<p>“It would be ok with me if our Federal Govt got out of the Education Business altogether. If you examine schools which accept no federal money, they generally cost far less than institutions which do accept such funds.”</p>
<p>I don’t know of a single school that does not accept federal funds. Harvard will take Pell grant as well as Federal govt research funds that total more than 1 billion dollars per year.</p>
<p>" don’t know of a single school that does not accept federal funds. Harvard will take Pell grant as well as Federal govt research funds that total more than 1 billion dollars per year."</p>
<p>I believe Hillsdale doesn’t take federal funds.</p>
<p>I know that a few of my neighbors would love to have a law for “defense of marriage,” even though I am sure that they also hear me and my wife arguing.</p>
<p>I am thinking about how to make my own sex tape for the government. Have you thought about yours?</p>
<p>Remember that time when sometime someone would make a statement, and then put a “Not” at the end. Too many of the current generation and the Aquarius generation have forgotten how to question and analyze statements.</p>
<p>I want to see the “twenty-seven, eight by ten, glossy photos, with the circles and arrows.”</p>
<p>I am hoping for serious discussions on the direction we (Americans) are heading. The next presidential election is shaping up to one of the most important in American history. Many citizens of western Europe countries are realizing liberal policies of the past are failing to solve national,social problems of the present and tomorrow, and are turning toward the right. Will America follow that trend?</p>
<p>To 1of42, I thought I had answered your question. A turn toward the middle will be good and that’s the America I want for myself and my children.</p>
<p>yourworld, the middle of the political spectrum is to the left of where America is now, sorry to say. I don’t particularly care if you agree or not, because if you look on a worldwide scale, it becomes blatantly evident that America is the most conservative country in the western world, and is beaten in conservatism only socially by Muslim theocracies and various dictatorships.</p>
<p>As for European countries moving to the right, yes, but they are actually moving to the middle, as most are fairly far left of center. They’ll never even get as far right as America is now, nor will they ever go farther.</p>
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<p>I agree.</p>
<p>Alas, it will be a choice between disgraced extremes yet again. </p>
<p>Both parties are in the hands of polar opposite radicals who are using their power for their own purposes. A pox on both the Dem’s and the Rep’s.</p>
<p>As usual, Tom Tomorrow nails it:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.workingassetsblog.com/2007/10/the_quest_for_common_ground.html[/url]”>http://www.workingassetsblog.com/2007/10/the_quest_for_common_ground.html</a></p>
<p>I know Hillsdale Col accepts neither federal nor state money, as grants or loans. It is my understanding that Grove City Col and Col of the Ozarks, both extremely affordable, do not accept such monies either.</p>
<p>and if you think George W. is stupid, at least his GPA was higher than John Forbes Kerry’s.</p>
<p>^^Of course at that point in his life he was drinking and doing drugs. Maybe he should not have stopped.</p>
<p>a turn toward the Middle…I thought you were referring to the baby boomers qualifying for Medicare this year and our tendency to gain a few inches in the middle.</p>
<p>Something had come over me, and it’s unusual: I am not mad at anyone. Along with this I lost my usual zeal to the right the wrongs of lefttist America. I hope this is temporary.</p>
<p>So far the responses have been limited. Some choose to make light of the topic. (Again I am not mad? ). Others demanded my positions of what kind of country I like to live in for me, my children, and my neighbors. The title of this thread is reasonable hint enough. </p>
<p>Does this forum depicts an acurrate picture? Are you content with the status quo? Too busy with your lives to care ? Do you prefer to sit on the sidelines and jeer at people in power? I need not repeat the big button issues that faced Americans. An administration that governs from the middle, does it make sense for you ? That is what I am asking and longing for your answers.</p>
<p>
No, I look forward to the opportunity in the not-too-distant future to replace them.</p>
<p>Sorry you are not getting the answer you want, which is support for a “middle” that suits you. It is pathetic to watch the not-Right wax nostalgic for the days of civilized discourse and political moderation, having made no pretense to either during their reign of incompetence and (not winning the war on) terror. Sorry buddy, that train has left the station.</p>
<p>“I am hoping for serious discussions on the direction we (Americans) are heading.”</p>
<p>The answer is opposite directions. We are at most two election cycles away from major political realignment, the first sine Lincoln was elected. I believe the country will dismember itself the same way European countries are dismembering themselves. Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union came apart violently. Czechoslovakia came apart peacefully and is being followed by Belgium and the UK. Canada cannot stay together either except through the loosest of federal unions. There are also major forces pulling Italy and Spain apart and France has of course virtually lost control of major swatches of its own territory.</p>
<p>The United States cannot survive except as a federal union and neither the Left nor major hunks of the Right want that. Each disdains democracy and perferes omnipotent courts and bureaucracies, but the Left is the bigger threat because they have already begun to defy federal law in the regions they control - drug, immigration laws for starters. The Right will adopt the same tactics which will inevitably lead to a showdown. At that point I believe the country will peacefully divide.</p>
<p>The left have spoken again ###.</p>
<p>One cheers for the dismemberment of the union that is the United States of America (yeah don’t deny it, that is what you said in essence), while the other pines about “…the train has left the station” which I take it to mean there is no hope for a policy of moderation. </p>
<p>I hear new report about Al Aqaeda recruiting native-born Americans to do the job for them because the usual suspects were easy picks by law enforcement. Expect a knock on your doors. America was not founded by men such as these, and will survive them, too.</p>
<p>Actually I am a conservative and as patriotic as the next guy, but I cannot help we would all be better off in a whole pile of ways if the country were split apart into three or four smaller chunks.</p>
<p>Canada doesn’t have all sorts of foreign problems and isn’t the target of every “movement” in the world. Why? Because Canada is insignifcant. Would the French oppose motherhood in the UN if we were for it yes. Would they do the same if Canada introduced the resolution? Hardly.</p>
<p>As I see it we have two choices, an increasingly polarized large country with an increasingly aggressive central government or a peaceful parting of the ways and dividing of assets.</p>
<p>BTW my prediction for the next election is heavy gains for the Dems in the Senate and very modest gains in the House along with a much closer than expected win for Hillary in the presidential election. That will be followed by almost immediate buyers remorse from the hard Left of the Democratic party.</p>
<p>Yourworld, in the America I grew up in, the difference in wealth between the poor, the large middle class, and the wealthy had maintained a balance for decades. As the economy grew, everyone got better off - the rising tide indeed lifted all boats. I attended a fine university and then law school at a cost I could cover by working part time during the school year and then saving my earnings over the summer, because the taxpayers subsidized the cost of higher education. You could camp in beautiful state and national parks for free - funded by taxpayers. </p>
<p>Over the past 30 years, all of the increase in national wealth has gone toward the most affluent - the poor are poorer, the shrinking middle class bumping along, paying higher prices for things that used to be partly funded by government. The tax rates for the wealthy have been slashed while the middle class was given an income tax cut with one hand and a sales tax hike with the other. Tax dollars are spent on corporate subsidies; services to the middle class have been eliminated. The cost of a college education has exploded; my old public law school’s tuition is 40 times what it was 35 years ago. The cost for a simple campsite rivals that of a cheap motel room.</p>
<p>So where are these “wrongs of leftist America” you bleat about? I see a country which has tilted far to the right in economic policies for decades - to the detriment of just about everyone but the most affluent of us. And even though I have the good fortune to belong to the winning team in the ongoing class war (even as a mere bench player) I don’t like what it augurs for my kids and their generation. </p>
<p>That’s why you haven’t gotten the response you’re looking for: your question assumes a basic fallacy - that a “turn towards the middle” means a turn to the right. I’m not happy with the status quo. I’d love to see America turn towards honoring the values which we espouse but fail to honor.</p>
<p>And if we kick enough Republicans out of office, we might just see it happen.</p>
<p>Kluge, I was close to buying some of what you said until it came to:
“And if we kick enough Republicans out of office, we might just see it happen.”
So republicans are evil, right? Who kept America from getting attacked (knock on wood) since 9/11 while the softies in Congress want to “see” the memo on terrorist interrogation methods ? Whose policy brought US out of post 9/11 recession. And what “values which we espouse[sic]” we failed to honor?</p>
<p>“Over the past 30 years, all of the increase in national wealth has gone toward the most affluent - the poor are poorer, the shrinking middle class bumping along”</p>
<p>Fact check please. Would you like to support any of those statements with some actual numbers?</p>