McCain is 70? Ronald Reagan was lest than a month from his 70th birthday when he was inaugurated. Age itself should not be a factor, isn't that agism?? Anyway, experience is much more important.

In my not so humble opinion there isn't anything wrong with ageism, sexism or racism if these forms of discrimination are applied within reason.

Isn't a 90 year old man less capable of surviving, and even thinking clearly and effectively through a 4-year term of office than a 45 year old man? (I use 90 as an example only and know that McCain isn't 90 years old.) If you can answer that the 90 year old is definitely more at risk of dying in office then wouldn't it be reasonable to not place a 90 year old man at the helm? Or is this ageism and therefore taboo?

I can use these same arguments with regards to race and sex, but this is even more taboo and not-so-politically correct so the liberals on BookTalk.org will blow their gaskets. We all must discriminate in order to survive. "Discrimination" has a negative connotation, but the ability to discriminate is of survival benefit to each and every one of us.

Walk down the street late at night and approach a fork in the road. To the left you see a small group of what appears to be Mormon missionaries huddled together discussing the Book of Mormon. To the right you see the same number of individuals, but these people are wearing what appears to be gang clothing, colors, baseball caps turned backwards and lots of gold chains hanging from their necks.

Which path would you take, assuming both paths lead you to the same destination? Now assume the path that takes you by the apparent gang members is the shorter path. Would you walk by the gang members or go out of your way to avoid them?

I'm not sure discrimination applies to the president. He's hired not by one person, but by millions, and how can you enforce anti-discrimination on the masses? It's a natural part of democracy that will average out over the breadth of the population.

Chris OConnor wrote:
Walk down the street late at night and approach a fork in the road. To the left you see a small group of what appears to be Mormon missionaries huddled together discussing the Book of Mormon. To the right you see the same number of individuals, but these people are wearing what appears to be gang clothing, colors, baseball caps turned backwards and lots of gold chains hanging from their necks.

Which path would you take, assuming both paths lead you to the same destination? Now assume the path that takes you by the apparent gang members is the shorter path. Would you walk by the gang members or go out of your way to avoid them?

But I do not see the predjudice here...gang memebers look like trouble. Nothing to do with age, race or sex....it is just a riskier path to take when you can ascertain that these people are gang members. This is just using experience to judge a situation, not predjudice.

If I saw gang members on one path and a woman with a shotgun acting crazy on the other, I would probably take the gang path.

Mr Pessimistic:

But I do not see the predjudice here...gang memebers look like trouble. Nothing to do with age, race or sex...

I can't see myself being afraid of a gang of 75 year-old women no matter how they were dressed. Now if I'd heard stories or watched shows about granny gangs beating up on unsuspecting pedestrian I'd feel differently. We all use our experiences to discriminate and yes we do use age, sex, size, colour, shape or anything else discernable.

Bush was inept from the beginning no matter how much experience he already had. And we survived; barely. Well, no we didn't survive. We are headed into a Depression that right wing blowhards are trying to blame on Obama already. Truman and Kennedy were only slightly more experienced than Obama. The most experienced to enter the Oval Office in recent history, Richard Milhouse Nixon was a sleazy crook. Having been aware of Presidents since Eisenhauer handed the keys over to Kennedy, I would say the Presidency is 90% OJT anyway. Now, Palin, on the other hand, is BOTH inexperienced and inept and the fearful propsect of her standing next to McCain as he keeled over dead while in office was way too frightening to countenance.

Chris OConnor wrote:Walk down the street late at night and approach a fork in the road. To the left you see a small group of what appears to be Mormon missionaries huddled together discussing the Book of Mormon. To the right you see the same number of individuals, but these people are wearing what appears to be gang clothing, colors, baseball caps turned backwards and lots of gold chains hanging from their necks.

Which path would you take, assuming both paths lead you to the same destination? Now assume the path that takes you by the apparent gang members is the shorter path. Would you walk by the gang members or go out of your way to avoid them?

Dude, this actually happened to me. Except the Mormons were doing lines of coke off a hooker's ass, so the choice was really a no-brainer.

Greg Neuman wrote:

Chris OConnor wrote:Walk down the street late at night and approach a fork in the road. To the left you see a small group of what appears to be Mormon missionaries huddled together discussing the Book of Mormon. To the right you see the same number of individuals, but these people are wearing what appears to be gang clothing, colors, baseball caps turned backwards and lots of gold chains hanging from their necks.

Which path would you take, assuming both paths lead you to the same destination? Now assume the path that takes you by the apparent gang members is the shorter path. Would you walk by the gang members or go out of your way to avoid them?

Dude, this actually happened to me. Except the Mormons were doing lines of coke off a hooker's ass, so the choice was really a no-brainer.

I was walking innocently down the road here in san diego and to my left were a group of mormons who were smartly dressed and smiling as they spent 20 million dollars taking rights away from gays and lesbians. i'll take my chances on the gang members, thank you.

shawnrohrbach wrote:I was walking innocently down the road here in san diego and to my left were a group of mormons who were smartly dressed and smiling as they spent 20 million dollars taking rights away from gays and lesbians. i'll take my chances on the gang members, thank you.

Well, I was making a little (perhaps a very little) joke there. If actually faced with that choice, I'd pick the Mormons. Though I don't agree with them on prop eight any more than you do, I wouldn't risk my life just to make a small and ultimately meaningless political statement.

Mormons might not be your kind of folks, but they don't shoot people for stepping on their turf.

Greg Neuman wrote:

shawnrohrbach wrote:I was walking innocently down the road here in san diego and to my left were a group of mormons who were smartly dressed and smiling as they spent 20 million dollars taking rights away from gays and lesbians. i'll take my chances on the gang members, thank you.

Well, I was making a little (perhaps a very little) joke there. If actually faced with that choice, I'd pick the Mormons. Though I don't agree with them on prop eight any more than you do, I wouldn't risk my life just to make a small and ultimately meaningless political statement.

Mormons might not be your kind of folks, but they don't shoot people for stepping on their turf.

I was actually in Tijuana recently and everyone told me the drug gangs would cut my head of etc etc and I had a very nice time, actually. As for the Mormons, i really dislike people who smile at me behind white shirts and black ties as they use church donations to change the constitution. I have actually read the Constitution and several conflicting interpretations of it and usually the scholars agree that the founding fathers wanted us to keep the churches and the state separate. I do not see that as an insignificant or meaningless political statement. This issue just happens to catch the Mormons, (and Catholics and Evangelicals) red handed at it.