Ralph

[rgraham666]

That was very well said Colleen.

Although I am on the 'left' side of the spectrum, I too have enough in common with the 'right' that I'm uncomfortable with the true believers on either side.

And don't sweat that your decisions are wrong. We make decisions on our very limited perception of the universe which pretty much guarantees said decisions will be wrong.

And even if we do make the right one, the universe changes and makes it wrong again.

Damn, it's so much work trying to be good, isn't it?

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Colly, in ignorance and naivete then, I have to ask why you can't vote for Kerry based on what you've just said to me. Telling me to reread all your posts is fine, you've just surprised me. But thanks for such a fine answer. P.

I come from a martial family Dita. His protest activites, specifically aiming his vitriol at the soldiers rather than the government, throwing away of medals, voting against the defense budget and against very many of the bills that funded such life saving systems as the M-1 Abrams, and F-14 Tomacat, do anger me.

He also stands as proxy for the Democratic party's platform. That platform contains many things I am against. Removing my right to own a gun, weaker sentences for convicted criminals, early release for criminals, slashing defense spending, etc. Your basic mixed bag of liberal goodies.

Above and beyond all rational consierations is a personal one. I think he is anti-military and voting for him would make me feel dirty. Like I was betraying the long line of my forebears who were all strongly patriotic and who loved the military. In my family it's been the U.S. navy, since at least as far back as the Civil war.

If his party represented more of my views it might be a consideration I could get over, but in fact the GOP & Dem's are equally weak on many things I care about and split the difference on the remainder.

I could never vote for Bush again. He simply isn't the man his father was. I hoped the Dem's would put forward someone I could vote for, Edwards, Clark, Gephardt, even Liberman. Instead they went with the one who I couldn't support.

I'm just SOL.

-Colly

Edited to add: Let's say one of two. Howard Dean's angry young man Schtickt had already worn thin before he was eliminated from contention.

 

[Guest]

Thanks, Colly, I get that. And thanks for everything! again and again.

Perdita

 

[Colleen Thomas]

That was very well said Colleen.

Although I am on the 'left' side of the spectrum, I too have enough in common with the 'right' that I'm uncomfortable with the true believers on either side.

And don't sweat that your decisions are wrong. We make decisions on our very limited perception of the universe which pretty much guarantees said decisions will be wrong.

And even if we do make the right one, the universe changes and makes it wrong again.

Damn, it's so much work trying to be good, isn't it?

Thanks RG.

The curse of being skeptical and analytical is seeing as much evil on one side as the other. As you discover more, the choice of the lesser evil becomes less and less readily apparent as to which is the lesser.

-Colly

 

[amicus]

An Interesting page of commentary....

Any rational person, familiar with the history of religion and politics, is leary of the Christian, faith based initiatives advocated by the current administration. I want no part of it, I want no part of any religious belief ever portrayed or mentioned in Wash. D.C.

Ashcroft, Homeland Security scares the hell out of me as I have been 40 years under Federal Police surveillance. Those of us who fought against Social Security, mandatory, forced old age insurance, warned about the use of the Social Security Card becoming a 'National ID Card', is has become just that.

If your political beliefs are not based on rational thought, but rather on a hodgepodge of parental influence, peer influence, educational influence and propadanda, if you have not thought these issues out clearly, it is small wonder many have contradictory feelings.

At least one of the previous commentators gave a loose platform of the Socialist agenda. That is welcome, at least to me. Each plank in that platform can be discussed and debated.

Dear Colleen, the only time I ever felt good about voting was in 1964, I think, Barry Goldwater. Although I had many reservations and did not view him as, 'Presidential'. Since then I have been without a political association. Even during the Reagan years, his social agenda did not encompass my thoughts.

On the 'gun' issue; few people hunt for food anymore, one reason gone...'militia?' an outdated concept, rifles and pistols in modern warfare have little meaning. However, I claim the right to own any weapon I can for one reason and one reason only, to defend myself, my loved ones and my property from those who would use force to take it..and that includes Government. I want to be well armed with the best weapons, should we all decide to revolt and rebel again. And I want those bastards in the state houses and in the federal government to 'know' that I have weapons and will fight if called upon to do so.

'Womens reproductive rights...' An issue I would be well advised to leave alone..however, it is controversial and as such should be subject to debate and discussion.

Being an atheist, I do not have the luxury of claiming that 'God' created each and every life. Nonetheless, every life is 'sacred' in a 'non secular' way, if any life is to have value.

To say that a life created in the womb by choice, or even if not by choice, but accident or force, to say that that life has no value, is to destroy the concept that 'life' itself has value.

It is human life upon which all values rest. If you destroy the base, you destroy the structure of morality and ethics.

That is not an emotional argument, nor is it faith based; it is a logical, ethical and moral position that a thinking person can support.

War...and the conduct of it....perhaps in anticipation for another post, one might consider an in depth look at conflict between nations outside the strictly partisan and political aspect.

Amicus Veritas

 

[minsue]

Let's not forget he is bad enough to make me not vote Republican for the first time in my life. There is a lot to be angry with him & his advisors for. That said, I see no reason to believe he is going to bring the country down in ruin around our ears if he gets four more years.

-Colly

I don't believe he will bring the country down in ruin, either, Colly. That's not it at all. I believe he will continue down the road to war, wherever he believes he can win. Regardless of the reason, regardless of those killed. This has nothing to do with freedom. Nothing to do with the 'nation-building' that he was so against when campaigning. This is a crusade, in every sense of the word. He has stated repeatedly that he is on the right side of god. He will not stop until someone stops him.

How many more innocents will die over those four years than the number would have died with anyone else in office?

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I don't believe he will bring the country down in ruin, either, Colly. That's not it at all. I believe he will continue down the road to war, wherever he believes he can win. Regardless of the reason, regardless of those killed. This has nothing to do with freedom. Nothing to do with the 'nation-building' that he was so against when campaigning. This is a crusade, in every sense of the word. He has stated repeatedly that he is on the right side of god. He will not stop until someone stops him.

How many more innocents will die over those four years than the number would have died with anyone else in office?

Who can say? You are basically going with the reverse of the old adage and choosing the devil you don't know over the devil you do. What if Kerry unilaterally pulls out and a civil war errupts? How many will die then?

What if John Kerry is anti-military and refuses to commit troops to the multiple brushfire wars that break out where a small commitment of troops might actully stop a full scale Rawanda or Chad? How many innocents will die there because we didn't commit peacekeeprs when it was still feasible to stop it?

You don't know? Neither do I. We never will unless he gets elected and ends up facing such decisions. But speculation on potential loss of life is just that, speculation, and for every nasty Neo-imperialist scenario, there is an equally tragic pacifistic one.

If you are basing your vote on the potential of lost innocent lives, then you are facing the same reality I am, you could be voting for more deaths no matter how you vote.

-Colly

 

[minsue]

Who can say? You are basically going with the reverse of the old adage and choosing the devil you don't know over the devil you do. What if Kerry unilaterally pulls out and a civil war errupts? How many will die then?

What if John Kerry is anti-military and refuses to commit troops to the multiple brushfire wars that break out where a small commitment of troops might actully stop a full scale Rawanda or Chad? How many innocents will die there because we didn't commit peacekeeprs when it was still feasible to stop it?

You don't know? Neither do I. We never will unless he gets elected and ends up facing such decisions. But speculation on potential loss of life is just that, speculation, and for every nasty Neo-imperialist scenario, there is an equally tragic pacifistic one.

If you are basing your vote on the potential of lost innocent lives, then you are facing the same reality I am, you could be voting for more deaths no matter how you vote.

-Colly

The devil I don't know has, as they all do, the potential for slaughter. The devil I do know will continue.

There is no question for me. It really is as simple as that.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

The devil I don't know has, as they all do, the potential for slaughter. The devil I do know will continue.

There is no question for me. It really is as simple as that.

*HUGS*

I envy you your surity in the right course Min.

-Colly

 

[minsue]

*HUGS*

I envy you your surity in the right course Min.

-Colly

More the surety of the wrong one.

I'll take hugs from you any day of the week, though.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

More the surety of the wrong one.

I'll take hugs from you any day of the week, though.

LOL,

*HUGS*



-Colly

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I wouldn't vote for Nader simply because fanatics scare me.

Political leaders who know they're right, or have a direct line to God, who refuse to compromise or never second guess themselves give me the creeps big time, and I think most of the evil men in history have been men just like that.

---dr.M.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I wouldn't vote for Nader simply because fanatics scare me.

Political leaders who know they're right, or have a direct line to God, who refuse to compromise or never second guess themselves give me the creeps big time, and I think most of the evil men in history have been men just like that.

---dr.M.

No idea where my vote will fall. Perhaps to Ralph, more like to the libertarians. Problem there is that the radicals of that party have the control just like the other parties.

-Colly

 

[Clare Quilty]

... So go ahead and don't vote for Nader. That doesn't imply that you have to refer to him as some sort of mental case.

I had nothing but respect for Ralph Nader prior to the 2000 election. I assumed that he would make his point through the primaries, interject a different perspective into the debates and then, in the interests of the environment the people and every progressive triumph of the last 40 years, throw his support behind Gore and thwart the assumptive Bush/Cheney war mongering, looting of the treasury and rape of the earth. But, old Ralphy Boy had other plans. As yet, nothing that he has said by way of explanation mitigates the fact that his 70,000 votes in Florida (not to mention New Hampshire) handed Bush the election. This despite Nader’s claims that his campaign would actually be a boon to the Democratic Party (by registering progressives who otherwise wouldn’t vote) and that his politically perceptive followers would only vote for him in safe states where the Nader vote would be of any consequence. These claims turned out to be so much bamboozlement. Without Nader as Democratic spoiler, the combined malfeasance of Jeb Bush's Florida and the Reagan/Bush Sr. Supreme Court would not have resulted in a fait accompli. The result has been, according to Dr. Noam Chomsky, an administration that is "deeply committed to dismantling the achievements of popular struggle through the past century no matter what the cost to the general population."

In principle, my politics mirrors Nader's closely. However, from a pragmatic standpoint I feel that Nader's misguided stubbornness has done injury to the world. The thought that keeps going through my mind is, what would Dr. David Suzuki (another of my heroes) have done in Ralph Nader's place. I doubt if he would place self-interest and/or abstract principle above the very real danger that Bush is to the world. I agree with recent statements by Noam Chomsky. The choice between Bush and Kerry is "the choice between two factions of the business party," but the Bush administration is so "cruel and savage" that it is imperative that it be stopped.

Still, wouldn't characterize Ralph Nader as a mental case -- sophist, hypocrite, misguided selfish prick, yes -- mental case, no.