2008 presidential elections

[KontanKarite]

Okay, you guys might think I'm insane, but I might vote for Huck. Let me explain:

If Huck hits office, it will get so bad that there would HAVE to be a revolution...

[CptSternn]

How exactly are you supposed to have a separation of church and state if the leader of the state is a leader of the church?

[DepthsofSpace]

Originally Posted by KontanKarite

Okay, you guys might think I'm insane, but I might vote for Huck. Let me explain:

If Huck hits office, it will get so bad that there would HAVE to be a revolution...

Odd take on being the devil's advocate.

I figured Wednesday, 5 November 2008, there will be the beginning of revolution anyways. Either because the President (Paul, M.D) is leading one, or one is going to be led against the President.

But, yes. Huck, 'Hiltlery', Don Guliani, any of them are putting the coffin in this country's casket.

[Drake Dun]

Originally Posted by KontanKarite

If Huck hits office, it will get so bad that there would HAVE to be a revolution...

I don't think it would work. :P

Drake

[KontanKarite]

Originally Posted by Drake Dun

I don't think it would work. :P

Drake

Apparently, Anarchists DID vote bush in for hopes of a reaction. It didn't exactly work out apparently.

It really makes you wonder HOW bad it would have to be.

[Drake Dun]

Originally Posted by KontanKarite

It really makes you wonder HOW bad it would have to be.

I think it's a question of bad in what way more than to what extent. The electorate is largely complacent, insular, and decadent. Tell them that their goverment has killed 100,000 foreigners, and they shrug. Show them photos of U.S. troops forcing prisoners to wear underwear on their heads and make gay dogpiles, and they whine defensively about "loose cannons", then go off to watch the game. Tell them that inducing the sensation of drowning is not torture, and they'll burn their dictionaries for you.

Try doubling gas prices. That would make them willing to march into the oval office and tear the President's face off his skull with their bare hands.

Drake

[KontanKarite]

So long as you don't bother the American personally, they do not care. IS that what you're implying?

[CptSternn]

Drake -

I couldn't have put that better myself.

Kon -

Thats the basic gist of it. The average American could care less about government policy, unless it directly effects them personally. The bottom line is that none of those aforementioned atrocities happened to them, and, since bush and his cronies helped keep the pictures and video of said atrocoties off the news, the people never even saw the worst of it (much like the policy of hiding the soldiers coffins and having the funerals in private, keeping out the media).

Most Americans got a bit upset over the Katrina fiasco, but now years after when nothing has been rebuilt and hundreds of thousands are still without homes or jobs, Americans no longer give a crap, because they don't see it and it doesn't effect them.

Out of sight, out of mind.

[Drake Dun]

Originally Posted by KontanKarite

So long as you don't bother the American personally, they do not care. IS that what you're implying?

More or less. Actually, I can forgive an almost unlimited amount of mere complacency. The world is full of horrors that aren't the fault of Joe Average from Someplace, TN, and the war in Iraq (for example) is one of them. I am pretty much complacent myself. All I really do is run my mouth off, and once in a while spread a modicum of actual information (as in the recent Iran boat thread, which required hours of research and of which I am slightly proud).

A person is in his rights when he just minds his own damn business, says I.

HOWEVER, there is a difference between failing to take action, and actively enabling, in even a small capacity. The latter is exactly what a person does when he votes for a George Bush or makes excuses for his actions - before or after the fact.

Sadly, no small number of people fall under this rubric.

This last is perhaps a separate topic, but I wonder what you guys think motivates the kind of person who invents justifications for these people, free of charge. How, and why, does an intelligent, educated person in relatively full possession of the pertinent facts, such as my own father or (as I have discovered to my significant horror) one of my oldest and best friends, decide to defile their own conscience, intellect, and character in this way?

I have my own hypothesis, which I will reserve for the moment in order not to prejudice your thinking.

Drake

[ArtificialOne]

Yeah, I believe immediate withdraw of the troops in iraq would be bad. There is forward progress now there, violence is down and the iraqi govt has finally passed at least one law on reconcilliation (about Bath party members being allowed back in govt). Which was stupid of Rumsfield to ban them in the first place. True, I would like out asap, but if things progress like they are, announced today that troop deployments will go back to 12 months instead of 15, it would be foolhardy to leave so quickly. In past wars such as korea, Japan, Germany we've had to stay extra long, infact we're still there. What I'd like to see is more of an effort made by the UN in Afganistan, they're really dragging their ass there.

And Huckabee? Huckagone! Don't F with the constitution!! Yuck... not getting my vote!

[CptSternn]

Originally Posted by Drake Dun

This last is perhaps a separate topic, but I wonder what you guys think motivates the kind of person who invents justifications for these people, free of charge. How, and why, does an intelligent, educated person in relatively full possession of the pertinent facts, such as my own father or (as I have discovered to my significant horror) one of my oldest and best friends, decide to defile their own conscience, intellect, and character in this way?

I have my own hypothesis, which I will reserve for the moment in order not to prejudice your thinking.Drake

Justification is the normal outcome of a person with a guilty mind. Cheat on your wife? Once the guilt kicks in you justify your actions. Steal from a friend? Again, the average person feels some form of guilt and tries to think back to an event they can use to justify their actions.

Reasoning with ones own inner thoughts, justification, is normal in all people. Any head shinker will tell you this. And in like the case as you mention Drake, it is a sign of guilt.

It's easier to reconcile your own thoughts if you can place blame on something that isn't you. If you can't do this, you then try and justify your actions, no matter how insane the justification sounds to everyone else, because the average psyche can't deal with guilt - especially when the guilt is connected to an action or event that goes against the very moral fibre of the person in question.

For example, if you thought for a minute your vote, or support, or comments you made went to actually support the needless deaths of thousands, and that your own government, which you blindly supported lied to you. Addressing such thoughts is hard, especially when the person who engaged in such actively did so because they thought they were acting in a noble manner. It shows their own personal weaknesses, their own short comings. It makes them look like less of an intellectual in their own mind, and more importantly, it means their actions in some small part led to the death and suffering of many, many people. This realisation, even sub-consciously, will inevitably lead to justification.

The average psyche doesn't deal with that sort of thing well, which then leads to rationalisation, and of course the inevitable justification.

[ArtificialOne]

Simple answer drake, opinion.

You think Bush is the biggest boogeyman in the world, and others don't.

I don't think Bush is great, nor do I think he's the biggest devil in the world. He's leaving office period. Sure, there's going to be stuffed fixed or changed when he leaves.

People demonize him to no end, but forget that people wanted something different than another Clinton when Bush was elected. Under clinton all sort of countries took advantage of us. Just refer to the Oil for food scandal perpetrated mostly by the french and Europeons, NAFTA, North Korea getting Nukes and duping us for a decade. His failure to lead during the Somalia incident, The Chinese campaign donation scandals, all the scandals about affairs, failure to take care of Osama and his buddies even after numerous warnings and opportunities the CIA gave him.

Osama
http://iusbvision.wordpress.com/2006...-to-get-osama/

Nafta
http://www.alternet.org/story/34768/

Iraq
http://www.e-thepeople.org/article/2...e=best&skip=10

Foriegn Policy
http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/8514/

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-.../1716258/posts

Donations
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/20...fraudster.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Un...ce_controversy

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...5768-1,00.html


I mean people now want to vote for Clinton part 2. Even after Clinton version 1. You have to ask.. What stuff would the new Clinton ignore during their presidency?

And lets face it, we are never going to get another Bush, not this election and not in another one. If you haven't seen most of the lead people are just clones of each other. They repeat the same montra regardless of what side of the isle they happen to fall on.

[Kanedawg]

Hi, Drake. I have wondered the same many times. I think that one major factor might be some apparent trigger among many to get rabidly behind war. I have seen a number of people, including a fair number of veterans who were never actually in a war, who seem to rabidly support war on whatever flimsy premise, and thus to support Bush for giving them that war. (In the movie Gladiator there is a line about Emporer Comitus. "He will give them death, and the people will love him for it.") I think that a lot of people also pretend to buy Bush at face value because the alternative is so horrifying.

[DepthsofSpace]

Originally Posted by Drake Dun

Try doubling gas prices. That would make them willing to march into the oval office and tear the President's face off his skull with their bare hands.

Let's see, back in 1999 we had gas prices of around $1.50. Price now is around 3.00 with flirts of four dollars.

People are still in their homes. They'll just whine for the government to bail them out, if they went to $6-$8....

[Drake Dun]

Originally Posted by Kanedawg

I think that a lot of people also pretend to buy Bush at face value because the alternative is so horrifying.

You win the purple elephant plush toy. That is exactly the theory I had in mind.

Thanks to Sternn and AO too for their responses. Food for thought.

Drake

[ArtificialOne]

People fell, as you would say "rabidly behind war", because of 9/11. We were wronged and needed to fix it. Also people forget the nonsense Sadam had been spewing and the UN resolutions he had been flaunting. Everyone seems to so conveniently forget those facts.

Many people fall rabidly behind nonsense ideoligies and silly movements. I hate to say, it happens more on the left than the right. The left has the eco freaks, aclu's, rights for every criminal under the sun like defending NAMBLA, and wealth redistribution (a fancy term for taking your money and giving it to people who don't want to work, and remember, that's your money they are taking. Not the rich peoples or big business's). Not to mention many of the groups have been started by anti American people.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=41751

You have to wonder if many of these people who jump on bandawagons and causes started by these people realize they are working for goals that actually cause harm to the country?

Unfortunately many people have forgotten and now even ideolgise certain forms of govt and even movements not remembering or caring to learn of the hateful and hurtful things they've done in the past.

[Drake Dun]

Originally Posted by ArtificialOne

People fell, as you would say "rabidly behind war", because of 9/11.

I think that's exactly right. Unfortunately, they apparently thought that any old war would do. They didn't mind if the target nation was completely unconnected to 9/11, or if the official casus belli turned out to be not only a flimsy pretext (as was apparent from the beginning), but in fact a calculated lie.

We were wronged and needed to fix it.

Needed, past tense? Bin Laden is still running free. Meanwhile the U.S. is preoccupied with its imperialist mission in Iraq, and plans for the unprovoked invasion of yet another country which presents no threat to the United States.

Also people forget the nonsense Sadam had been spewing and the UN resolutions he had been flaunting. Everyone seems to so conveniently forget those facts.

They didn't forget, they just realize that it's a red herring.

Drake

[CptSternn]

Originally Posted by ArtificialOne

Many people fall rabidly behind nonsense ideoligies and silly movements. I hate to say, it happens more on the left than the right. The left has the eco freaks, aclu's, rights for every criminal under the sun like defending NAMBLA, and wealth redistribution (a fancy term for taking your money and giving it to people who don't want to work, and remember, that's your money they are taking. Not the rich peoples or big business's). Not to mention many of the groups have been started by anti American people.

Hah. Now thats laughable mate. The ring-wing includes all those evangelicals, which make a majority of Americans (69% by last census). Your trying to tell us there are more liberals in America when almost 70% are right-wing Bible thumpers? How exactly do you come up with this stuff?

Then you go on about 'giving it to people who don't want to work'. I love this statement. When not bashing foreigners and minorities, right-wing-nuts like yourself attack your own countrymen, and always try to distance yourself from them by making inflammatory statements like this. 'People who don't want to work', these people are Americans. Even though they are Americans, you for some reason think you are better than them. You use disparaging remarks about your fellow Americans, because you, yourself are a rabid follower of the right-wing and follow the right-wing thinking that some how certain humans are better than others because of their wealth, upbringing, or culture. Why else would a person like you try and elevate yourself from your fellow countrymen? What makes you better? Because you have a job that pays a living wage? Do people that work shit jobs and have to take food stamps or other social welfare all of a sudden become less American? Why is it you try and make yourself sound so much better? What is it do you think makes you 'more of an American' and these people less than human than you?

By your own admission, your parents had to save you when you were drowned in debt. If it weren't for them you, yourself would be in this same category - living on the street, homeless. Some people don't have parents who can bail them out. So for that reason, because they don't have rich parents, you think you are better than them and that gives you the right to say such things about these people? Your fellow countrymen? Fellow human beings?

I ask, what makes you so much better than these people you condescend with such a flippant attitude?

[Kanedawg]

Yay! A new plush toy for me! :^)

A long-time friend of mine who of late seems not to be my friend anymore was in the cold war. (In other words he was never shot at.) Along with a lot of co-workers of mine, this guy became an obsessed armchair general during the initial stages of the Iraq war. (So much better than football. "Bring me the pretzels would you? Belch!") It was like Invasion of the democracy snatchers. He would at times spew the party line at me on cue about how I was "supporting terrorism," and how I "hated America." And nevermind that it was not us "liberals," who were in bed with both Saddam and Osama in the 80s and 90s. That ex-friend has since lost steam for the glorious war as have a number of formerly psychotic co-workers. It's like, "Oh, gee. Maybe you were right."

[Drake Dun]

Originally Posted by DepthsofSpace

People are still in their homes. They'll just whine for the government to bail them out, if they went to $6-$8....

I have been one-upped in the cynicism game! My hat is off.

Drake

[Kanedawg]

And Depths of Space, right around the time of Katrina the gas prices went way up. A lot of people were actually finally seeming to question Bush's shining armor image. My thinking at the time was that Katrina was a convenient excuse for the real issue.

[Drake Dun]

Originally Posted by Kanedawg

It's like, "Oh, gee. Maybe you were right."

I imagine that's not terribly satisfying to hear, but it really is a sign that you made at least a small difference. Maybe the experience will give them pause next time some guy in a suit tells them that we need to kill all the (fill in the blank) people. Nice work.

Drake

[ArtificialOne]

Stern, I did work and my parents did help me. That's what family is for, not govt. And who gives you the right, a foriegner, to take my money and give it to people I don't feel have earned it.

And funny, you haven't disputed any other evidence about your precious socialist system have you? Birthrate? High taxes to pay for scocial systems that a normal economy can't sustain? People fleeing britain due to high taxes?

Prove that certain "social justice" groups haven't been started by anti american people?

Fellow country men, fellow human beings? OH THE CRY OF SOCIAL JUSTICE!!! Cry me a bloody river!! Summer of love all over agian! Do you have a flower in your hair yet?

Please stern go to your precious Russia and Cuba becuase you've previously stated how great Castro and Socialism has been for them.

At least I blame myself for my problems and not someone else. Like you got fired from some supposed great defense job due to Bush or some BS.. God!! show me a payslip or something.. What a load of crap. You want someone to pay for your problems and everyone elses. Did we need social justice to keep going the last 96,000 years of our existance?

You use any cause you can to try and drive america to become a socialist paradise you want it to be. Or are your intentions to make us dissapear...?

Right wing? So lets see. I want way less govt. Less taxes. More people to be RESPONSIBLE for their own lives. Less laws to restrict citizens rights...blah blah blah... And no, I don't think abortion and religion are issues I really think are relevent. They may be important to others, but I think they are one of those red herring deals to distract people from other topics..

What does the left want... like stern..
More govt. More expensive social justice programs, to pay for votes basically.. Because hey! Who doesn't like free money.. except that it comes from your own pocket.. And oh god help you if you think thats wrong somehow you are branded a hypocrite hate monger who doesn't care for his or her own people! My god! Or your god!!! What brilliant politicising!! God help us! DO you want a country or an institution!? Oh and make silly laws to restrict what you say or do...

I don't have a problem with alot of what the left says... problem is it's what price do you want to pay? Basically you give up your freedoms in my mind.. 1984 anyone?

Here's some ready for you sternio

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/2790

[ArtificialOne]

Wars going badly?

UN dragging feet on obligation to Afghanistan

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/United...esolution_1378

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/United...esolution_1378

Iraq

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/P...rge_is_working

on reconcilliation

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/wo...ref=middleeast

True, things aren't great, but on the whole, things are moving forward. It's going to be Iraqis failure as well as Afghanistans failure if they can't get a govt that works for them. Are they happy with totalitarianism... Maybe... You can lead a horse to water...but....

[ArtificialOne]

Whoops, second link on afghanistan was wrong.

Here it is..
http://www.voanews.com/english/NewsA...1-17-voa52.cfm