The Rampant, Irresponsible Political Thread

[Towelmaster]

Originally posted by Z'ha'dumDweller

Nader: 0

EDIT: I forgot that I saw a Kerry and a Kerry/Edwards today.

Well Ralph wouldn't stand for it because it would probably make the car unsafe at any speed...

[Andrew_Swallow]

Discussion of BushÆs ribbons

http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=276

Colour picture of ribbon

http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=276

BushÆs military personnel file

http://www.usatoday.com/news/bushdocs/11-2_2004_Personnel_File.pdf

[bakana]

An interesting note in George's service record.

He was Honorably Discharged from the Texas Air National Guard Contingent on affiliating with Another National Guard unit.

So, his claim to have received an Honorable Discharge is tainted by his failure to fulfill the terms of his obligation.

I wonder if there is a Statute of Limitations on that...

[Andrew_Swallow]

Originally posted by bakana
He was Honorably Discharged from the Texas Air National Guard Contingent on affiliating with Another National Guard unit.

Does this mean that Bush needs two Honorable Discharges?

[Towelmaster]

A question from a foreigner :

Why is it that he(GWB) just doesn't say out loud that all of the rumours are incorrect etcetera, and that he was in the army all the time and that nobody helped him get favourable reviews, and so on and so on. Flat out deny nothing is true of the allegations?

The only reason I can think of, is that it is mortally dangerous for a president to lie to the public, because once the opposition later on proves that one or two things you said weren't true you are on your way out of the White House at lightspeed.

It's a bit comparable to that "Mr. President did you ever use drugs"- question. Clinton was masterful with his "yes but I didn't inhale". As good as impossible to prove otherwise after all that time.

In the case of GWB he replied that "he could take the standard drugstest any time"(the one where you can't have smoked pot etcetera for 15 years. Does it surprise anyone that everybody in the whole world now thinks "Ah, so he did take drugs somewhere over 15 years ago"...

A half-denial is not worth anything and a complete denial may come back to haunt him.

BTW : Does anybody have an 1972 IBM typewriter with proportional fonts that I can borrow?

[Radhil]

Which is why I think Clinton was as much an ass - he opened up this whole can of worms. The half-denial thing has gone so far that virtually anything can be re-interpreted. Even flat denials and bald fact, and even when the re-interpretation makes no sense whatsoever. The press - usually our safeguard - has allowed it to go so far they now can't even be bothered to separate bullshit from reality.

And the beat goes on....

[bakana]

Does this mean that Bush needs two Honorable Discharges?

In a word, Yes.

You can receive an Honorable Discharge certificate each time an Enlistment contract runs out.
I think I've still got a couple of mine around the place somewhere.

The problem is that GeorgieBoy didn't Complete his legal obligation to serve.
He was obligated by law (and Promised) to join another Guard unit in Boston.
He didn't. It's that simple.

If he'd been George Smith, he'd have been on his way to the Regular Army.

[Andrew_Swallow]

Originally posted by bakana
The problem is that GeorgieBoy didn't Complete his legal obligation to serve.
He was obligated by law (and Promised) to join another Guard unit in Boston.
He didn't. It's that simple.

Here is the evidence of desertion that the Democrats have been looking for.

It is the modern version of the dog that did not bark - the non-existent file.

I wonder which news service is going to report it first? Possibly after a quick phone call to the Boston branch of the National Guard to double check that they do not have a file on Bush.

[Dr Maturin]

<<It's not imaginary. It's what they called themselves back when they were first getting started.

NeoCon as in "New Conservatives".>>

Neocon or Neo-Conservative is used derisively to describe those in office who are "evil" and are using their positions as a way to further their personal agendas.

[Radhil]

It is now.

[Dr Maturin]

I read JMS' thoughts on contemporary politics, and I have this to say, even though I know he doesn't come to this site. That we know of. Jan, or someone, if you want to post this at the newsgroups as from me, I am okay with it.

<<Poster: Second, I'm been trying to compile more effective ways of bringing civility as a start to political campaigns. >>

<<It can be done, but it has to come with an overall change of attitude,
especially from the Republicans.


Having set the stage, let me now proceed to the problem, and explain why so
much of this rests at the feet of the Republican party.

For the last twenty plus years, the Right has hammered away at one consistent theme: that liberals are bad people, that Democrats are just shy of being traitors to America. You've had people like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter out there spewing bile into the American spirit of the most hateful, false, and demonizing sort.>>

For one, JMS, the converse is also true. The Right are warmongering, anti-minority, anti-women, greedy fascists.

As for Limbaugh and Coulter...

Does Limbaugh "spew" bile as equally harsh as the bile that is spewed at him? I don't think so. If you listen to his show, he treats liberal callers with respect, until they start screeching and going crazy on him. His argument isn't with the people, but with the results (or lack thereof) that their policies have garnered. You might disagree with him, but that doesn't make him hateful. He is demonized by the Left far more than he supposedly demonizes them.

On Coulter: She is nowhere near as popular or widespread as Limbaugh. And I don't think many Republicans particularly like her as a mouthpiece for their party. I agree with some of the things she says, but I don't think she is great.

<<What happens is this: those who would like to believe this, do...and thus view the other side with hatred and distrust and the sense that they are traitors. And you don't compromise or deal with traitors.>>

I think this is patronizing. Just because one views "The Left" as traitors does not necessarily mean you want to believe it. Some people come to a conclusion on their own, rather than letting someone rile them up.

<<On the other side of the political spectrum, you have people who you've just called traitors who know that they're no such thing...and when you call people disloyal traitors, they have a tendency to get real angry about it. And you don't compromise or deal with people who impugn your honor like that.>>

Action and reaction. I am a big believer in personal responsibility. If I am influenced by something or someone and I pick up a gun and shoot it, ultimately, it was my decision. I deal with liberals every day, and though I know they disagree with me and though I have heard them with my own ear berate the current President, I deal with them the same way. Some people may react harshly and start treating others badly. I don't. People can't use the excuse "the devil made me do it."

<<If you go back to the pre-Reagan years -- when a lot of this started to get going, not due to him per se but just timeline wise -- when you fielded candidates for president, it was business as usual...they had their positions, debated their positions...and you voted accordingly. The race wasn't predicated on the notion that the other guy's party is filled with traitors. The premise was that honorable people can disagree honorably and, most important, respect the system that puts them into office.>>

Well, I don't think it's a matter of whether or not the party is filled with traitors. Have we ever had a presidential candidate who threw medals into a river or who hobknobbed with the Viet Cong? He was acting according to his convictions. Fine. But he has to answer for those actions. Things like that concern people, on BOTH sides of the road. It isn't a baseless accusation. It's a reasonable question.

<<Now we have a nearly monolithic system in which the Republicans control the House, the Senate, the White House and, to all intents and purposes, the Supreme Court.>>

Should we ignore the votes of the people in order to balance out the offices? Or what if we made Congress 50/50 and take turns in the White House every four years?

<<And they have used this as a stick to try and further consolidate power to destroy the spirit of compromise. (One leading republican advisor, Grover Norquist, went so far as to say that "Bipartisanship is another name for date-rape.") Democrats have been excluded from committee positions, actually booted out of meetings and told other meetings are off-limits...it has all
become about destroying the very notion of compromise.>>

And we are supposed to believe that if the Democrats had a foothold they wouldn't do the same thing? Not that I am agreeing with what you said.

<<When the government becomes monolithic -- on EITHER side of the aisle -- the corrolary is that the population ends up the one that falls into bickering and argument. Because too many people feel that they're not being heard, which leads to frustration.>>

How long does this monolithic situation last? I doubt the branches will remain in Republican hands forever. Besides, how do we resolve it? Again, do we ignore the votes of the people?

<<This is not a left or a right issue, though at this moment it's the right that has pushed this situation through because they're objectively speaking the most organized and lock-stepped.>>

Funnily, Rush Limbaugh agrees with you here, in a sense. He sees the division that the Democrat Party is going through, and the relative solidarity that the GOP is showing. I don't see the complaint here. Should the GOP purposely fight amongst each other to make it even?

<<It's an issue that goes to the very heart of the American system, and we are for the first time in living memory in actual jeopardy of seeing that system break down, for one fundamental and very simple
reason:

Because Americans have been taught to hate and distrust one another.>>

More patronization. Being taught and learning are not the same thing. Both sides have seen things being done on the other side that have made them come to a conclusion that they can't let the other party get elected, or that they can't let this issue fall into the other party's hands.

Which party's candidates (and their stumping predecessors) are using the terms "Un-American" and "traitor?" It isn't the GOP.

And if you look back, the politics of today aren't as bad as some points in our history. Perhaps it just seems worse because of media dissemination and the advent of the internet.

[iamsheridan]

The issues I do not respond to are those where I have nothing to say (which means I shouldn't have posted this at all ) or know nothing about...

Originally posted by Z'ha'dumDweller
I read JMS' thoughts on contemporary politics, and I have this to say, even though I know he doesn't come to this site. That we know of. Jan, or someone, if you want to post this at the newsgroups as from me, I am okay with it.

<<Poster: Second, I'm been trying to compile more effective ways of bringing civility as a start to political campaigns. >>

<<It can be done, but it has to come with an overall change of attitude,
especially from the Republicans.


Having set the stage, let me now proceed to the problem, and explain why so
much of this rests at the feet of the Republican party.

For the last twenty plus years, the Right has hammered away at one consistent theme: that liberals are bad people, that Democrats are just shy of being traitors to America. You've had people like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter out there spewing bile into the American spirit of the most hateful, false, and demonizing sort.>>

For one, JMS, the converse is also true. The Right are warmongering, anti-minority, anti-women, greedy fascists.

As for Limbaugh and Coulter...

Does Limbaugh "spew" bile as equally harsh as the bile that is spewed at him? I don't think so. If you listen to his show, he treats liberal callers with respect, until they start screeching and going crazy on him. His argument isn't with the people, but with the results (or lack thereof) that their policies have garnered. You might disagree with him, but that doesn't make him hateful. He is demonized by the Left far more than he supposedly demonizes them.

On Coulter: She is nowhere near as popular or widespread as Limbaugh. And I don't think many Republicans particularly like her as a mouthpiece for their party. I agree with some of the things she says, but I don't think she is great.

<<What happens is this: those who would like to believe this, do...and thus view the other side with hatred and distrust and the sense that they are traitors. And you don't compromise or deal with traitors.>>

I think this is patronizing. Just because one views "The Left" as traitors does not necessarily mean you want to believe it. Some people come to a conclusion on their own, rather than letting someone rile them up.

It's good to know that political propaganda has no effect on you. Or anyone else for that matter.

<<On the other side of the political spectrum, you have people who you've just called traitors who know that they're no such thing...and when you call people disloyal traitors, they have a tendency to get real angry about it. And you don't compromise or deal with people who impugn your honor like that.>>

Action and reaction. I am a big believer in personal responsibility. If I am influenced by something or someone and I pick up a gun and shoot it, ultimately, it was my decision. I deal with liberals every day, and though I know they disagree with me and though I have heard them with my own ear berate the current President, I deal with them the same way. Some people may react harshly and start treating others badly. I don't. People can't use the excuse "the devil made me do it."

That doesn't stop them from doing it. We have a much written and talked about court case here in Sweden where a small town priest (not a catholic one, if that is implied be the word!) made his babysitter kill his wife. "It was a good thing in the eyes of God".

<<If you go back to the pre-Reagan years -- when a lot of this started to get going, not due to him per se but just timeline wise -- when you fielded candidates for president, it was business as usual...they had their positions, debated their positions...and you voted accordingly. The race wasn't predicated on the notion that the other guy's party is filled with traitors. The premise was that honorable people can disagree honorably and, most important, respect the system that puts them into office.>>

Well, I don't think it's a matter of whether or not the party is filled with traitors. Have we ever had a presidential candidate who threw medals into a river or who hobknobbed with the Viet Cong? He was acting according to his convictions. Fine. But he has to answer for those actions. Things like that concern people, on BOTH sides of the road. It isn't a baseless accusation. It's a reasonable question.

<<Now we have a nearly monolithic system in which the Republicans control the House, the Senate, the White House and, to all intents and purposes, the Supreme Court.>>

Should we ignore the votes of the people in order to balance out the offices? Or what if we made Congress 50/50 and take turns in the White House every four years?

Should you ignore the fact that 50% of the voting American population actually voted for the opposition?

<<And they have used this as a stick to try and further consolidate power to destroy the spirit of compromise. (One leading republican advisor, Grover Norquist, went so far as to say that "Bipartisanship is another name for date-rape.") Democrats have been excluded from committee positions, actually booted out of meetings and told other meetings are off-limits...it has all
become about destroying the very notion of compromise.>>

And we are supposed to believe that if the Democrats had a foothold they wouldn't do the same thing? Not that I am agreeing with what you said.

Did they use to do it? No (??), and neither did the Republicans. I think. But it may be the way of the future.

<<When the government becomes monolithic -- on EITHER side of the aisle -- the corrolary is that the population ends up the one that falls into bickering and argument. Because too many people feel that they're not being heard, which leads to frustration.>>

How long does this monolithic situation last? I doubt the branches will remain in Republican hands forever. Besides, how do we resolve it? Again, do we ignore the votes of the people?

50 years? One more week? One of the two is my guess.
How was it resolved earlier?

<<This is not a left or a right issue, though at this moment it's the right that has pushed this situation through because they're objectively speaking the most organized and lock-stepped.>>

Funnily, Rush Limbaugh agrees with you here, in a sense. He sees the division that the Democrat Party is going through, and the relative solidarity that the GOP is showing. I don't see the complaint here. Should the GOP purposely fight amongst each other to make it even?

I don't understand how that has anything to do with what JMS said.

<<It's an issue that goes to the very heart of the American system, and we are for the first time in living memory in actual jeopardy of seeing that system break down, for one fundamental and very simple
reason:

Because Americans have been taught to hate and distrust one another.>>

More patronization. Being taught and learning are not the same thing. Both sides have seen things being done on the other side that have made them come to a conclusion that they can't let the other party get elected, or that they can't let this issue fall into the other party's hands.

It's good to know that political propaganda has no effect in America!

Which party's candidates (and their stumping predecessors) are using the terms "Un-American" and "traitor?" It isn't the GOP.

And if you look back, the politics of today aren't as bad as some points in our history. Perhaps it just seems worse because of media dissemination and the advent of the internet.

/IamS

[I love Lyta]

"The problem with liberal elitism is that you have no tolerance for any other view. You simply say "you're wrong" and that is that."

That's exactly what the republicans do, thank you.


"She(Coulter) is nowhere near as popular or widespread as Limbaugh."

ROFLMAO
I would loove to see her widespread...

[Shr'eshhhhhh]

"Being gay is more than being attracted to the same sex. It's who you are...inside and out. You see the world completely differently. I mean do you think women and men see the world the same way? I don't think anyone would say they do...well, same for gays, lesbians, bi's and transgendereds."Originally posted by colony earth

How can ones sexual orientation colour everything you do? It's just your sexual orientation. Admittedly how society views your sexual orientation and how you react to that may impact on your life but saying being homosexual makes you see the world differently just doesn't make sense. Being YOU makes YOU see the world differently. But ones sexual orientation has as much to do with your life as your hair. You are born with it, it may change colour, You can wear it a variety of styles,you may cut it, perm it shave it off and it may fall out. But it doesn't give you a uniquely hair owning perspective. Just as being born with a particular sexual orientation doesn't give you a 'gay' or 'straight' perseption. Men and women are different granted,but men and men are different too. No two people are exactly the same and hold exactly the same views. The same goes for gay men and gay women as much as it does for straight men and straight women.

[colonyearth]

Originally posted by Shr'eshhhhhh
"Being gay is more than being attracted to the same sex. It's who you are...inside and out. You see the world completely differently. I mean do you think women and men see the world the same way? I don't think anyone would say they do...well, same for gays, lesbians, bi's and transgendereds."Originally posted by colony earth

How can ones sexual orientation colour everything you do? It's just your sexual orientation. Admittedly how society views your sexual orientation and how you react to that may impact on your life but saying being homosexual makes you see the world differently just doesn't make sense. Being YOU makes YOU see the world differently. But ones sexual orientation has as much to do with your life as your hair. You are born with it, it may change colour, You can wear it a variety of styles,you may cut it, perm it shave it off and it may fall out. But it doesn't give you a uniquely hair owning perspective. Just as being born with a particular sexual orientation doesn't give you a 'gay' or 'straight' perseption. Men and women are different granted,but men and men are different too. No two people are exactly the same and hold exactly the same views. The same goes for gay men and gay women as much as it does for straight men and straight women.

No offense Shr'eshhhhhh, but you really have no clue on this one. You and I have agreed repeatedly on many things, but this one is like telling a black person that being black doesn't define them or make them different than whites in some way.

If you said such a thing to a black person, you would most likely get a good and sound verbal thrashing at best...a pounding about the head and shoulders at worst.

The point is, you don't know what it's like or how it defines you to be gay...because you're not.

This is the fundamental problem we gays face with straights. They don't understand that is does, indeed, define you beyond which sex you're attracted to.

Men and women, due to their sex and sexuality, as well as many smaller factors, view the world differently...approach life differently. The same is true of gays, lesbians, and transgendereds. It is the makeup of ones mind, the way perception is interpreted, etc.

Can a man truly understand what it's like to be a woman? Many films, novels, poems, et al have been made, written, sweated out, and purged from the psyche of many creative types trying to do just that. However, ultimately, the answer is "no."

That's why it's called the battle of the sexes.

Well, gays, lesbians, and trannies all see the world as differently as men and women do. Gay men, for example, tend to see the middle of the road between men and women and have often made for great go-betweens for straight couples because they can literally see both sides. We gays (men, women, and trannies), are nature's way, perhaps, of allowing all angles to be perceived in some way or another.

We all carry a piece of the puzzle of understanding within us, each "sex," so to speak. If only we could get together and stopped battling, we might finally begin to understand the universe around us bit better.

CE