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In reply to #8:

Are you for real? Its so hard to tell in your post if you are serious or not. Some of the accusations and name calling is so far from being inteligent that I wonder.

I am going to just assume that you were kidding, it will help me sleep better tonight knowing that you really don't preach that others let alone students.

:)  "worshiped useless Bush, won't trust the talented Obama....zzzzzzzzz...........

(Sorry to any if it is not appropriate to respond like this here, but this is just too much to let go)

"Some of the accusations and name calling is so far from being inteligent that I wonder." baclrh2o

Apart from criticising 'name-calling' and still managing to label people you disagree with as not 'inteligent' in the same sentence, your post was... zzzzzzzz...

Maybe I am just in denial  but to this day I wish I had enough substance to make a formal decision on whether being unhappy with the healthcare reform is a reflection of our views of the race of our President.

I am a minority and (ironically to many) a Republican. I dislike the Health Reform because of its implications on the lack of freedom of choice that it could lead to. I love my health insurance and YES I pay highly for it because that was my choice. Just like it was my choice to work extra hard to make extra money and enjoy extra privileges. I am a happy capitalist and I believe that most of us who live in America enjoy our way of life, especially when you have the freedom to reap what you sow. Anything that comes near the possibility of a "free for all" that in any way threatens my freedom to keep what I deserve should then kindly move to another system of government or another philosophical land (some suggest OZ) and experiment there first.

Anything...  that in any way threatens my freedom to keep what I deserve should then kindly move to another system of government or another philosophical land (some suggest OZ) and experiment there first. - herappleness

You seem very certain that you have absolutely no social responsibility to any one else and that you have never benefitted socially.

Why do you deserve things that other people don't have? Does the wage-slave (who works just as hard as you) in China or India (or America) deserve to work for $2 a day making your cheap goods? Does the starving African deserve to go hungry because the fields are full of your coffee? Does a child born into hopeless poverty not deserve the life-long advantages you've had?

Are you and you alone responsible for your 'success'?

Fizzy perm- Thanks for your feedback.

In my line of thought, I truly and honestly believe that we are all given an "oxygen tank" called "life" and we are responsible to use it responsibly and effectively to survive our own timelines (not other people's)- and we are 100% responsible to breathe it to the max. We are in charge of our own successes and failures and that takes a lot of social responsibility because we are taking care of ourselves correctly--I refuse to believe that I am in charge of someone down the street.

Every human being is given the same "oxygen tank" in the form of 24 hours a day to LEARN. Many use it, many do not. Many do not know how to.

Yet, NONE of us is wise enough to say we have learned all that we could out of our 24 hours to spend it on other people's lives.  None.Of.Us.

How could we just be so petulant to assume that we can help others when we cannot help ourselves?

In my own 24 hours of oxygen  (granted by God or by whatever is out there) I have decided to earn what I feel that my life deserves until I crust, get sick, and die. It is NOT social irresponsibility, because I am taking care of the only person who can lead my life to change for the better of society: Myself.

I am sorry if others cannot do it but, I can only help others land once I figure my own destination.I don't believe God (or Fate) put me or anyone in this world to figure other people's lives out.

AND.WHY.NOT?

Why cannot others get off their misery horses and challenge themselves to learn, compete.... and win?

Isn't it called Social Darwinism?- Survival of the fittest? I say, if someone cannot take the heat, leave the kitchen- but don't expect to share the hors d'ouvres. I mean, shoot, why should they??

Why cannot others quit making excuses for their losses and try and calculate their winnings if they only they get STARTED?

This GREAT country was not built on people who made excuses for themselves. They got stuff done and they made rules. I think if we live in a nation formed by go-getters, we shall remain the same....or move somewhere else to a place where people just HAVE to believe they "aren't worthy" of a better life.  You know, a place where people cannot stand get their feelings hurt and where one steps out to take care of others while being completely needy inside. Take our leader. He'd love it there.

Just my 1st amendment-sponsored humble opinion.

@herappleness.

It is selfish, and ultimately self-defeating, to say your are not reponsible for the rest of the world because you are connected to them in an infinite number of ways and there is an unequal distribution of opportunity.

Half of America is so fat that it is a national disgrace, while half of Africa is so thin that we should all be ashamed. Are the Africans merely failing to make an effort? Are you truly saying that you can see no connection between your success and the efforts of others?

Obviously, there are some people who are lashing out at President Obama due to his race. But I think the majority of the intense criticisms is coming in the form of retaliation by conservatives by the constant bashing that President Bush took during his eight years in office. Bush was the target of the most intense criticism of perhaps any public figure since Herbert Hoover. Granted, some of that criticism was warrented, some of it was unfair. Same thing with Bill Clinton. A big part of Democratic hatred toward Bush was due to the way he took office following the 2000 election. There are, unfortunately, wounds there that will never fully heal. Obama is in a tough spot, as greed and corruption from both parties has made success difficult to even define at this point, and the problem with that is, when you run as a "hope and change" candidate, there is an extraordinary amount of pressure to deliver right away. As we saw with Reagan, however, success may not happen until a few years into a Presidency. The vast majority of conservatives are not racist at all. But the small percentage of the ones who are have a tendency to grab the media spotlight and make the whole party (and even the whole country) look bad. No matter what side you're on, the GOP's reputation has taken a gigantic hit since 2005, and it won't get better for them until they go back to the core principles they once stood for.

In reply to #1: Every good discussion requires that posters be addressing topics with the same set of definitions. It would helpp if you could post a specific example of "extreme opposition" since that is a matter of perspective, similarly when you ask for responses that address "disproportionate" and "fair."

Your opinion is evident in the second part of the questioning, so in the context of that, I'd say that you already have your mind made up, therefore this is not really a discussion, but a challenge to those who dare to disagree with your assertions.

To give validity to your statements, I suggest you quote President Jimmy Carter who discussed this very point at length. An analysis of his controvesial comments might further this discussion beyond that of you trying to convince me that I'm wrong.

President Clinton offered another perspective that tended to discount the racism factor asserting that the same people who opposed him on health care oppose President Obama as well. He did not deny the existence of racism, just its impact as the determining factor.

The current issue of Slate suggests that the meaning of racism is overused. For the sake of argument, I've asserted that "race" has no valid scientific meaning, therefore should be avoided in favor of more specific terminology denoting culture or history.

In reply to #2: Extremism gets camera attention in our media-jaded society, and I often suspect that some of these "haters" are little more than attention-seekers pushing buttons they think might result in their 15 minutes of fame.

Labeling these people with such a perjorative term that is so overused by the media and vague in its scientific validity tends to impart on them motives not always in evidence. If they are in fact pawns of Clear Channel Talk radio hosts, then identifying them with statements these pontificators have made reduces the significance of their protests somewhat. From what I've seen, their numbers are usually quite small, hardly indicative of a groundswell of opposition or even "hatred."

The Internet now gives us the ability to distill huge segments of the Rush Limbaugh's or Sean Hannity's daily rants into discursive chunks. Comapring what they say to what their "dittoheads" and other minions do suggests a power beyond simple reason, crossing into the charismatic influencings of populations by oversimplistic maxims such as those portrayed in George Orwell's Animal Farm. "Two legs bad, four legs good." This we saw at some of the summer Town Hall meetings where the direction of criticism was strikingly similar at different venues.

Determining the motives of these apparently influential on-air personalities may go a long way into reducing their effectiveness at mass persuasion.