I saw this on another internet forum and it spoke volumes about the 2000
election. My first thought was of good ol' Harry and how he did anything and
everything for Gore to try to win the election. This is solid proof that Bush
won. End of story. Case closed.

{wildly pumps fist in air} Ha! I finally finally got you Harry. The below
posting will bring you to your knees. You will then finally admit to all on
"wrecked.boats" that you were wrong. Say it... Say it.... "Okay, okay, I'm
sorry, I was wrong. You were right." HA HA HA HA!!!!!! {pumps fist in air
again and hollers "YES"!}

Butch Ammon

============cut 'n pasted off another internet forum=============
At about the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution, in the
year 1787, Alexander Tyler (a Scottish history professor at The University of
Edinburgh) had this to say about "The Fall of The Athenian Republic" some 2,000
years prior. "A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist
as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until
the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from
the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the
candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the
result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy,
(which is) always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations from the beginning of
history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always
progressed through the following sequence: From Bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to
abundance; From abundance to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From
apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage."

Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul,
Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the most recent
Presidential election:

Population of counties won by:
Gore=127 million
Bush=143 million

Square miles of land won by:
Gore=580,000
Bush=22,427,000

States won by:
Gore=19;
Bush=29

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by :
Gore=13.2
Bush=2.1

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was
mostly the land owned by the tax-paying citizens of this great country. Gore's
territory encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and
living off government welfare..."

Olson believes the U.S. is now somewhere between the "apathy" and "complacency"
phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy; with some 40 percent of the
nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.

123 (Butch Ammon) wrote in message ...
I saw this on another internet forum and it spoke volumes about the 2000
election. My first thought was of good ol' Harry and how he did anything and
everything for Gore to try to win the election. This is solid proof that Bush
won. End of story. Case closed.

{wildly pumps fist in air} Ha! I finally finally got you Harry. The below
posting will bring you to your knees. You will then finally admit to all on
"wrecked.boats" that you were wrong. Say it... Say it.... "Okay, okay, I'm
sorry, I was wrong. You were right." HA HA HA HA!!!!!! {pumps fist in air
again and hollers "YES"!}

Butch Ammon

snip

Sorry to interrupt your victory dance, but this is bogus. :-)

The only parts of it that are true are the "population of counties"
and "square miles of area" (although that is counting counties as
well).

Everything else is bogus.

1. The quote from the Scottish history professor is a fabrication.
It's also historically inaccurate regardless of who said it.
See:
http://www.lib.ed.ac.uk/faqs/parqs.shtml#Aftytler1

2. The quotes from "Professor Olson" are not from him. Someone made
up the murder-rate numbers and quotes and then posted them anonymously
to Usenet on 11/28/00. Within a couple days after that, someone had
affixed Professor Olson's name to the "statistics."

3. The final state count was Gore = 20, Bush = 30. There are 50
states, not 48.

4. The murder rate comparison is wrong.
The correct numbers are approximately Bush = 4.1, Gore = 6.5. Note
that if you compare on a more equal population-density-basis, this
difference essentially goes away (e.g., Gore=7.5, Bush=7.0 for
counties with 300 people/km^2).

See:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/tyler.asp

5. The sentiment expressed by the "quotes" from professor Olson
implies the Gore voters are largely parasites living off the hard work
of the Bush voters. This is also wrong. Comparing the demographics
of Bush and Gore voters reveals relatively few significant differences
(in education, income, etc.) other than the fact that blacks preferred
Gore about 4 to 1. Also, consider the fact that Bush won most of the
states that receive more federal funds than they pay in taxes while
Gore won most of the states that pay more than they receive. The
reasons for this aren't entirely clear, but it strains credulity to
interpret it as the "blue" states living off of the "red" states. The
data imply it's the other way around.

See:
http://psweb.sbs.ohio-state.edu/facu...cy-OSUConf.PDF

Maybe you can find another way to get Harry?

-Mike P.

Sorry to interrupt your victory dance, but this is bogus. :-)

Maybe you can find another way to get Harry?

-Mike P.

I'm working on it.... I'm working on it.... It will take careful research and
documented facts, but I'll get him! Ha ha ha ha.

Butch Ammon

One doesn't have to be a supporter of George Bush to be able to tell
that he is getting a raw deal. Some of the charges being leveled
against him are so thin as to be nearly transparent, yet somehow, they
find legs in the court of public opinion.

Recently, DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe charged that Bush was AWOL from
his military service with the Texas National Guard. (For the record,
Terry McAuliffe never served in the military in any capacity.)

John Kerry ran with that theme, suggesting that by serving as a
fighter pilot in the National Guard, Bush was shirking combat duty in
Vietnam. (That doesn't say much for the National Guard.) In any case,
Bush was a fighter pilot, not a cook. It is only slightly less
dangerous to fly a fighter jet in combat than it is in peacetime.

I found it fascinating that the same folks who defended Bill Clinton's
obvious draft-dodging tactics now condemn George Bush for serving
without going to Vietnam. The fact that Bush received an honorable
discharge and had more than the required 50 credits needed to earn it
is dwarfed by the cacophony of charges that say the exact opposite.

John Kerry was among Bill Clinton's staunchest defenders of draft
dodging. Kerry himself was so opposed to the war that, upon his return
from Vietnam, he earned the nickname "Hanoi John."

If Kerry was so philosophically against the war, how can he disparage
Bush for not participating in what Kerry described in 1972 as a war in
which American soldiers "personally raped, cut off ears, cut off
heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and
turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at
civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, shot
cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged
the countryside of South Vietnam"? That's the Vietnam War Kerry
described to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in April 1971.

If what Kerry alleged is true, then why would he suggest that a
possible experience with rape, torture and brutality is a necessary
qualification for president? Unless Kerry didn't really believe what
he was saying back then. Or doesn't believe it now.

I submit that if Bush had served in Vietnam, Kerry would be running on
his opposition to the war in Vietnam, instead of his service in it.
The media is trying to make a case out of Bush being discharged eight
months before his six-year term with the Guard was up as if that were
unusual in 1973 or involved pulling strings.

Watching Scott McClelland answer the White House press corps was a
study in frustration. The press corps didn't want to be bothered by
the facts; their minds were already made up.

But has anybody noted that Kerry got out of the Navy eight months
early for the same reasons? The war was being phased out. Yet I don't
hear anybody talking about that.

Bush has been accused of lying about why we got involved in the Iraq
war. Has anybody questioned the fact that France, Germany, the U.N.
and even John Kerry reached the same conclusions that Bush did, based
on the same intelligence? Does anybody really believe Bush had
information even the CIA didn't have, and then ignored it? Where did
Bush get this information?

Bush has been accused of "betraying" America by a clearly demented Al
Gore who charged that Bush was preparing for the war with Iraq even
before 9-11. Is it likely that, having adopted a policy of regime
change in 1998, the Clinton administration didn't have a similar war
plan already in place?

The war with Iraq should have been one of the most easily justified in
American history. Saddam defied the U.N. and committed 17 violations
of Security Council resolutions in the 12 years between the wars.

Even the president's critics are not arguing that Saddam should still
be in power in Baghdad. Instead, they say the White House acted
"unilaterally" – a charge belied by the fact there exists a
"coalition" of nations. It exists now, and it existed before the war
began, and troops from a dozen countries have given their lives to
free the Iraqi people. If it was American "unilateralism," what were
they doing there when they were killed?

The Democrats are openly admitting that this election isn't about
domestic issues, the war with Iraq or the economy. It's about
"electability" – meaning whoever has the best chance of beating Bush.
If Howdy Doody had a chance of defeating Bush, he'd be their
candidate.

Politics is a rough business. But this isn't about politics. It isn't
even about what's best for America. It's all about getting revenge for
Election 2000.

But remember, that was the election that guaranteed Al Gore was not in
charge on Sept. 11, 2001.

Does anybody really think that was a bad thing?