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Originally posted by Phil in this thread.

Phil pretty much hit the nail on the head as far as I'm concerned with the government. Every time I go to the library, I'm assaulted by notes on the walls stating that "Due to the Patriot Act, the [library] cannot guarantee the privacy its patrons". It's sad when I can't go to the  library without being concerned that someone's gonna diasgree with my choice of books and start an investigation.

So here's to Kerry. Cheers!

I've never defined myself by a party, I vote for the candidate I see most fit for the position, but our buddy W hasn't got a chance this year.

I goto some of my college classes on a base (Mcdill Airforce Base), and most of the people there have been ragging on Bush. A friend of mine in Virginia also goes to school on base, and he has a similar situation.  

Considering Republicans usually get a majority of the military's vote, I'll be interested to see who supports Bush this year (aside from Religious wackos, who hes hooking now with the gay marriage diversion, and people who vote Republican regardless of whos running).

But ya, that post from Shacknews pretty much nails everything on the head.

Go Kerry!

Man... Its sorta sad that we dont have more choice then between bush and kerry...

I wonder if it's too late to get my name on the ballot..

hey I didn't vote for him(bush)...:angry:
reasons to vote against bush this time:
1) he screwed up the budget... After clinton fixed it!!!
2) he's messing with the constitution... the constitution's sole purpose is to protect people's rights, not constrict them
3) iraq... (need I say more)

I know there are more... (please list any u think of)

Just remember though that sometimes what may look like the better alternative can turn out to be worse in the long run, and how someone behaves while campaigning will differ drastically from how they'll behave once in office.  My best advice - do your homework.  Vote based on the facts, not emotions, whichever way you decide to go.  They're all politicians at the end of the day as far as I'm concerned.

Were it not a total waste of my vote, I think I'd most likely vote Libertarian or something. But, as it is, nothing W has done so far really affects me.

I'm not gay, I don't live in Iraq, I think there's a lot of stuff on public broadcast that belongs on cable or some other subscription service, I fail to see how the Patriot Act really affects me, so whatever I'll just go Republican in the hopes the party will one day return to its smaller government roots...

That, and I can't figure out where Kerry stands on anything, I'm definitely against the Democrat's social welfare stance, so it really boils down to a lesser of two evils.

for the record Clinton did not fix the budget he over spent and then raised taxes. there is a diffrence.

Even though Clinton did indulge in over-spending and raised taxes (and what recent president HASN'T done at least one of the two, really?), he also had things set up that by now, the budget should have been fixed. We were also set to finally pay off the national debt, rather than constantly add to it. Bush screwed that up when he decided to give $300-$600 tax refunds to everyone.

However, I have to say one thing: Do not vote third party. Yes, it's a wonderful thing that the option is there, but it would be a spoiler for the main two candidates, and more likely for Kerry. That's part of what happened last time, although the primary reason was family ties in Florida.

And it's true that what seems like the better option could turn out worse, but at this point, I'd rather have (almost) anyone over Bush The Second right now.

although the tax cut was stupid as hell.. everyone blames bush for the economy when clinton let all the enron type crap go on til he left.. bush comes in an suddenly enron goes under ... so everyone blames it on bush.. clinton let it go on.. wtf? ... err.. stupid random thoughts

ohh.. and can i ask what is the point in voting AT ALL when the general publics vote dont count for shit because of the electoral college... why partake in a farce of an election when your actual vote doesnt mean anything because some guy thats supposed to represent our state can vote AGAINST the popular vote(ie, highest percentage of people say vote for kerry, the state representative can still vote bush disregarding what the actual PEOPLE of the state voted) .. ...oh wait, its because then the people really DO have the power.., and that would be bad.  :idiot:

Your vote matters because you're voting for a representative of the candidate you vote for to place the vote in the electoral college. That's what the entire thing in Florida was about, when you get down to it.

Of course, if it was only the popular vote, we wouldd have I Robot in the White House right now instead of G.W. Monkey...

Because we the people are not electing someone to govern us. The states are electing someone to govern THEM, hence thats why the states vote. The federal government is supposed to govern the United States of America, not the People of America. The STATES are supposed to govern the people.

Actually you are, the executive is granted the powers of the head of government AND state under the American constitution. This gives him direct authority over the people of the united states not just the executive body. Which is why in most other countries they divide the head of state and government, and the party picks the head of government (The Prime Minister) and the head of government is picked by a popular vote (The President)

In that regard, the use of the electoral college, especially with a single member plurality as an electoral system within the states is in fact undemocratic. If it makes you feel any better, Canada is worse, we haven't even evolved past a simple Parliamentary system

If you want a good reason not to vote for Bush here's my list
1. Diminished the trustworthiness of the US in foreign politics
2. Depreciated US currency
2.1. Appears to be trying to turn a large open import economy into a large open export economy, and sadly thinks that it will work. I hate to break it to you, but you can't compete with China, India and the Asian Tigers for exports, well unless the plan is to get enough unemployed people that you do away with minimum wage and everyone starts working for a dollar a day
2.2. A Tax cut for mainly the wealthy
3. Iraq, lies and the almost 600 American Bodybags it has produced
3.1. Cutting vetrans pensions
4. The 6 billion dollar oil contract that was given to Halliburton at a closed meeting instead of being put up for the lowest bidder like all government contracts are
5. Patriot Act I
5.1. Patriot Act II which was passed by clandestinely sneaking it into another piece of legislation so fewer people would notice, yes, that's right, the Patriot Act no longer expires next year
6. Proposing a constitutional ammendment, which would expand government involvement in an area it should not be in in the first place
7. Kennith Lay, large supporter of the Bush Presidency in 2000, who destroyed several million pensioners and got away with a several million dollars after the collapse of Enron, alive and free
8. Attempting time after time to stack the US Supreme Court with Religious Right Wing psychos
9. Attempting to revise media ownership laws (which are so relaxed it isn't even funny) that would allow 55% of ownership of all domestic media by one company
10. Has raised 250 million dollars from corporate america for his relection campaign, more than the combined total of Bush Sr, Clinton and Regan's campaigns.


I could probably think of more but this is all that comes to mind at present time

I'm certainly not disagreeing with any of those you listed, devlar, but just casually i'm a bit interested in the wording of number 7. You would advocate the death penalty for Mr. Lay? I certainly think the man is scum, but surely killing him is a bit extreme, no? :)

As much as it will make me seem like an extremist, yes, and in all honesty I don't even advocate the death penalty for murderers
He ruined the lives of millions of people who had their entire life savings in Enron, not only that, he got incredibly wealthy in the process. Its moments like that I think the people who all lost their lives savings should each contribute a dollar and hire a professional.

Frankly, I think jail time would be better suited. In my opinion, the death penalty should only exist for and be used in cases where the person is so unstable, deranged, psychopathic or whatever as to be a permanent threat to society, and would be a liability even with the small risk of a prison escape. It is there to prevent truly henious crimes from being committed once more. Lay cannot ever do something like he did (thanks to his ruined reputation), and therefore killing him is a bit moot. Rather, he should be forced to rot in jail and SUFFER for what he did, not get the easy way out.

Of course, he's not even in jail, is he?

I wish I could find you the article I had a few months back about where these upper class criminals are ending up, sadly I don't have the link

Needless to say its a homeless person's wet dream, free food, one room per occupant and your own bathroom, tennis, rowing, day passes, and more.

There's a big difference between going to a maximum security prison, working on a chain gang and what these guys recieve. Sure, its hell for them, the champaign they serve must be at ROOM TEMPERATURE (oh no!) and I'm sure the Caviar is from North American (more oh no!) but to the average person it looks like a country club, and for your average homeless person who may or may not have been put on the street due to the Enron scheme, its paradise.

I believe in rehabilitation for the people that actually aren't educated and their crimes are a result of their lack of education, I honestly can't say that for white collar crimes. These are usually wealthy, educated, individuals commiting these crimes for no other reason than the fact that they have found a loophole in the system, and at worst they'll have to give back half the money they've stolen. For White collar crimes the punative system of justice should be applied since really no amount of education is going to turn an educated mind and make them realize that what they have done is wrong. Reason regrettably turns all scenarios into instances of calculated risk. So when you are faced with that what else can you do?

You're absolutely right. I more or less forgot what "jail time" would mean for Lay and other white collar criminals. It's a shame, really.

Frankly i think what Mr Lay did was not only unethical and despicable i think it was high treason for him to pull it during a time of economic instability. Im actually with Devlar this time off with his head i says.

Where Bush has really screwed up his re-election chances are passing a 400 billion dollar medicare prescription drug entitlement that NOBODY wants.  Even seniors who are the proposed benificiaries don't want it, as a lot of them are currently better off with private plans, and you know that insurance companies will drop them once medicare can take it over.  Second, he's favoring a renewal (and possible expansion) of the 1994 crime bill that will ban every kind of rifle and shotgun that's basically useful for insurrection should the government decide to take away everyone's rights overnight.  Every semi-auto rifle and shotgun, and pump guns that hold over 5 rounds you can kiss goodbye.  I've read the bill, and so far I've seen no grandfather clauses, so those 100% legal semi-auto AK's, SKS's or mini-14's will be contraband, despite the proven statistical fact that this stupid law has done absolutely NOTHING to reduce crime whatsoever, after having been on the books for 10 years.  Democrats lost the house and senate in 1996 because of the first bill, and that only passed with marginal support and then ONLY because it had a 10 year sunset provision.  It's nice that there is little support for this, but the fact that he says he supports it is flat out catering to the other side and has pissed off a lot of gun owners who would otherwise probably vote for the guy.

I really don't have a problem with Iraq.  The whole WMD thing should never have been pressed as the reason to go in there.  I still think that was catering to the UN.  Besides, Iraq had the weapons at least until the inspections ended in the mid 1990's.  Clinton knew they had them.  All of the UN said they had them.  Either Saddam got rid of them by destroying them, hid them so damned well that nobody CAN find them, or they're now in Syria, Iran, and God knows where else.  The fact is Saddam DID have them.  He used them on the Kurds, and on Iran during the Iran-Iraq war.  I really wish people would stop pretending like they never existed.  If they're in the wrong hands now, then the question isn't if, but WHEN they'll be used in a terrorist attack.  Blaming Bush for not finding them makes as much sense as blaming a cop for not finding a well-hidden murder weapon.  As for getting rid of Saddam I have no problem with that either.  Except for a few loyalists and imported thugs most of the people in Iraq are pretty happy he's gone.  This does depend on where you get your news from though.  Watching the usual outlets all you hear is gloom and doom.  Of course, this won't change any opinions of anyone who thinks the war was unjustified in the first place, but packing up and abandoning the Iraqi people NOW would be a fatal and unforgivable act of shameful cowardice, and a mistake that would haunt the world for generations to come.  I'd really like to see a bit less finger pointing and a lot more support for the reconstruction effort.  We already know the names, addresses, and serial numbers 5 times over of everyone who thinks the war was bad/wrong and Bush is Hitler/Satan.  The horse is dead, please refrain from kicking it.

All of this hurts Bush's electability because he's not playing to his base.  Conservatives typically do not vote Democrat, for rather obvious reasons, and Bush's electability rides with how well conservatives view him.  He stood tall for 9/11, but humans have astoundingly short memories and attention spans in this decade.  I do like the tax cuts, mainly because I think government wastes too much money in the first place that belongs to the people.  Cutting taxes is a good thing to stimulate economic growth as well, but ONLY if you cut spending to go along with it.  Bush has been rather liberal with the federal budget, and his constituency does not like this fact.  Fiscal conservatism and limited government I do not think are in this man's vocabulary.  He's acted more like a Democrat than a Republican since he's been in office, not counting the whole gay marriage thing.  He's not going to win over centrists with his policy, and you can forget the left, they're still following Dean around.  A year ago I would have said he's a shoe-in, but at this point he's cut off his nost to spite his face.  I really don't know what this man thinks he's accomplishing with all of this.

I do not think anyone from the Democratic party is a better solution though.  For every reason to not want to vote for Bush, I'm sure an equal number can be found for Kerry.  If anything the problems Bush is creating now will only get worse under Kerry.  I still say they're all politicians and not to be trusted.  It's just a matter of which one you can stomach for the time being.  I'm sure glad they don't let birds vote.  I'd hate to have to choose between the lesser of two weasels.

anyone explain me why there wass war between those 2 ?

geez Pho

Is there anything you can't explain  :blink:

one smart bird...

Awkwardly enough I agree with much of what Phoenix said, with certain exceptions

The WMD issue comes back again and again. Yes Clinton thought he had them but the UN was far less sure on that, there were many attempts at dropping sanctions on Iraq in the 90s, as far as I know all of them were Vetoed either by the US or the UK.
I'm someone who believes in the morality of ultimate ends in politics, that the intentions in which you go into a situation will determine the outcome. That being said, If Bush came out in 2002 and said "We want to go to war in Iraq to rescue the Iraqi people" right off the bat, he would have gotten my vote of confidence and its far more likely that he would have gotten the support of a great deal more people in the world for his campaign. He did not, all this slime about WMD, contracts, spoils of war and the corruption of the Iraqi governing council have more or less attested to that. This was not a war for the Iraqi people but rather a war FOR Iraq, the landmass,, the strategic location and the goodies under the soil. That being said, leaving now would only damage the reputation of the US further, not only in credibility, but more in percieved military capability.

The tax cut on the other hand was not a good idea. I have a far right economics professor who told me this "I hate to admit it but Clinton revitalized the economy by raising taxes during the early 90s, the republican's blind approach to cutting taxes irregardless of economic considerations is what is causing the problem". The idea is that lowering taxes does increase spending but it cannot increase spending at the expense of a depreciating currency. Since the US is an import economy, it relies heavily on its strong dollar to purchase goods from abroad.  By cutting taxes you do put more money into the pockets of people but by depreciating the dollar at the same time, the real worth of the money goes down, thus in reality the amount cannot make up for the worth of the currency.

Bushes relection chances depend at this point on the centrist vote, or the swing vote. The undecided centrist make up a large portion of the public, granted most of them do not vote. The swing vote comes down to if he can convince people who would normally vote democrat, to vote republican, which in this polarized political climate will not happen.

In the end they are both politicians, so yes, Kerry might not be any better than Bush, but what American needs currently is at least a symbolic break from what internationally has been seen as a dismal and deteriorating administration.

Keeper, the Iraq-Iran war started over a territorial dispute between the two countries. The CIA and NSA funded the Iraqi government (Sadam Hussein) against the Iranians (Ayatolia Homeni) officially to stop the spread of fundamentalism in the middle east but unofficially most likely due to the 1976 Embassy hostage takings in Iran, which ended in the public embarassment of the then President Jimmy Carter and the American intelligence community as a whole.

dont foget delta force

I thought those guys were only used in Panama, or am I mistaken?

well delta forces debut envolved some messy  buisness with iran which didnt go well and was a big embarrassment  for them.

http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/id297.htm (http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/id297.htm)

Thank you Woodsman, learn something new everyday, or would it be considered learning something old [/end rambling]
Oh, well Strategic Studies isn't really my bag, I'm more of a International Relations, Political Economy person, but thank you for the knowledge ^_^

*post removed*

id like to state that not all conservatives use a z where an s should be.

I'd like to quickly point out I'm not a heartless bastard, and just now realized I pasted an older version of my original post, where I left out the part about compromising with civil unions. (Namely, I think they're an ideal solution given the fact that they allow gays to affirm their love for each other, and share in the benefits of marriage, while leaving the institution of marriage "intact" for conservatives. It's called compromise, people, and it's what makes democracy function.) No one seemed to have an issue with the post, which frankly they should have, given the slightly callous nature of it, so I never noticed. My apologies.

 I'd also like to further distance myself from B&S in as many ways as possible, so if anyone spots any grammatical or spelling errors in my posts please let me know post haste, ok?

Where I see a big problem with the whole marriage thing is the fact that California law is being violated by a judge in San Francisco.  If the USA is a country governed by the rule of law, then what good are laws if any judge can arbitrarily decide when and when not to enforce them?  If the people want change, there's a process for it.  Due process under the law is another one of those "corner stone" things.  Regardless of one's moral opinion on this matter, judges legislating from the bench and violating that process is a growing and serious threat to the stability of this system.  The fact that nobody seems to care about this matter shows how precarious this particular perch has become of late.

Marriage is a religious institution
Civil Union is a governmental institution

The fact that the government is talking about marrying anyone, irregardless of what occupies their pants scares me. Whether or not you want to be married is something between you and your priest, rabbi, witchdoctor, or whatever. Whether or not you want to be entered into a civil union is between you and your judge or mayor.

There is absolutely no overlap, there is no room for moral opinion, the simple fact of the matter is that the government should not be doing marriages in the first place. Its a law that quite frankly predates back to medival times, as a means of controling breeding,  that should have been abolished long ago and left in the hands of clerics.

I agree with Phoenix that someone should slap the cuffs on the judge in San Francisco, but someone should also slap cuffs on the Asscroft (no that's not a typo) for ordering a law that violated the separation between church and state.

Follow the rule of law and get the government out of church buisness

I'm wondering how my thread got hijacked from the election to marriage and religion in the government.

STAY ON TOPIC

You have a constitutional ammendment that is attempted to be passed on this specific issue prior to an election (granted thankfully it will fail like most attempts at ammendments, even those that are not as ridicilously stupid as this one)

While I would love to debate the origins of marriage among primitive cultures, Con is right.  We're straying off topic yet again.  Personally I really don't have a problem with the president proposing an amendment to the constitution.  That's the way you do things in America, and it will take the consent of the governed to pass that kind of thing anyway.  This shouldn't affect his re-election chances beyond a few swing voters anyway.  I think people are more worried about keeping their jobs at the moment than anything else.  Of course, if the War on Terror makes a very positive upturn, say Bush manages to catch Osama a few weeks prior to election, then watch his approval ratings go through the roof.  I'm sure all the conspiracy theorists will say "SEE?  I told you they had him all this time!" but it'll be fun to watch the mad scramble that results. ;)

I'm not talking about the development of marriage itself, more how marriage developped in western legal society
You have no problem with it even if the ammendment that is technically illegal, but you do have a problem with a judge that is doing the exact same thing?