Bush Wins!?

[ZONEACE]

anarchist? im not friends with, no am i an anarchist. i just prefer my president atleast have some sense of foreign policy and well, to be less of a douchebag than george w bush.

[lulu scaredofW]

a small rant.

i agree with jeep. he will only be president for 4 more years, but the people he appoints to be justices will be there pretty much until they die. THAT is what frightens me. only people that share his point of view will be appointed, and his singular point of view will be enforced throughout america for at least a couple generations.

i consider myself to be relatively moderate. i dont understand why people choose parties and vote along those lines like ignorant sheep. what bothers me more is that our presidential elections are inevitably won by people that MUST align themselves with one party or another. i just hope that our president respects the opinions of the whole of america, and not just his own party's wishes. 50% of the country does not agree that he can do the job, so he damn well better try harder to change that 50%'s opinion.

i think it is very telling that other countries do not agree with our foreign policy. i don't know that things would be different with someone else in power, but the US president ought to be aware of the other countries we share the world with and try to make friends instead of enemies.

[mathcam]

First, when did swearing become so prevalent on the boards? Now I'm certainly not one to censor myself in the heat of debate, but I also consider it a personal philosophy that if you can't make your point without swearing, then you probably don't have as good of a point as you thought. So (and this is just an example), while I agree with your point, cubs, I think you could have made a stronger point in a different way.

To quagmire:

So because Bush isn't socialistic like you guys doesn't mean you have to complain.

Right, but does that mean they don't

get

to? The American president has a profound effect on world (and thus, European) affairs. If they've found what in their opinion is a better way of doing things, why would you stifle them? And since it seems to be so nearly unanimous world-round, don't you think we should consider listening?

Clinton had an insanely unstable economy. All economic experts agree that his economy would have faltered by 2010 assuming the best conditions for us in that regard.

I thought your post was well-said (though I disagree with most of it) until here, but here it became misleading. If you're talking about the dot-com boom, then of course it was going to stop eventually, but let's not confuse this with "Clinton's economy." That was just something that happened during Clinton's term of office. And in any case, there is almost nothing that all economic experts agree on. That's just not how it works. There are republican economists, democrat economists, conservative economists, liberal economists, etc. The conservative economists will tell you that Clinton's economy was a deluge of wasteful spending, where as a liberal economist will, with the same information, conclude that Clinton's economy was a brilliant allocation of resources which start-fired a new boon in the economy. And they will say exactly the opposite, in both cases, when describing the Reagan economy.

So when you say something like

First off, Kerry can't help our economy,

it really does become clear that you're just spouting Fox news hype. Would you like a long list of economic PhDs who disagree with you? Yes, Kerry might raise taxes, but he might not. Cutting down on our enormous military/war budget would provide for a lot of the services you describe without additional cost to the tax-payer. And yes, there are people that will milk a universal healthcare system for more than their fair share, but there also people who work three jobs to support their family that would go completely broke if one of their kids got sick. The goal of any such system is to work out the kinks that you suggest. It's my opinion that it's right for society to share in the responsibility of maintaining the health of its constituents, and I'm more than willing to buy a couple of less video games every year if that's what it takes.

And let's face it. A vast majority of Americans, if not stupid, are at least very uninformed when it comes to politics. I've heard several people relay that their vote for Bush was due to the fact that "when you shake his hand, you can tell he's an honest guy," or "he looks like the kind of you guy you can have a beer with," or something else to this effect. The way that Americans can rightfully be called stupid is if they voted for a president whose policies they disagree with, because they didn't bother to do any research. In any case, dismay based on the lack of thought put into the elections is not totally unfounded.

Cam

[Otaku376]

I fail to understand how someone can support Bush's economic plan when 10 nobel laureates in economics comes out and admits that it is horrible. These are not radical liberals either, they are rather conservative. Bush's fiscal plan is not. I am sorry for fanning the flames but sometimes it seems the problem is just a lack of information.
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5818277
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0729-06.htm

Also, here's some bad news:
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS ... index.html

[Cubsfan4life]

Erm... I think it's obvious Kerry would have raised taxes. He voted to raise them over 350 times. For every Bush supporter who is uneducated about the issues there's a Kerry one.

[ZONEACE]

theres nothing wrong with raising taxes. he would have, especially for the rich bastards who pay hardly any taxes.

[CoolBot]

I'll give pretty good odds that Bush will have to raise taxes in the next four years anyway. Cutting taxes without cutting programs is not the way to a healthy economy.

[Yaw]

First of all, thanks Guest, whoever you are. That was very well written.

Second,

I

got MeMe's joke.

And now...

Okay, to Europeans who complain about Bush: You're not America, and we are. So because Bush isn't socialistic like you guys doesn't mean you have to complain. There are different political ideologies other than yours, you know.

Well, I'm Canadian and we have to live next to you. But besides that, let me give you a good example of the kind of thing we're thinking of when we try to come to terms with the American government. And it doesn't even involve Bush.

As everyone knows, there was a genocide in Rwanda in 1994. During this time the UN peacekeeping mission in that area, headed up by Romeo Dallaire, was simply hung out to dry. A large part of the reason for this was that there is an American law that requires intervention anywhere in the world if there is a genocide going on. Not wanting to send troops into Africa, the Clinton administration refused to acknowledge that there was a genocide, which combined with their Security Council veto power, prevented anything from being done in the UN to prevent the slaughter. 800,000 people were killed in 100 days while the world stood by and did

nothing

. (To be perfectly honest, the American government weren't the only ones foot-dragging, but they were one of the most prominent.)

Because America has so much power, and so much influence in the world and in the UN, it has a responsibility to act in a manner that promotes the general welfare of the world. At minimum, it has a responsibility not to act in a way that is actively detrimental to the world. So when we see a country that contributes 25% of the world's emissions but refuses to be involved with the Kyoto Protocol to curb even a small part of them, when we see a country that breaks nuclear proliferation treaties and acts in a way that promotes nuclear proliferation, when we see a country willing to undertake unprovoked acts of aggressive war against a country it has been bombing for the past decade on a weekly basis based on blatant fraud, when we see a country use munitions which will litter the landscape with deadly unexploded munitions for decades that are the same colour as its air drops of aid, we have the right to be very concerned.

What you do in your own country is your concern. What you do to the rest of the world is

ours

. We have to live here too, and we would like to have a world left for when we grow old, and for our descendants.

[Quagmire]

Cam: You're right, I was getting misleading. But let me tell you that most of what I said was my opinion on that matter and not fact. I hoped everyone here distinguishes that. It went to disputing things to spouting off my opinion on economic issues.

ZONEACE: "rich bastards"? Have you ever thought about the fact that some of them worked a lot harder to get their money, and that they deserve it?

[Candice]

I'm not even bothering with the debating. I do, however, want to share this amusing piece of information, and that is that there is a massive amount of sudden activity on the livejournal community "Canadabound".

(Yes, I am a member of it. I was BEFORE the election and for entirely different reasons. )

[ZONEACE]

Cam: You're right, I was getting misleading. But let me tell you that most of what I said was my opinion on that matter and not fact. I hoped everyone here distinguishes that. It went to disputing things to spouting off my opinion on economic issues.

ZONEACE: "rich bastards"? Have you ever thought about the fact that some of them worked a lot harder to get their money, and that they deserve it?

that doest mean they deserve to pay ridiculously lower taxes

[jeep]

Hmm... You might check FactCheck.org (the non-partisan group that Cheney tried to have people check). They had something to say about that "voted to raise taxes 350 times".

You may want to consider moving to Canada. Or move to a blue state if you are not already in one.

I think this is not what you want. You should encourage peopel to move to states that just barely made red! Go to Ohio, etc.

Quagmire, it must be nice to be that rich...

-JEEP

[Quagmire]

jeep: We're not rich, we're just owners of a small business. Oh, and I also don't care about what he

did

, because it's what he would do.

Yaw: Good point. I never said America was perfect or anything.

Candice: Bush is NOT reinstating a draft. Bush has openly come out and said that there is going to be no draft because we have enough volunteers as it is. The democrats actually proposed the bill for the draft; they also just sent rumors around to scare the college demographic so that they'd vote democratic.

[jeep]

Kerry was definitely going to raise taxes for those earning $200K/year. Other than that, Kerry clearly stated that he wasn't going to. As to the comment about what he DID do, I was responding to Cubsfan4life.

-JEEP

[Guest]

ZONEACE: "rich bastards"? Have you ever thought about the fact that some of them worked a lot harder to get their money, and that they deserve it?

Personal Opinion: Nobody deserves it. If a person has enough money to be considered "rich" then obviously they aren't giving enough back to the community and should do so instead of just sitting on it like some condesending prick.

[Candice]

Candice: Bush is NOT reinstating a draft. Bush has openly come out and said that there is going to be no draft because we have enough volunteers as it is. The democrats actually proposed the bill for the draft; they also just sent rumors around to scare the college demographic so that they'd vote democratic.

UHM? Where did I say ANYTHING about a draft in this thread? (IN THIS THREAD. Chat from last night doesn't count. I'm DONE with the debates.)

[Candice]

Okay, yes, I'm inpatient. Being told I said something that I obviously didn't is a big pet peeve for me. So if anyone can point out where I mentioned the draft in this thread, I'd appreciate it.

[Quagmire]

I'm not even bothering with the debating. I do, however, want to share this amusing piece of information, and that is that there is a massive amount of sudden activity on the livejournal community "Canadabound".

I'm sorry if I took this wrong, but it sounded like you were hinting at Bush reinstating a draft.

[Candice]

No. My boyfriend is Canadian. You took it WAAAAY wrong.

[CaptainBlicero]

Well, I was the original "Guest." Sorry for the unintentional mystery... the board must have logged me out in the middle of my massive treatise.

But, in case this thread continues to be heated, I urge all of us to remember that arguing on the Internet has probably never changed anyone's mind about politics, ever. Also, if your goal is to convert people to your respective causes, please keep in mind that the election was yesterday. Emotions are running high, but we will need to wait a few years to see if Bush's re-election is the greatest thing next to Christ's Second Coming, the hugest disaster in all of human history, or somewhere in between. Far be it from me to seek to curtail freedom of expression, but perhaps all of us, as members of this board, should not waste our time rehashing old arguments, but instead put aside our differences and direct our energies towards a much more productive end -- namely, pretending to lynch and kill each other's online personas.

[Candice]

Wait. I think I misunderstood you. The comment about the surge of activity on Canadabound is just that- a comment about the surge of activity on Canadabound. I found it amusing that we've got a slew of new members starting just today. That was ALL. I don't hint at things. (At least, not in every day conversation.)

[ZONEACE]

Obama/Clinton '08

[Candice]

Clinton WHO? NOT Hillary. *shudders*

[ZONEACE]

who else, chelsea?

[Candice]

I'd take Chelsea over Hillary. :p