove the labels "LEFT", "RIGHT" "LIB" "CONSERVATIVE" and
just go with attitudes and ideologies, and this would automatically
include slaves, brown eyes, native Americans, and most if not all that
your "monky-rinch" might exclude.

From the tone of your voice I am sure you are against Reagans STARWARS
because you are convinced taht it will never work.

There are people who try to find and amplify every reason that an idea
will not work. It is an attitude thing.  It is written: It is ATTITUDE
not APTITUDE that determines ALTITUDE.

I would respect your input if you had done what my science teacher
used to tell us: before you rejeect anything, be sure to spend as much
time on why an idea will work as you spend on why it won't work.
Subject: Re: WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT TO really HAVE TWO AMERICAS, LEFT AND RIGHT?
From: probonopublico-ga on 14 Aug 2004 05:33 PDT
 
Oh Toughlover

You are so politically incorrect!

There are always FOUR sides to every Argument: Left, Right, In The
Middle and Don't Know.

I have always suspected that you are to the Right of the Don't Knows.

Or didn't you know?
Subject: Re: WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT TO really HAVE TWO AMERICAS, LEFT AND RIGHT?
From: toughlover-ga on 14 Aug 2004 06:55 PDT
 
Dear dear Probono, knowing you as I think I do, it is clear that you
did not have a chance to think this answer through. My understanding
of "politically correct" is an artificial satisficing of principals to
accomodate sensitivities.  Allowing feelings to trump virtue.  A
tough-love espouser could never be politically correct.
I can't wait to surpalnt my views wiith your views so fast as they
shall appear to be truer views.  I stole that from Lincoln.:)
Subject: Re: WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT TO really HAVE TWO AMERICAS, LEFT AND RIGHT?
From: probonopublico-ga on 14 Aug 2004 11:02 PDT
 
Toughlover ...

You are so politically incorrect that I despair.

How can you possibly steal stuff from Abe Lincoln with
counter-balancing it with a steal from John Wilkes Booth?

C'mon man ... Fair's fair.
Subject: Re: WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT TO really HAVE TWO AMERICAS, LEFT AND RIGHT?
From: toughlover-ga on 14 Aug 2004 14:55 PDT
 
PROBONO, you caused me to mis-spell PRINCIPLES. With only a single
word I did both a Malaprop and mis-spell. I hate it when a single
letter changes the meaning of a word then I can't blame you Brits for
making spelling shuch a torture.  Oh did I blame you, that's because I
have not totally recovered from being a LIB:)
Subject: Re: WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT TO really HAVE TWO AMERICAS, LEFT AND RIGHT?
From: purkinje-ga on 15 Aug 2004 20:59 PDT
 
You could never have a left wing country because A) they depend on
working people to fund their laziness, but since no one was willing to
work, the government would not be able to support itself, and B) they
would be conquered in the first less-than-24 hour war because they
wouldn't want to offend other countries by actually defending
themselves.
Subject: Re: WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT TO really HAVE TWO AMERICAS, LEFT AND RIGHT?
From: probonopublico-ga on 15 Aug 2004 21:17 PDT
 
Sorry, Purkinje

But here in the UK, we already have got such a country.

Don't ask me how but it still continues to work - in a fashion - and
people are falling over themselves to come here.

Now, who would want to conquer us?

We ain't got NOTHING except mouths to feed.

Many people have tried ... The Vikings, The Romans, The French, The
Germans ... but they all take one look and then they pack their bags
and seek some better climes.

Why do you think that so many of our own folk have gone looking for
somewhere better to live?

Me? I'm off to Baghdad, because I hear that property prices are real
attractive there at present.
Subject: Re: WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT TO really HAVE TWO AMERICAS, LEFT AND RIGHT?
From: daytrader_7__6-ga on 17 Aug 2004 10:26 PDT
 
Amid blood and chaos, Baghdad's real estate market is blazing hot
Returning exiles, foreigners are driving prices up and locals out

Peter Y. Hong, Los Angeles Times
Sunday, August 8, 2004

Baghdad -- On the east bank of the Tigris River, a house is for sale.
An ad for it might read something like this: 10-bedroom, 14 1/2-bath
riverfront beauty. Swimming pool, servants' quarters, secure parking
for eight cars. Some bullet damage on third floor. Spotty electricity.
Baghdad schools. Asking $4 million.

In a nation with no mortgage lending, an estimated yearly per capita
income of $1,600 and deadly attacks daily, real estate prices in the
capital are flying high.

The unlikely flourishing of real estate is yet another example of how
postwar Baghdad doesn't live by the rules. People drive on the wrong
side of the street. No one stops at red lights. So why should chaos
and a future that is uncertain, to say the least, stop anyone from
dropping six or seven figures -- cash -- on a house?

Wealthy Baghdadites, it seems, are as bullish as millions of Americans
when it comes to property.

Listen to a Baghdad real estate agent these days, and you'll hear the
kind of blustery zeal familiar to anyone who's been pitched a $500,000
Los Angeles starter home.

"Real estate is the best investment you can make. No matter what
happened to Iraq in the past, nothing affected land values. Prices
will never go down," said Amarr Samir, a real estate broker in
Baghdad's upscale Jadriya neighborhood, just across the Tigris from
the heavily fortified Green Zone that houses the Iraqi government and
the new U.S. Embassy.

But just like some of their U.S. counterparts, many Iraqis who once
could afford modest houses are now priced out.

"A man who was going to get married used to be able to save for a few
years, maybe sell his car and scrape together enough to buy a house.
Now, it can only be a dream," Samir said.

There is some resentment of foreigners and former Iraqi exiles, who
are seen as "firing up prices. Some people are very angry,'' he said.

But for Samir, it's been a very good year. The fall of President
Saddam Hussein also toppled restrictions on those who had fled Iraq --
many of whom were thriving professionals abroad -- and gave them a
green light to return as residents or investors. Moneyed Iraqis who
kept a low profile during the Hussein years or parked their money in
banks and investments abroad began to spend it in Iraq.

Almost immediately after the war, those with means snapped up houses.
And a lot of people, it turned out, had a lot of means. "Sometimes
prices doubled overnight," Samir said. "It's unbelievable."

Humam Shamaa, a Baghdad University economist, said that even under the
1990s economic embargo and Hussein's strictly controlled economy, a
privileged class of Iraqis amassed great wealth. They included
contractors for the government, high-ranking officials and
businesspeople. Shamaa estimates that 10 percent of the population
holds 60 percent of the gross domestic product.

For them, real estate has long been one of the few investment choices
in a nation with an undeveloped financial sector, and it was seen as a
safe harbor from the uncertain value of the Iraqi dinar.

The overthrow of Hussein gave the resident elite the confidence to
trade up to grander houses or break ground on mansions. The return of
wealthy exiles who hoped to take government and business leadership
roles -- people like the interim prime minister, president and many
Cabinet members -- boosted the high-end housing market.

The hope that foreign companies will pour into Iraq once the violence
calms also keeps values up.

From this combination of factors arises the paradox of Baghdad real
estate: No one thinks Baghdad is a safe place to live, but plenty
believe that buying a house there is a safe investment.

A sprawling, low-rise city of roughly 5 million, Baghdad has its share
of slums, including Sadr City, where militiamen have battled U.S.
troops. But the city also has large middle-class neighborhoods of
modest brick houses and modern apartment blocks built by Hussein to
house government workers.

It also has wealthy pockets, where commercial streets are lined with
fashionable boutiques, opulent restaurants and stores filled with the
latest consumer electronics products and appliances from Japan, South
Korea, China and Turkey. High-end houses in these neighborhoods are
often imposing structures behind high walls, with five to 10 bedrooms
to accommodate multigenerational households.

Samir said that before the war, it was almost unheard of for a top-end
house to cost more than $700,000. Now, million-dollar houses abound in
Baghdad's handful of traditionally affluent neighborhoods despite the
carjackings, robberies and gunfire that have become common since the
war. At the lower end, a small house or apartment that might have cost
$15,000 before the war could now fetch $150,000.

Samir said undeveloped land was scarce in central Baghdad. If security
stabilizes, the newly liberated economy could multiply real estate
prices "10 times in two to three years," he said.

Construction of ever more opulent houses, meanwhile, goes on with gusto.

Across the Tigris from Hussein's former palace, Ahmed Kazaz, 38, is
building a four-bedroom, five-bathroom house on land his family left
vacant for more than 25 years. "They didn't want you to build anything
overlooking the palace," Kazaz said of Hussein's government. Even if
they could have built a house, he said, his family risked having it
seized by a top official who might fancy it for himself.

Kazaz, who attended graduate school in Texas and runs a commercial
fish farm and chicken ranch, appears to be sparing no expense. His
house will have spiral staircases, central air conditioning,
underground parking and a swimming pool, he said.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/08/08/MNG4H83J5Q1.DTL

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