Gore or Bush?

[Ramlick]

I am always amazed at how confused people are when it comes to voting for a particular candidate. I thought I would post this thread to offer some help.

In general, you should only be voting Republican if you're rich, a bigot, or a religious fanatic. If you're rich or a bigot, the GOP serves your interests. Many religious people are not bigots, but most are. The ones who aren't bigots are democrats.

Everyone else should vote democratic.

Third party candidates can be legitimate choices too, but voters are usually wasting their time with them. Nader and Buchanan have no chance to win, for example.

I hope that helps.

 

[CreamyLady]

I once got into trouble at the local Democratic Party headquarters when I refused to read the script they gave me to potential voters.

I have a real problem telling people who they should vote for. I do not think, for one minute, that every Republican is a racist, or bigot, or religious fanatic; neither do I think that every Democrat has the best interest of the people at heart.

However, I have no problem telling people to get out there and vote -- so, DO IT!

 

[Dixon Carter Lee]

And to think I've wasted all this time reading newspapers and examining the issues. You're right! We're all just so categorizable! Whew! What a relief. Can we also go back to thinking that all black people want to hurt usand everyone named Seymore wears glasses?

Come on Ramlick, you're not a dope. What's up? Did you rent "All the President's Men" last night or something?

 

[Expertise]

A new challenger for "Most Asinine Post Of The New Millenium".

It would be kinda' funny if I didn't think you actually thought that way.

 

[Strange Girl]

Gore and Bush are both somebody's personal handpuppets, and anybody who aligns with either party is a misinformed fool. I don't believe we've had a president with any amount of backbone since Reagan, Nancy that is.

 

[Ramlick]

Creamy lady, you're right. Not every Republican IS a bigot or a religious fanatic. They're just decent rich people who know that that the GOP will help them more than the democrats will. If I were rich, I might vote Republican too...nah, I doubt it. I'm not greedy.

I want to revise what I said. I'm willing to admit I make mistakes. I should have said that if you're a bigot, a religious fanatic, or a GREEDY rich person, you should be voting Republican.

Yes this is a sweeping generalization. But I think it's a pretty accurate sweeping gemeralization.

 

[Ramlick]

And another thing:

Before you dismiss this post as some sort of lunacy, I would like you to know that I am willing to defend and clarify my position with anyone who disagrees with me.

 

[CreamyLady]

At the risk of extending this argument to the end of forever, I must say that a sweeping generalization is a fallacy in logic; accurate only where the shotgun pellets hit.

Since the pattern is pretty widespread, a few are bound to hit something, but not everything.

It still makes the reasoning invalid.

 

[Ramlick]

Creamy, please understand that my generalization applies to the voters, and not to the candidates they're voting for. There is a difference. Not all politicians are sincere, and many don't stick to the party line that well.

But I disagree with you about something: You said generalizations are illogical, or unreasonable, or something to that effect. I think generalizations, like stereotypes, can be valid, and even useful. You can't just dismiss all generalizing, that's foolish. What if I said, "In general, members of the Ku Klux Klan are bigots."? Is that not a generalization? "In general, people who live in Italy are Catholics." You see, generalizations can be very true indeed.

 

[Sparky Kronkite]

Anyone who votes -

Anyone who votes in the upcoming US presidential election is a duped, unintelligent, puppet - controlled by the mind/money machine that calls itself our government. And please, don't give me any crap about love it or leave it - or - it's the best system out there (which I agree, it is) - or any of that shit. Because it's a fucked up, over grown, slow, bloated piece of crap of a system. Run by egomaniacs and down right sick perverted fucks. (With rare exception.) And anyone who would actually aspire to being a politician is a sick fuck. It's the devil's profession. Anyone condoning this, even if it's all we've got - feeds it.

 

[Bliss]

And how exactly does not voting change your bloated beast, Spunkenheimer?

 

[KillerMuffin]

But I disagree with you about something: You said generalizations are illogical, or unreasonable, or something to that effect. I think generalizations, like stereotypes, can be valid, and even useful. You can't just dismiss all generalizing, that's foolish. What if I said, "In general, members of the Ku Klux Klan are bigots."? Is that not a generalization? "In general, people who live in Italy are Catholics." You see, generalizations can be very true indeed.

There is a fallacy in these two examples. First of all, the outlined purpose of the Ku Klux Klan as stated in their bylaws and other assorted documentation is the superiority of the aryan race and inferiority of everyone else. They are by their own definition, bigots. No room for generalizations.

To say that in general all people in Italy are Catholics, is not a true stereotyping generalization either. Last census done in Italy proved the majority of the population to be Catholics.

A generalization to support your example would be to say that, in general, Ku Klux Klan members are all illiterate. Another generalixation to support your example would be to say that, in general, all Italians are in the Mafia.

Incidentally, I am a Republican. My gross income last year was about $12,000. I am not white. I am not male. I write pornography, I am not exactly what is considered decent.

 

[Patryn]

Why are we even discussing this? Either way, we're electing a cretin. But then again, that's JMO.

 

[Sparky Kronkite]

response to Bliss...

It starves it. I'd like to actually kill it but it has too much power and would kill me first. I must bide my time - wait for others who might help me kill it. Until then I will not feed it and will do everything in my humble power to depreciate and defile it. Becasue I am true patriot and want what's best for our country. They (the system) does not - they only want what is best for them. Look around.

 

[Ramlick]

Killer Muffin, intriguing post. I'm challenging the often held idea that generalizations must all be worthless and false. I emphatically reject that notion. I admit, that the act of generalizing has a bad connotation, but just because something is true, like my Italian Catholic example, doesn't mean it's not a generalization. Generalizing means to infer from facts, statistics, or the like. If I say that all Italians are Catholics, I'm inferring from fact. We know that not every Italian is Catholic, but enough are to make the generalization valid.

When I say that all Republicans are either rich, bigots, or religious fanatics, I'm also inferring from facts that I think prove the statement to be true.

Killer Muff, I'd love to know why you consider yourself a Republican. What is it that appeals to you there. Incidentally, I aim to prove that if you're not rich or a bigot, or a religious fanatic and still vote Republican, you're confused.

 

[Sparky Kronkite]

If...

If Republicans are "generally" all righ bigots.... Are not all Democrats simpering pussy's?

 

[Svedish_Chef]

From here in Australia where we dont have to care about it at all...

Can you Gore a Bush? ... and ... is a kiss really worth 13% of voters?

Da chef

 

[Cheyenne]

50 reasons to vote for Bush

The following is a list put together by a Democrat and, make no mistake, he is no Bush lover.

-----------------
1. Eight years after Clinton was first elected, we're presented with aDemocratic ticket that makes Nixon/Agnew seem progressive. Vote for Bush and you'll get a monster who'll at least put things in perspective. Vote for Al
Gore and you get a genial "lesser evil" who'll take advantage of a country numb with relief to quietly make your worst nightmares come true. Then, four
years later, a guy even worse than George Bush will come along to scare the country into reelecting Gore, thus repeating the process on an even lower level.
2. In the Reagan years, a Democratic congress stubbornly battled the president for years over aid to the Contras, to the point where William Casey couldn't even bully through so much as $100 million in nonmilitary aid to the Nicaraguan rebels. In the end, of course, aid to the Contras was cut off entirely, forcing the Reagan/Bush administration to resort to an idiotic series of extralegal diversions of arms to Iran in order to raise money for
the cause. The resulting scandal almost destroyed the Bush presidency, and ended all talk of intervention in Nicaragua. But some fifteen years later, under the Clinton administration, a bill granting more than $1 billion in aid to Colombia-aid that includes military helicopters and a provision for sending U.S. military advisors and a small
number of troops-sailed through with relatively little opposition from the Gore/Clinton constituency.
Can you say Viet Nam?
3. Much of the impetus behind that bill comes from the need to protect U.S.oil interests in Columbia, specifically those of Occidental Petroleum. The legendary founder of Occidental, Armand Hammer, was a close friend of Gore's
father, Senator Al Gore, Sr. And Gore himself, as The Washington Times recently reported, still owns between $500,000 and $1 million of Occidental stock-a clear conflict of interest.
4. The Columbia bill contains a provision authorizing the President to unilaterally declare a need to temporarily commit an unlimited number of U.S. troops to assist the government. In this sense it reads almost exactly
like another bill enacted by another Democratic administration that had run against a Bush-like bogey man-the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, pushed through
by John Kennedy and extended by his successor Lyndon Johnson, who ran against the loathsome Richard Nixon and the lunatic extremist Barry Goldwater, respectively. Not surprisingly, Gore has been an enthusiastic proponent of the Columbia bill.
5. Twenty years ago, under Jimmy Carter, a Democratic administration insisted that human rights was to be the benchmark by which relations with other countries are measured. Today, Democratic candidate Al Gore has
solidly favored granting permanent "Most Favored Nation" trading status for China, more or less explicitly announcing that human rights are subordinate to economic issues.
6. After a succession of "lesser evil" candidates, Gore arrives to provide voters with no choice on the death-penalty issue. Although it's Bush who has taken a beating on the issue, Gore also enthusiastically supports capital
punishment, not even favoring a temporary moratorium in light of recent advances in DNA-testing techniques that have persuaded even staunch death-penalty advocates like Governor George Ryan of Illinois to institute a
moratorium until all capital cases can be reviewed.
7. Although Bush is frequently portrayed as the potential founder of a police state, it's Gore who is the more enthusiastic champion of expanded police powers. On the heels of helping the Clinton administration put
100,000 new police on the streets, Gore says he'll "fight to put 50,000 more community police officers in neighborhoods across the country." If the program goes through, the 150,000 "new" policemen would themselves represent one of the largest armed forces in the world.
8. At a time when the United States already boasts the world's largest prison population, Gore also proposes hiring 10,000 more prosecutors.
9. Although Gore generally follows the Democratic line that the government should stay out of people's bedrooms, that doesn't mean he doesn't want to see you naked. The White House Commission on Aviation Security, which Gore
chairs, has proposed installing new "holographic" screening devices in airports. These devices would use radiation to penetrate the clothes of passengers, providing security guards with a "naked" image of all people entering airports. It sounds crazy, but it's true-just ask the card-carrying folks at the ACLU.
10. As chairman of the U.S.-South Africa Binational Commission, Gore was instrumental in bullying South Africa into ditching its Medicines and Related Substances Control Act, which would have allowed the country to produce generic AIDS drugs. In this case, Gore weighed the fact of an exploding international health crisis, and specifically South Africa's 3.7 million AIDS patients (few of whom can afford patent-protected drugs), against the needs of the U.S. pharmaceutical industry. Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), a consortium of U.S. drug
companies, is a major contributor to Gore's campaign.
So where does he get the 'cohones' to bash big business?
11. Would-be Kosovo and Columbia hawk Gore had a detail of bodyguards around him during his service in Vietnam to prevent him from seeing action. Nonetheless, he has made unconfirmed claims to the contrary. "And I was shot
at... I spent most of my time in the field," he told The Washington Post on March 3, 1988. On October 15, 1999, he told The Los Angeles Times: "I carried an M-16... I pulled my turn on the perimeter at night, and walked through the elephant grass, and I was fired upon." Later, Gore's fellow army photographer Alan Leo told Newsweek that Brigadier General K. B. Cooper had issued specific instructions to ensure nothing would happen to Gore. Leo described the half-dozen trips into the field made by Gore as situations
"where I could have worn a tuxedo."
12. Gore supports the decision by the Commission on Presidential Debates to keep third-party candidates like Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan out of the TV debates, despite having blasted as undemocratic Bill Bradley's decision to
duck debates last summer.
13. When the CIA presented Gore with a memo detailing the corruption of his counterpart on the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission, then-Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, Gore scribbled "horseshit" on the paper and sent it back.
Clinton administration acquiescence to Russian corruption, in which Gore played a large part, virtually handed a major foreign policy issue to George Bush.
14. With no Democratic president but a base of New Dealers in Congress,organized labor was able to stave off devastating free-trade agreements put forward by the Reagan and Bush administrations. But with lesser evil winners
Clinton and Gore in power, NAFTA and GATT-both programs initially conceived by the Bush administration-sailed through despite loud protests from virtually every union in the country.
15. Gore opposes universal health care, just like Bush. If you vote for Gore and he wins, you can be virtually assured that the next election will also present no choice on this issue. The same cannot be said, however, of a vote
for Bush.
16. According to the book "Inventing Al Gore" by Newsweek reporter Bill Turque (p. 275-6), Gore was the one who urged Clinton to launch his first missile strikes against Saddam Hussein. Turque quoted White House sources as saying that Gore was generally "quicker to use force" than Clinton, a
disturbing prospect given Clinton's record in Kosovo, Somalia, and numerous other international hot spots.
17. When ABC News correspondent Bob Zelnick was working on his book, "Gore:A Political Life", which detailed some of the uglier aspects of Gore's relationship with Armand Hammer, Gore's office called Zelnick and urged him
to discontinue the project. When he refused, Zelnick shortly thereafter was told by his superiors at ABC to drop the book or lose his job. Zelnick refused and quit.
18. Gore, an admitted pot-smoker ("I tried it, as young people do," he said), favors toughening of drug laws-and this despite the fact that the Clinton administration has already jailed more nonviolent marijuana offenders than all previous presidents combined.
19. Gore has not spoken out against Carnivore, the FBI program instituted by his and Clinton's administration that allows for widespread surveillance of domestic internet traffic. He has likewise refused to comment on Echelon,
the international surveillance system operated under the auspices of the National Security Agency.
20. Gore favors the funding of an expensive and certainly flawed missile defense system, which Democrats opposed until the victory of lesser-evil candidate Clinton. Bush also favors a version of the program.
21. Gore once fraudulently claimed to have contributed to the writing of Hubert Humphrey's 1968 Democratic Convention acceptance speech, then later admitted he was mistaken (The Washington Post, Dec. 27, 1999). One thing he does have in common with Humphrey, though: he is the main attraction at a
Democratic National Convention at which protesters will be barred and confined to designated "protest areas."
22. The Gore campaign is inspiring major media to take the extraordinary step of urging readers to spurn worthy voting alternatives in order to maintain the "clear-cut choice" offered by the major parties. "Ralph Nader's long history of public service championing the causes of consumers, the
environment and economic justice automatically commands respect," editorialized The New York Times on June 30. "But in running for president as the nominee of the Green Party, he is engaging in a self-indulgent exercise that will distract voters from the clear-cut choice represented by
the major party candidates."
23. An insight into Gore's mentality that helps explain his desire to hire 10,000 more prosecutors: he once claimed that his work as an investigative reporter for The Tennessean as a young man had "got a bunch of people
indicted and sent to jail." But The Tennessean itself reported on October 4,1987, that Gore was lying. "Two persons were indicted as a result of investigation into corruption on the Metro Council in Nashville.... But
neither of them was imprisoned."
24. Zelnick's book quotes former coworkers from The Tennessean who insist Gore was a "terrible writer."
25. Gore, like Bush, is an unqualified supporter of both the IMF and the WTO.
26. Gore blasts Bush for refusing to come out against soft-money contributions, but refuses to stop accepting them himself. "I am not going to unilaterally disarm." Gore also promises to enact legislation banning soft money, even while accepting millions worth of it in the current
campaign.
27. Gore has already been caught lying about his commitment to campaign reform. He once claimed to have been a cosponsor of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill in the Senate (New York Times, Nov. 24, 1999).
Gore quit the Senate in 1992 to become Vice President; Senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin wasn't elected until that year. Even Bill Bradley held the moral high ground on this one, noting last December 7 that "Al Gore never served with Russell Feingold."
28. Gore's wife Tipper, who once inscribed "Rolling Stones Forever" on her boyfriend's 45-rpm record, in 1984 became a celebrated villain of free-speech advocates when she founded the Parents' Music Resource Center-which proposed conservative regulation of and influence in the rock
music industry, advocated record labeling, and blamed explicit rock lyrics for everything from rape and teen suicide to poor stock-market performance. Now her old enemies have to swallow her or Get George Bush.
29. Gore once said he could "never vote against" the anti-smoking lobby, which presumably includes statutes banning smoking everywhere but in the trunk of your car.
30. Said Gore in 1984 regarding Political Action Committees: "I need to raise large sums of money, and I have enjoyed getting involved with the PAC community" (Turque, see above).
31. In 1995, Gore became the first government official to openly violate the 1882 Pendleton Act, which prevents government officials from soliciting campaign funds from a Federal building. Gore used his White House office
telephone to call fifty-two potential donors, raising more than $800,000. He claimed he did nothing wrong, but also said he would "never do it again."
32. Is a vote against Bush a vote against poll-driven politics? An editor from The Tennessean recalled Gore explaining his early congressional opposition to gun control laws, which he privately favored, and in fact had
advocated in an earlier incarnation as an editorial writer for the Tennessee paper. "Look, I'm running in a district where people favor guns, and there's no way I can win if I take a position that indicates I'm going to take away
their guns," he reportedly said. "It's as simple as that."
33. Will culture flower more under Gore than under Bush? Here's one clue to the answer: Gore not only loved the vile multi-Oscar winner "American Beauty", but even claimed once that he and Tipper were the inspiration for the even more vile Erich Segal screenplay for "Love Story". And not only
that-he was lying about it! He was forced to recant his story after Segal, who knew Gore (along with roommate Tommy Lee Jones, who ultimately got his big break in the film) at Harvard, indicated his befuddlement with Gore's claims, clarifying to The New York Times in 1997 that the Ryan O'Neal character was actually based more on Jones ("the tough, macho guy who's a poet at heart,'' in Segal's words), while Gore inspired only the character's
silver-spoon/patriarchal family background. As for Tipper, she may have been a student at nearby Boston University at the time, but Segal flatly denies that Mrs. Gore was the basis for the Ali MacGraw character. Do you really
want a president who not only wants to be the inspiration for a Ryan O'Neal tearjerker, but is even willing to lie about it?
34. Gore supported aggressive intervention in Bosnia, Grenada, and in some cases in Nicaragua, arguing: "We've over-learned our lessons from Vietnam."
35. Gore helped pioneer an effort to allow the government to subsidize religious organizations through a 1996 program called Charitable Choice that was included in the administration's welfare bill. The bill allowed
religious organizations to provide basic welfare services. As Gore proudly noted: "[These organizations] can do so with public funds - without having to alter the religious character that is so often the key to their effectiveness. We should extend this approach to drug treatment,
homelessness, & youth violence prevention."
36. Although Gore has repeatedly presented himself as the only environmentalist in the race, he in fact has consistently ignored the environmental lobby in favor of major campaign contributors. In 1998, for instance, a Gore initiative, "Reinventing Government," resulted in the sale
of the Elk Hills Naval Petroleum Reserve, which environmentalists uniformly opposed. The buyer? Gore's old buddy, Occidental Petroleum. This closed auction marked the largest privatization of federal property in American
history, and tripled Occidental's reserves overnight. Occidental CEO Ray Irani, incidentally, has contributed more than $400,000 to the Democratic Party since Gore became Vice President.
37. There are now 1.86 million Americans in prison. Though the crime rate has been falling every year since Clinton and Gore were elected, the prison population has risen by a startling 7 percent per annum since 1992. According to the Justice Department's own statistics, some 712,000
people-712,000 people!-were added to the prison population between 1990 and 1999. And we need 50,000 more cops and 10,000 more prosecutors?
38. The Clinton-Gore administration has completely sold minorities, along with organized labor, down the river. Forget that they've killed off welfare and toned down affirmative action: under Clinton-Gore, blacks were herded en masse to jail. According to Justice Department statistics, 13 percent of once-monthly drug users are black, yet they make up 37 percent of those arrested for possession, 55 percent of those convicted, and a whopping 74
percent of those ultimately incarcerated. Meanwhile, during the period 1985-1997, nationwide incarceration of blacks on drug charges increased by more than 700 percent, against an increase for whites of just over 300 percent, less than half. In most cities the percentage of black males aged
18-35 under some form of court supervision hovers around 20-30%; in extreme cases, like the nation's capital, that number is now at 50 percent (Source: National Center on Institutions and Alternatives).
39. Next time Gore makes a promise about health care reform, consider this: Gore's running mate, Joseph Lieberman, ranked first among senators this election cycle in terms of contributions from insurance companies, and third among pharmaceutical companies.
40. From the "Sure the Candidates Are Really Different" department: Ernst and Young has contributed $168,349 to the Bush campaign. They've given $130,625 to Gore. (Source: Center for Responsive Politics).
41. Gore lists among his top contributors the U.S. Department of Agriculture ($65,870), the U.S. Government ($62,875), the U.S. Department of Justice ($42,001), and the state of Tennessee ($38,390). By contrast, Anheuser-Busch only managed to pony up $37,000. (Source: Center for Responsive Politics).
42. According to a Business Week survey, the average CEO of a major American corporation made $12.4 million in 1999, or 475 times what an average blue-collar worker makes. What's more, this disparity has increased by a factor of roughly six since 1990, when workers made only eighty-four times
less than CEOs.
43. Gore now says that Vietnam was a mistake, but that it "served a valid purpose." Serving in Vietnam "gave me a tolerance for complexity," he said, explaining why even in retrospect he cannot unilaterally condemn the war.
44. If you care about abortion, electing Gore provides no guarantees on that score. In the original Roe v. Wade decision, one of the dissenters (Byron White) was a Kennedy appointee, while the majority decision was written by
two Nixon appointees-Harry Blackmun and Chief Justice Warren Burger.
45. And in ten years, Gore's current Democratic running mate will probably be echoing George W. Bush: Defending the Kosovo air attack in a televised discussion with Pat Buchanan (in which the nutty Holocaust denier actually
came out sounding like, well, the progressive Ralph Nader-esque voice of reason), Lieberman proclaimed that "Ronald Reagan did not lead us to victory in the final battles of the Cold War for us less than a decade later to allow a Communist dictator to commit aggression and genocide in the heart of Europe.... Remember, Reagan led us to victory in the Cold War to stop tyranny and communism. Milosevic is a tyrant and a Communist.... This is not Reagan in Lebanon. This is not a blunder. This is a noble fight for a worthy
cause which is the principle of liberty and justice and freedom and a stable and united and free Europe... " (NBC's Meet the Press, Apr. 25, 1999).
46. The Clinton-Gore administration gave you Waco, Ruby Ridge, the Elian Gonzalez fiasco, a war that returned German warplanes to combat over Central Europe, a counter-terrorism bill permitting the use of secret evidence in
deportation proceedings and nullifying habeas corpus in state terrorism convictions, and a White House that inserted anti-drug messages into TV shows like "E.R." and "Friends".
47. "He [Gore] goes 'I'm a really big fan.' And I was like 'Yeah, right. Name a song, Al.' The answer came limply back: 'I can't name a song, I'm just a really big fan'" - Courtney Love of the rock band "Hole" (as recounted by Love on the May 20, 1999 "Late Show with David Letterman").
48. In 1992, Gore promised that his and Bill Clinton's new administration would bring gays into the military. Eight years later, Gore is campaigning on the same promise, telling voters he will repeal his own administration's
much-ridiculed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.
49. That's the thing about these guys. When Bush promises to do something evil, he'll probably do it. When Gore promises to do something good, he probably won't. That's because he knows that all he has to do is promise.
50. Honesty is the best policy. Even if it's honestly wrong. A vote for Bush restores politics to the realm of fulfilled promises. A vote for Nader elects Bush and is just as effective, with the added advantage of not being
a morally repugnant choice. Either choice is better than Gore, whose victory would only make the following election even more meaningless. So take one for the team. Vote for the Moron. Bush 2000... it's the only way out.

 

[Washingtonian]

Honesty? Bush talked about running a clean election then released a series of smear ads. He won't take part in the debates, debates which any real candidate including his father took part in, instead he wants to 'talk' to Gore on talk shows like Larry King where he won't be expected to fill two minutes of airtime per answer. He's an oil puppet, an NRA puppet, and a Christian Coalition puppet. He calls reporters "assholes" when he thinks they're not listening, and in front of a live mike no less! Not just dishonest, but stupid! Just wait till the debates happen, wait till you see Dubyah try to fill two minutes of time without his handlers whispering answers in his ear. He's a dishonest blithering idiot. Anyone who thinks he's not a liar is fooling themselves.

 

[Rand al'Thor]

It seems that most of the people on this board are pre-disposed to some candidate or the other. Does it matter who the candidates are if you are just going to vote party lines anyway?

I used to be a pretty staunch Republican, but have fallen away from the party in the past year or so... I've caught the Unclebill bug, and I'll probably be voting Libertarian, since Gore or Bush don't really appeal to me. Even though my vote really won't do anything, since the Libertarians have no chance of winning on that level, it will make me feel better about myself.

I think many of you are unfairly critisizing (man, I'm a horrible speller) Bush. I live in Texas, and he has done a pretty good job here. I think that if a democratic candidate called a reporter an "asshole" on TV, most of you would applaud said candidate for speaking the truth, but since an evil Republican said it, you feel the need to call him stupid. AND DON'T SAY YOU WOULDN'T CHEER A DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE WHO BLASTED A COUPLE REPORTERS, BECAUSE YOU WOULD!
I'd cheer for a democrat that did that, even though there is no way I'd vote for one.

If you are going to take part in the elections, which everyone should do, at least analyze both candidates before making a choice... Or if you like that little "freedom" thing, go to http://www.lp.org .

Rand al'Thor
The Dragon Reborn

 

[Sparky Kronkite]

I of course....

am the exception on this thread - voting, particularly on "this election" is moronic. And voting party lines is down right robotically inane. Stepford citizens. Get brains.

 

[Rand al'Thor]

Yep. Voting sure would be a dumb thing to do. Who needs to have their voice heard in government. We live in a system where a vote is the ONLY way we REALLY have to influence high levels of government to any degree.

NOT voting is insane, stupid, and illogical. Even if you don't care who wins the presidency, at least vote in all of the other races. When it gets down to the local levels, one vote CAN MATTER.

I can't believe some people. At least when your rights eventually do get stripped from you, you won't care too much.

Rand al'Thor
The Dragon Reborn

 

[Sparky Kronkite]

Wrong dip shit....

I don't live in "your" (illogical by the way) system (I can't belive you actually think it's yours - they've mind fucked you good) - vote on - ass wipe. Stupid fool.

 

[Strange Girl]

I'm gonna write in "Creamy Lady."

 

[Dixon Carter Lee]

Sparky, you're slowly losing the newfound respect I've had for you. You're working very hard at the whole Unabomber-Not-Gonna-Pay-My-Taxes-Flouride-Is-A-Government-Plot theme, and it's starting to sound trite.

Of course voting matters. But why wait until two dweebs get nominated for President? Vote for City Council. Vote for Congressmen. Join a lobbying group. Do some volunteer activism. Boycott advertisers of programs you despise.

Or do you think the country owes you something besides citizenship and civil right protection? Don't like the "establishment" (God, that word has such a drugged out hippie sound, like "the man" or "society"), change it, work within it, run for something, protest it, but don't whine about it and scream, "I'm not gonna vote 'cause what's the diff?" That isn't the voice of reason speaking, that's laziness and copping out.

And you know something, I'm not really sure you're that adamant about this stance. You have a tendancy to say "black" to everyone's "white" and go out of your way to be crass when the thread is sincere, and you do it, as I'm starting to realize, not because you're an asshole, but because you just like playing the Devil's advocate, or maybe you just hate being pigeonholed with everyone else. I don't know. Your stance is not supported by anything substantial or even mature, so I'm going to chalk it up to one of the above and assume that come November you're going to remember that you have a brain, put down the remote, get off the sofa, and go let your voice be heard.

And for anyone else thinking of not showing up at the polls --- Think of the bigggest idiots you know (the cast of MTV's "Real World", The O.J. Simpson Jurors, the superstitious red-neck down the street who blows away rabbits with an AK-47 because he's only after a foot): they vote.