The Good Post Gallery

[Goldwater]

An entity has no soul. It is merely a product of the people in it. Therefore, it would stand to reason that regardless of the stance the Democrats took 150 years ago is irrelevant. One can as well easily observe the direction the Democrats took in transforming from a party of agrarians, Catholics, and Southerners, to a party of Northern liberals. Ironically, it would be a Catholic who assisted in this transformation. No conservative should believe in collective sin. That's for the affirmative action folks. Fact is, all the supporters of slavery are long, long dead. Many segregationists are dead or out of office.

[Goldwater]

Because they believe other policies should have been pursued during his presidency; and that his influence on present-day policy is largely negative. It's important to learn that people can hold different opinions than you just as staunchly and stridently as you hold yours.

[Goldwater]

I'm not sure if this is really the right place to post this, but it's too awesome and brilliant to go unnoticed.

1940. In a surprise, President Scott at the Democratic National Convention accepts the draft to run for a third term. Meanwhile, the Republicans are experiencing an internal rift. A young, right-wing one-term Washington Governor going by the name of Goldwater is able to capture the heart of the convention, winning the support of folks like Taft and Vandenberg to take the nomination. Despite Goldwater's own concerns about Nazi Germany, the conservatives slap him with an isolationist platform. Meanwhile, the moderate internationalists, concerned by Goldwater's nomination, put up Congressman S.S. Venue of Tennessee as their own independent candidate. Venue is more economically moderate than Goldwater though still to the right of Scott and due to his status as a third generation British American is very supportive of protecting his island from the ravages of Nazi aggression. In later years, a conspiracy would develop that the attempt to nominate Venue was a "British plot". In any case, Venue would try to build an independent coalition that would bring in North-Eastern moderates as well as Southern Republicans who he hoped he could cajole with his moderate economic stances. The most significant result would be a splitting of the Republican vote allowing Scott to win, benefiting from Venue's "foreign policy adventurism" and Goldwater's "dangerous economic policies".

President Scott (D-CT)/Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace (D-IA) 461 electoral votes, 48% of the popular vote
Governor Goldwater (R-WA)/Senator H. Styles Bridges (R-NH) 67 electoral votes, 38% of the popular vote
Congressman S.S. Venue (I-TN)/Mr. Wendell Willkie (I-NY) 3 electoral votes, 12% of the popular vote

Despite the outcome and what it represented, Scott would go on to lead American into WWII and, following Pearl Harbor, former Governor Goldwater would gladly offer support for the war effort and when he entered the Senate would become one of the most prominent Cold War hawks. Venue and his running-mate Willkie would both go on to experience several health concerns related to smoking. This would result in Venue's descendants strongly pushing for anti-tobacco legislation in the 1960's. Despite this, Venue and Goldwater reunited at the 1948 convention to support Thoms Dewey as the GOP's nominee.

[Goldwater]

Yeah, this petition is basically useless, don't know why a bunch of liberals think that signing it is going to get a gay teacher re-hired at a religious school.

If you don't want this kind of s**t to happen, just get rid of religious schooling. It's as simple as that. Make everyone go to public schools, ban private schools, end homeschooling, etc. It's all terrible anti-social activity anyway.

The second paragraph hopefully is just a troll.

We should encourage religious freedom in this country, not condone it. Public Schools were initially set up to indoctrinate young immigrant children and to pry them away from their 'corrupt' parents. My family saw this first hand when they immigrated in the 1920's. Fortunately, catholic school allowed them to send their kids to an institution that allowed for the preservation of the religious and cultural heritage. Many were not so lucky, and fell into the traps of racists like Wilson.

Furthermore, considering the awful track record of our public schools, why would you ever, ever want to encourage people to send their kids through that type of system. Unless of course you want them to grow up with a sub-par education. Private schools are for the rich, fine, let them do their thing. Homeschooling suits some people, fine. Charter schools are fine as well.

I understand many on the far '+' side of the authoritarian scale love the idea of collectively brainwashing young children, but to the rest of us its a repulsive idea.