Personal Letters from a College-Aged Hillary Clinton

tommybill · August 8, 2007, 8:56am

Ok so now we know what happens to the airplane when 40 people (10 terrorists and 40 good guys) pull out their John Wayne commemorative Colt SAA 45s and start shooting at each other.

The plane goes down over an open field and the passengers and crew are killed. The plane goes down over a populated area and there are deaths on the ground in addition.

Wouldnt it be better to not let anyone other than the trained processional US Air Marshals have a gun on the airplane?

How can it make sense to allow terrorists carry guns on an airplane, which is, after all, what you are suggesting?

tommybill · August 8, 2007, 9:12am

Just an interesting John Birch Society (JBS) story.

The JBS was founded in Indianapolis IN. in the mid-fifties. In the late-sixties, the house where the society was founded went up for sale. The JBS started a fundraising drive to buy the house and turn it into a museum. When the local Episcopal bishop, who lived just a few doors away from the house, and who came from a family of considerable wealth, hear of the JBS plans, he walked down the street and wrote a check for the house. He then set up a foundation that owns the house in perpetuity, and rents office space to community base non-profits at a deep discount.

interesteddad · August 8, 2007, 1:53pm

You have misrepresented Clinton’s positions on a number of issues.

For example, Clinton is in strongly in favor of full civil union legal rights for gay couples. Her position on gay marriage is that states should be allowed to decide that.

Saying that she “supports” No Child Left Behind" is a gross and misleading simplification. Here is video of the nine-minute answer she gave to a question about NCLB at her YearlyKOS breakout session on Saturday:

<a href=“http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-305185695042160783[/url]”>http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-305185695042160783</a>

I would suggest making a mental comparison between the depth of her answer and what it would be like to listen to George W. Bush speak extemporaneously about education for nine minutes.

iloveagoodbrew · August 8, 2007, 2:23pm

Stop dreaming up imaginary scenarios arrogant liberals. Obviously 50 people wouldn’t fire their guns at the same time. Trust me, us gun owners have a good grasp of reality and reserve, which you lack.

Oh ya, lets put faith in ‘trained’ US Marshalls, because clearly, government hired employees automatically have jedi mastery over firearms that us ****ant plebeians would never hope to attain. Give me a break.

Oh ya, who the hell carries a SAA as their carry piece? Too many Westerns for you, I am afraid.

JHS · August 8, 2007, 2:30pm

I should trust you that gun owners have a good grasp of reality and reserve?

Who is shooting all those people out there, then? Other than gun owners and their relatives who know where the guns are?

And who supported the NRA’s attack on restrictions on owning assault weapons and automatic weapons? That really says “reserve” to me!

iloveagoodbrew · August 8, 2007, 3:10pm

Are you kidding me? The criminals are. They steal guns, or get them on the black market. Or are you seriously suggesting legal gun owners go around killing people? This is just absurd.

Assault weapon? Any idea what that is? Me neither. Its a political term that can be modified to fit literally any gun out on the market.

Automatic weapons? Newsflash! They have been illegal since 1934!

Guns should not be restricted by type, nor should they be regulated so strictly by the federal government. There is no Constitutional basis for this.

hereshoping · August 8, 2007, 3:51pm

Hillary is great on platitudes. That’s about all that link is, actually.

“Kids learn differently!” “Individual accountability!” “Unfunded mandate!” “Universal pre-K!” “Keep the arts!”

It is a downright lie on her part that the Bush administration lowered education standards. The STATES are responsible for the standards, and many of them fiddled with the state tests based on the standards to keep up with AYP rules in response to NCLB–the act that Hillary and Teddy want to pour more money into. The feds loosened up AYP a little, when they learned that states weren’t able to keep up with the unrealistic AYP rules, but that’s about it. If anybody is corrupt, it’s the Democrat-controlled STATE departments of ed, like mine here in PA.

NCLB was GWB’s naive attempt to “reach across the aisle” to Teddy to set the tone for a new bipartisan era. Ha. Before the ink was dry, the Dems were out to stab GWB in the back on NCLB.

So with Hillary, we’ll have a new, more costly NCLB with federal standards and supposedly less testing (to make the teachers’ unions happy). Nice.

By the way, when Hillary got done with her expensive education reform in Arkansas in 1983 (which she now blows her horn about at every opportunity), they were still ranked at the bottom of the barrel.

interesteddad · August 8, 2007, 3:58pm

So, why don’t you pick your favorite Republican candidate and post a link to the video of him talking about education in the United States for nine minutes?

My guess, even good ol’ Fred, with his best down home Tennessee accent, can’t drawl out the word “vouchers” for nine minutes. Let the kids eat cake, but I bet ol’ Fred could wax eloquent about “family values” for nine minutes.

hereshoping · August 8, 2007, 4:03pm

Talk is cheap. Hillary has a record, in case anyone is interested in looking it up.

interesteddad · August 8, 2007, 4:16pm

Yes, she does. I’ll even help out with this link, where you can look up every key Senate vote, organized by issue, Clinton has made in the US Senate:

<a href=“Vote Smart | Facts For All”>Vote Smart - Facts For All;

afruff23 · August 8, 2007, 8:27pm

@interesteddad
<a href=“http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/05/parsing-clintons-views-on-gay-marriage/[/url]”>http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/05/parsing-clintons-views-on-gay-marriage/</a>

She still doesn’t even support gay marriage officially in any form. She’s jsut waiting for the right time and then changing here views tog et mroe votes like she always does.

NCLB is another example of this. Did she even read it? “The Bush Administration didn’t make the tests standardized nationally.” No, you were just too lazy and incompetent to read something before you signed it. She’s just reneging to get more votes.

Even so, here new ideas on education won’t work. On paper, they sound great and all, but then the implementation will fail just like other federally-enforced mandates. How is a senator from New York going to know how the education system works in Oregon? They don’t, and they really do not take the time to research these things.

No system is perfect, but state and local governments can handle issues much more personally and better than the federal government.

Who said anything about anybody arguing for Bush? Not another strawman argument…

Also, look at the clip I posted earlier of Ron Paul, a Republican candidate. He talks about education without using any weasel words or catchphrases like “Individual accountability”. If she just elaborated on her plans, then maybe I’d let her slide but she just continues to say a little with a lot unlike Paul who says a lot with a little. Just watch the clip I posted. He even bluntly says: “I’m going to get rid of the department of Education as one of my earlier actions.” That is a little paraphrased, but it is not misquoted or out-of-context. He doesn’t say that education is important and children learn differently. Every idiot knows that. Tell us HOW you’ll deal with it. I hope Hillary’s “Individual Accountability” doesn’t become like Rudy’s “9/11”. Ideas are good, plans are better.

@tommybill

"Ok so now we know what happens to the airplane when 40 people (10 terrorists and 40 good guys) pull out their John Wayne commemorative Colt SAA 45s and start shooting at each other.

The plane goes down over an open field and the passengers and crew are killed. The plane goes down over a populated area and there are deaths on the ground in addition.

Wouldn’t it be better to not let anyone other than the trained processional US Air Marshals have a gun on the airplane?

How can it make sense to allow terrorists carry guns on an airplane, which is, after all, what you are suggesting?"

There are several flaws to your argument:

<ol>
<li>There aren’t Marshalls on every flight, but let’s just assume the next President changes that.</li>
<li>10 or even 3 terrorists can easily overpower 1 or 2 air marshalls.</li>
<li><a href=“http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/05/air_marshal_say.html[/url]”>http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/05/air_marshal_say.html</a></li>
</ol>

Air Marshalls are not anonymous. A terrorist could keep track of who checked in and find out who is the Marshall.
4.“The plane goes down over an open field and the passengers and crew are killed. The plane goes down over a populated area and there are deaths on the ground in addition.”

OK, let’s just assume that the Air Marshall is James Bond and is able to kill every single of the 10 terrorists dead in a matter of 3 minutes. The terrorists shooting back could very well have caused this same, impossible scenario of a crash into an open field.

<ol>
<li>“How can it make sense to allow terrorists carry guns on an airplane, which is, after all, what you are suggesting?”</li>
</ol>

Terrorists can get guns on board anyway. You really think the TSA (created by the department of Homeland Security, another branch of inefficient Federal bureacracy) can catch all weapons? No, it isn’t feasible. I could knit up an outfit of those guys on the tarmac as well as a flight engineer’s uniform.

I sneak on tarmac in a tarmac guy uniform, help load luggage, stick a concealed bag full of guns under the stairway, have my first class terrorist buddy pick it up as he’s the first passenger up the stairs, and distribute the guns to his buddies.

Of course, I’m no terrorist, so there are probably tons more practical methods.

If you ban guns from the hands of the people, bad people will always find a way to get ahold of weapons.

<ol>
<li>If the terrorists know that there are tons of gun-toting civilians on the plane, then they would never attempt such a stupid plot anyway.</li>
</ol>

But let’s just assume that the terrorists have no analytical abilities and go ahead with their plan on a plane with gun-bearing civilians. Their plan never works.

hereshoping · August 8, 2007, 8:54pm

Don’t have 9, but I have 6 and 11 seconds:

<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgxiJHm43zI[/url]”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgxiJHm43zI</a>

Good stuff. No notes. Pretty intelligent, if you ask me.

afruff23 · August 8, 2007, 9:57pm

@hereshoping

I won’t get started on how Rudy is not qualified to be president with his ignorance on foreign policy. He believes that US intervention in the Middle East had nothing to do with 9/11.

His education proposal sounds well, but it’s just another problem waiting to happen.

<a href=“http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul132.html[/url]”>http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul132.html</a>

Here, Dr. Ron Paul talks extensively about the issue and how it isn’t going to work.

Why?

It would allow the Federal government control over private schools, (particularly religious schools), since vouchers can only be used at schools which accept them. By accepting vouchers, they would have to accept certain federal regulations. This infringes on your 1st amendment rights (religion).

Ron Paul: "Inevitably, some parents will choose a school whose curriculum is objectionable to many taxpayers; say an academy run by believers in the philosophy of the Nation of Islam. This will lead to calls to control the schools for which a voucher can be used. "

afruff23 · August 8, 2007, 10:21pm

<a href=“http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h109-1268[/url]”>http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h109-1268</a>

Look at the senate voting record for this bill. Hillary Clinton(NY) voted yes. Obama(IL) voted yes. McCain(AZ) voted yes.

Now look at the house of representatives record. Ron Paul(TX) voted no.

Watch somebody say “How can Paul be so heartless and not help Tsunami victims?!”

Well, if you understand how Congress works, then you’ll see. They tack on little things to resolutions. They tacked on the “Real ID Act of 2005”.

Looks like Obama (Democrat) and Clinton (D) aren’t looking out for your rights.
<a href=“http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2005/tst050905.htm[/url]”>http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2005/tst050905.htm</a>

There are tons of websites about how the Real ID is bad, but I’ll just tell you the fundamental problem of it: it’s unconstitutional.

The Constitution does not outline what people may do; it outlines what the government can and cannot do. It was drafted as a way to outline the exact functions of the federal government. Since the Constitution never said that the government can invade your privacy, you have a right to privacy.

interesteddad · August 8, 2007, 10:54pm

hereshoping:

Could you explain what Rudy is talking about? He seems to be arguing that colleges work because parents have a choice of private or public schools.

By implication, he seems to be suggesting that his “education plan” would allow parents to choose private or public schools for K-12.

What I’m confused about is that I thought parents already had the choice to select public or private schools. Rudy seems to think that children are mandated by the government to go to one, and only one, public school. But, I went to private school. And I think many kids here on CC go to private schools. Are they breaking the law? And, in fact, scholarship money is available for many parochial and private schools.

What is he talking about? Federal Pell Grants for private K-12? What will be the cost of that program? Is he talking about privatizing K-12 education? In order to get “bureacrats” out of the system, is he proposing closing down public education? Does he have the votes in Congress?

tommybill · August 9, 2007, 9:03am

to iloveagoodbrew …

the 40 number came from post 164 not me…if you want to carry a sissy gun that’s ok by me I want a SAA 45 a real man’s gun…

hereshoping · August 9, 2007, 9:06am

* ad hominem comment edited out - Mod JEM*
It is wonderful that your family had the money to send you to a private school. However, not all families can afford to get their kids out of the hellhole schools they are presently in. Vouchers would enable them to do that–all cutesiness aside. I posted a link to an extensive series of articles in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, which explains how it works and how it is working in that city–the only large-scale effort to use vouchers in a major city to date, as far as I know.

The reason I believe RG is sincere is because he pushed hard for vouchers in NYC.

Personally I think it’s about time that we help poor families stuck in failing schools by trying something other than throwing more money at the educrat establishment. That is my opinion, but your mileage may vary.

afruff: One thing I agree with Ron Paul about is that we should dismantle the federal Department of Education. I believe Ronald Reagan wanted to do so, but somehow it never happened.

iloveagoodbrew · August 9, 2007, 10:29am

I know it was directed at someone else…something dad I believe. Accuracy is final, although I doubt you have ever shot anything in your life. Ignorance bleeds through.

tommybill · August 9, 2007, 11:41am

From post 198…Ignorance bleeds through

Perhaps it not ignorance on my part but a vastly larger base of knowledge on your part……

I still think, if we are going to allow terrorist on airplanes with guns, and without any restrictions, the guns ought to be real American guns like the SAA and not some sissy European model like the Glock.

Was the use of the word bleeds in this post purposeful, if so, it was in bad taste?

conyat · August 9, 2007, 7:47pm

Let me get this straight:

K-12 education: parents able to choose public or private, and not pay anything out of pocket either way. Republicans: Strongly support.

pre-K: parents able to choose public or private and not pay anything out of pocket either way. Parents have an additional option to decline. Republicans: Strongly oppose.

Something very magical must happen to a child around age 5 that parental choice and government funding stop being bad and start being good.

Personal Letters from a College-Aged Hillary Clinton

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