Even if that were true, which it's not, it doesn't really mean anything. Even if 100% of terrorists were Muslim, you still have all the problems the GP outlined. There is still no easy way to identify someone as Muslim, especially if they are trying to hide their beliefs. It's still grossly unconstitutional to single people out by religion. And most importantly, you are STILL persecuting a group of people, the vast, VAST majority of whom are innocent, in an attempt to find a few bad guys.

Wow, that's pretty stupid. Attackers who are captured alive can give further information, while dead ones can't. Maybe he was a lone nut, but maybe not. But I'm sure making you feel like Jack Bauer is totally worth not potentially preventing other attacks.

I see a lot of flaws in your logic, but perhaps the biggest one is that you are focusing on POLITICIANS and ignoring actual scientists. While it makes a great talking point, in the end, what Al Gore thinks or believes has no bearing on whether or not AGW is true or false.

He DID commit a crime in a foreign country. He hacked into US computers located on US soil. The fact that the Internet makes it easier to attack a foreign entity from your own country shouldn't matter. We wouldn't be having this discussion if this guy had managed to build a missile and hit the Pentagon from the UK.

So despite living in a country completely dominated by Christian beliefs, to the point where even HINTING that a Presidential candidate isn't Christian is a viable campaign tactic, some people (such as the parent) will insist that Christians are persecuted and looked down on for their beliefs. For people who hold religious beliefs that are ACTUALLY in the minority, this is incredibly irritating and not a little bit self-promoting. And it's worth noting that a post filled with whining and putting words into other peoples' mouths, despite predictions of getting "modded into oblivion" is actually 3: Insightful as I post this.

Only if you believe that male voting behavior is tied to masculinity. And while I know plenty of conservatives who insist that it is, I'm not sure there is a lot of proof to back up that belief. In any case, I'm fairly sure that any "widening gap between rural and city...voting" would apply equally to men and women. Rural folks in general tend to be more conservative across the board, suggesting the environment is the main factor.

Citation needed on the "fools produce more children". Watching Idiocricy does not count as research, is there really any scientific study that says stupid people have more kids, or more importantly, that kids of "fools" end up as "fools" themselves.

Except a business, "big" or not, is run with the goal of getting profits. Who profits from a school getting a bigger chunk of the budget pie? Schools wanting money isn't evil, it's what they need to educate students.

I think you're right about the "attitude" people are looking for. The problem is that the new news sources are selling themselves on playing to their readers/viewers, and people eat it up so much that they don't notice the incredible lack of quality in the actual information being presented. Slashdot, Fark and Bill O'Reilly are replacing the New York Times, Washington Post and Edward R. Murrow? That's a dramatic drop in the quality of news, all in the name of being more democratic. You express the basic problem in your own post...you think it's BAD that news sources act like they have information we don't have. Of course they act that way, because they DO have information we don't have...that's what makes them good news sources. We're trading that for "news" any random gomer can present because that doesn't make us feel stupid? Not a good trade, if you ask me.

Not everyone...but most people. In any case, the counter-example isn't that there are people who dislike Obama who aren't conservative, the counter-example is that there are conservatives who apply the same pro-executive authority viewpoint to Obama that they did to Bush. And while I am willing to agree that not all Obama haters are conservative, I do NOT think there are very many conservatives out there who give Obama the free "he's the President" pass that they spent 8 years using to excuse Bush's bullshit.

I don't see a lot of Westerners converting or anything...but what's wrong with having an issue with them being repressed? Your counter-argument is that they're a bunch of wackos with "weird" beliefs...so Westerners should be OK with that "cult" being repressed? People with beliefs you disagree with NOT being repressed is pretty much the core of liberal, democratic Western beliefs. Comparing Falun Gong to Scientology may be accurate, but it's a stupid argument when you consider that Scientologists aren't being arrested for their beliefs, at least in the US.

There is no such thing as proof by anecdote. The fact that you managed to find TWO people associated with climate science (one of whom is not a researcher or scientist of any kind) who might be full of crap doesn't say ANYTHING about the facts involved, or the quality of the thousands of other scientists involved in climate science, the vast majority of whom have reached the same conclusion about the topic.

Every time I hear someone complain about universal health care meaning your health care decisions will be made by a "bureaucracy", instead of being between you and your doctor, I always wonder who they have their health care plan through. Because MINE comes from some enormous health care organization with a ridiculous bureaucracy already. Of course that's ignoring the fact that you can keep EXACTLY the system you have now under universal health care plans. But that would sort of kill the main argument against "socialized medicine", which is why people tend to ignore that point.

What a bunch of libertarian bullshit. The "free market" by definition will almost always benefit the majority. There is no profit in catering to the minority, thus the free market results in things like slavery and discrimination until laws intervene.

It's also probably not a good idea to make racially bigoted comments to your fellow officers, but that doesn't seem to have stopped the white cops...