McCain suspends campaign (walls of text ITT)

[thegayhare]

The only thing I can really say other than that is that the Republican's VP scares me.  And I don't use that term lightly.  The woman is Grade A scary to me.

and just to be silly

I wonder if Palin could scare Abel more then Alexi or Fa'Lina

[Reese Tora]

Do I think Obama can clean up the mess in the economy and the mess in Iraq in 4 years, or even 8?

Considering both sides have plans that would have all our troops out of Iraq by 2011 or 2012, I wouldn't be that concerned about 'fixing' the mess.

As for the economy, I don't think the presidency can fix anything; at best, they'll avoid agravating the problem and allow it to heal itself.  As always, whichever party is in power will claim responsibility for any improvements or be blamed for any problems, regardless of actual cause.

Honestly, I think the republicans are trying to lose so they don't get all the blame for the problems we're going to sart experiencing as these lending institutions continue to fold under the weight of the bad loans they've issued.

[Janus Whitefurr]

And this is why, as I told Cvstos a day ago, I much prefer to live down here in Australia. Our politics may be douchey as well, but they're so much SANER than this madness.

[Jigsaw Forte]

The only thing I can really say other than that is that the Republican's VP scares me.  And I don't use that term lightly.  The woman is Grade A scary to me.

Good, so it's not just me. 

Especially scary with the thought in mind that McCain will very likely die while in office if elected. President "I don't care that you just got raped, Here's a $1200 bill and by the way, see you in nine months", anyone?

[Noone]

Considering both sides have plans that would have all our troops out of Iraq by 2011 or 2012, I wouldn't be that concerned about 'fixing' the mess.

Plans are fragile creatures, often prone to error and misfortune. I'm quite certain that McCain plans on keeping troops there until the conflict is resolved, which considering the current trend, would probably mean our troops would be there far beyond 1012.

As for the economy, I don't think the presidency can fix anything; at best, they'll avoid aggravating the problem and allow it to heal itself.  As always, whichever party is in power will claim responsibility for any improvements or be blamed for any problems, regardless of actual cause.

You do realize that this is the exact thing that got Herbert Hoover into trouble, (aside from cutting the money supply by 40%), he did nothing while the economy disintegrated around him, and I assume blocked corrective legislation as well. 

besides which, Obama still has yet to show me that he can debate in a real forum.  I've watched his interviews; he either gets puff questions and reporters ignore anything serious (such as his association for years with terrorist bomber William Ayers), or if someone does mess up and ask his a real question, he very expertly meanders around and says a whole lot without ever actually addressing the subject of the question.

(Sigh), I really dislike it when people bring up things like Obama's alleged association with terrorists, etc, because if he were such a suspect, he would probably have been arrested without a trial (and the amounts of constitutional abuses the Bush administration is accountable for, along with violations of international law, is staggering to say the least.) Frankly, if he were suspected of that, he wouldn't have been able to raise all of the money and followers he has. It backfired when Hillary Clinton tried pulling that stunt there, trying to depict him as a Muslim, it's just more propaganda to the pile.
More realistically, I guess the business with his pastor is more credible, though of course, his continued attempts to try and avoid help from those like Jesse Jackson make me think that that is also more fictional bile that the Right wing is trying to smear him with. Before you ask, it certainly goes both ways, McCain has also been continually smeared with being an elitist, and having several questionable ethical holes.

And as far as his claim that he'll do things differently, that's not what his voting record shows.  In fact, he has the most partisan voting record in the Senate, siding with his party line 95% of the time, vs an average of 87% for other Democratic senators.

And your point is? The recent administration was Republican, not Democrat, naturally a Democratic president would handle things differently than a Republican president who also often votes in party lines.

Obama is a smooth talker, an American Idol candidate with no substance, whose plans are all based in socialist-style rhetoric with plans that European countries tried and are now abandoning because the cost becomes too great to bear.

The last time I checked, Socialism worked quite well for England, in fact, I often hear that Socialism is a complete failure without anyone specifying the reasons. Yes, there are flaws with Socialism, but so are there flaws with any economic system, and probably even more than a completely free market economy. If you want a look at how a market works when unregulated, take a look at industrial era America, it isn't pretty.

But vote him in if you wish.  It'll be all more taunting I get to do when he blunders.  I'm not exactly thrilled with McCain either, but at least he's not living in the clouds with airy promises of hopes and dreams that have no chance in hell of ever working.

So it's better to just surrender entirely to a depression than to fight it? I'm not going to be optimistic and say that the economy will get better over the next few years, because I'm certainly sure it won't. Besides, I'm significantly more concerned over McCain's points of view on foreign affairs. I don't like Obama's plans to break from NAFTA, but I sure don't think forking any more money to hopeless wars, or to continue violating treaties and suspending constitutional rights like Bush has. A bad president can deal FAR more damage with foreign affairs than he can with domestic affairs.

[superluser]

Honestly, I think the republicans are trying to lose so they don't get all the blame for the problems we're going to sart experiencing as these lending institutions continue to fold under the weight of the bad loans they've issued.

You know, I can't find a way to disagree with this.

I was going to say that the Republicans would have chosen someone more appealing to their base, in that case.  McCain just might tear the party in two, because when he fails, the theocrats might say ``We told you that he wouldn't win, and you're not paying attention to our issues anyway.  We quit.''

But McCain wasn't nominated by the party elites, he was nominated by the people.  And they might not have known that the collapse was coming at the time that McCain was nominated.

Personally I am amazed anyone is actually wanting to be President this election.

As Douglas Adams wrote: To summarise: it is a well-known and much lamented fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarise the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made president should, on no account, be allowed to do the job.

And yes, she really scares me, in just about every possible way.

[Darkmoon]

Just a gentle remind to all involved in the topic to keep it civil. I'm not pointing fingers or naming names, but we did shut down one topic a while back for the (admittedly heated) Democrat bashing. While I don't think anyone has said anything too extreme in this thread, I just want everyone to continue to keep things civil.

That said, Palin is bat-shit crazy. O_o

[superluser]

You do realize that this is the exact thing that got Herbert Hoover into trouble, (aside from cutting the money supply by 40%), he did nothing while the economy disintegrated around him, and I assume blocked corrective legislation as well.

Hoover actually did a lot of the stuff that Roosevelt gets the credit for.  Hoover put off doing anything for quite a long time, and then, by the time he did do something, his term was basically over and Roosevelt actually put some of Hoover's plans into action (e.g. the Hoover Dam, Emergency Relief and Construction Act), and then adapted some of these into the New Deal, which basically involved trying every recession strategy that anyone had tried before, regardless of whether anyone thought they would work.  What worked worked better than what didn't, and we started to emerge from the depression.  After WWII, production really took off and we fully emerged from the depression.

Roosevelt correctly gets credit for most of what was done to get us out of the depression, but to say that Hoover did nothing or impeded it is to make Hoover out to be worse than he actually was, and that's just mean.  We don't need to pile on someone whom we already know was a bad guy.

[Alondro]

You cannot look at GDP to analyze the success/failure of the New Deal.  Those numbers are misleading in that they ignore the characteristic of business back then to begin to restore itself IN SPITE OF the New Deal.

From Wikipedia, quoting from historical sources:  When the Gallup poll in 1939 asked, 'Do you think the attitude of the Roosevelt administration toward business is delaying business recovery?' the American people responded 'yes' by a margin of more than two-to-one. The business community felt even more strongly so"[28] Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, angry at the Keynesian spenders, confided to his diary May 1939: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and now if I am wrong somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosper. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started.[49] And enormous debt to boot."

The only things the New Deal really gave us were the upward trend in government spending and Social Security, bth of which are nearing the edge of collapse.  There was also the SEC... which obviously hasn't worked too well given that they ignored the selling of debts and bad mortgages which led to the current mess.

We also got the AFL-CIO, which one could argue is a major reason so much manufacturing has shifted to China and other countries as powerful union demands have made production in this country unprofitable.  It's also led to the unions having strong government ties and the frequent over-expensive 'no-bid contracts' handed out to cronies.

Modern historians are the ones who believed the New Deal worked.  Economists do not.  Unemployment remianed at 14% until WWII manufacturing dropped it to around 2%, the lowest ever.  But even that was based on heavy deficit spending.  Simply put, it created the perfect spawning ground for the many bad habits which the government never unlearned.

[Darkmoon]

When the Gallup poll in 1939 asked, 'Do you think the attitude of the Roosevelt administration toward business is delaying business recovery?' the American people responded 'yes' by a margin of more than two-to-one.

I doubt the average American was any smarter back then than they are now. Your average American has little working knowledge of what goes on in politics and economy, and when they aren't immediately getting their financial satisfaction, they get pissy and think everything's gone to pot.

It was the great depression. It would take a lot, over a period of time, to pull American out of a situation like that. Hell, it took a world war to finally pull America the rest of the way out of the Depression.

Sadly, we aren't going to be able to have that same option here. A war is what helped to put us into this position, so it's doubtful another war would help at all.

The business community felt even more strongly so"[28] Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, angry at the Keynesian spenders, confided to his diary May 1939: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and now if I am wrong somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosper. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started.[49] And enormous debt to boot."

I'm sorry, but you aren't allowed to quote the business community as "proof" in one part to prove a point, and then bash them, their practices, their habits, and their crony-ism two points later to further justify your point.

The only things the New Deal really gave us were the upward trend in government spending and Social Security, both of which are nearing the edge of collapse.  There was also the SEC... which obviously hasn't worked too well given that they ignored the selling of debts and bad mortgages which led to the current mess.

I remember reading a few articles that had Social Security on the path to redemption, the deficit being nullified, and the government sitting on a government surplus. I'm trying to remember what happened soon there after to change all that...

Oh yeah, Bush took office.

We also got the AFL-CIO, which one could argue is a major reason so much manufacturing has shifted to China and other countries as powerful union demands have made production in this country unprofitable.

One could also argue that it's corporate greed that sent the business over to China. Unions fight for the little guy, and while they do cause things to be somewhat more expensive, it's better than everyone making little better than a (to use the slimy term) McPaycheck.

It's also led to the unions having strong government ties and the frequent over-expensive 'no-bid contracts' handed out to cronies.

The Republicans are just as guilty of this as the Democrats. Big Business as guilty as the Unions. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying the shit goes both ways.

Simply put, it created the perfect spawning ground for the many bad habits which the government never unlearned.

Which is why we need someone a little bit different, not someone that says he plans to uphold all the policies that have put our country in this predicament.

[superluser]

We also got the AFL-CIO

AFL-CIO merger: 1955.
AFL founded: 1886.
CIO founded: 1932.

So... not so much.  The CIO, I'll give you.

[Sunblink]

President "I don't care that you just got raped, Here's a $1200 bill and by the way, see you in nine months", anyone?

Ugh, don't get me started on that, Jigsaw My inner feminazi is still screaming.

Actually, I think Amber had an "inner-feminazi" sketch.

By the way, I was scared of Palin too... before I saw the Tina Fey sketch, that is.

[Angel]

President "I don't care that you just got raped, Here's a $1200 bill and by the way, see you in nine months", anyone?

Ugh, don't get me started on that, Jigsaw My inner feminazi is still screaming.

Actually, I think Amber had an "inner-feminazi" sketch.

By the way, I was scared of Palin too... before I saw the Tina Fey sketch, that is.

I have to admit, SNL is freaking brilliant. Anyone who can make me come that close to feeling bad for Hillary Clinton deserves plaudits.

I'm tempted to email this topic to my Foundations of Argument teacher and see what he says ... maybe I can get extra credit? 

[Sunblink]

I have to admit, SNL is freaking brilliant. Anyone who can make me come that close to feeling bad for Hillary Clinton deserves plaudits.

"I was so excited when I was told that Senator Clinton and I would be addressing you tonight."
"And I was told that I would be addressing you alone."

High fives for Black_Angel!

[Jack McSlay]

Modern historians are the ones who believed the New Deal worked.  Economists do not.  Unemployment remianed at 14% until WWII manufacturing dropped it to around 2%, the lowest ever.  But even that was based on heavy deficit spending.  Simply put, it created the perfect spawning ground for the many bad habits which the government never unlearned.

That's pretty much what I think. given the debt, I think this crisis would have happened one way or the other. It's sort of like a dead end. if they don't decrease the debt, they will make this crisis either last longer or eventually have it happen again sometime soon. if they do spend money to pay the debts, they won't have much money left to keep the country going.

I saw on the news they only managed to get half the ammount needed to solve this crisis, and not immediately. I'm not sure what to expect to the final outcome, tho I think this crisis will become a historical mark. positive, or negative, either for people indirectly affected by it (like myself) or for those living in the country, I'll have to wait and see.

[Cvstos]

There was also the SEC... which obviously hasn't worked too well given that they ignored the selling of debts and bad mortgages which led to the current mess.

Yes, over the last several years regulations had been loosened and the SEC and the executive branch completely ignored those problems and look what happened.  Which party and president controlled the SEC during this time?

  It's also led to the unions having strong government ties and the frequent over-expensive 'no-bid contracts' handed out to cronies.

So what are your thoughts on the GOP and the Bush administration lying to start a war and then once at war handing the most excessive and unenforced no-bid contracts in history to Bush and GOP cronies to "rebuild" Iraq, a job that still not even close to done?

Do you support that?

Would you support re-electing the people that handed those contracts out?

Would you support electing someone whose campaign is run by the same people who ran the campaign that got the guy who first gave out those contract elected?

What if they had the same big donors?

What if the people that benefited the most from the war had at LEAST 15 of their lobbyists performing important functions of that person's campaign?

[Alkarii]

Well, I personally don't vote.  The people in office are just puppets for the corporations and other greedy rich bastards with a shitload of money they don't need.  So here's a rant.  I'm not going to claim I'm able to do this perfectly, as I will forget some points that would belong here, and I probably won't be able to word them right to convince anyone, but it's just a general idea of what my ideas are (I prefer not to have beliefs, that way I'm not royally f**ked when I'm wrong).

Republicans/Conservatives

One of the things they have been trying to do that really pissed me off was that they're trying to ban same-gender marriage, because they want to "protect the sanctity" of marriage.  Let's look at that for what it is these days.  There's absolutely no point in protecting the sanctity of something that is no longer sacred.  We've attached so much legal shit to it, it's really just another form of letting someone else control us.  It was originally just something about showing everyone that you're wanting to spend the rest of your life with someone else.  But now, if a man does not make his prospective bride sign a piece of paper (which will probably piss her off and she'll never talk to him again), if he doesn't make however much she wants him to make, or if he doesn't let her blackmail him into everything she can think of, she can file for divorce and take everything he has, shit that he had before he even met her.  If they had kids, he now has to pretty much live in a f**king cardboard box because she's spent all the child support money making herself look like a whore and had the court order him to give more.  So tell me, exactly how is something that's got enormous potential to completely destroy a life (more than one if you think of the kids) sacred?  It's only able to do that because society and the government have tacked on a bunch of worthless shit to it that we don't even need.  It used to be a way for two people to say "our lives are now one."

They also support tax cuts for the rich.  Now, the theory is that the business owners will pay their workers more, or hire more people, or do whatever they need to do to be able to increase production.  In actuality, they send the jobs somewhere where they can pay the worker's less money, so they can have more workers and more production for the same price, yet American people can't buy the product because they don't have jobs, and therefore no money.  The majority of the people aren't rich because the system is now so corrupt thatthe only people who aren't ostracized are the people born into enough money to make a shitload of money.  This is leaving out the people who do things of questionable legality and strike it rich.

Democrats... well, anyone who tells me I should support them because they agree with me is probably only kissing my ass so I help them achieve some hidden agenda that'll likely be the same as getting f***ed somewhere uncomfortable (like the back of a volkswagen).

Conservative vs. liberals... well, some liberal views are okay, but others are really stupid.  Those people who are all like "Oh, we should remove this objectionable material from the media so children don't see it!"  Here's a thought: why don't we actually try RAISING our children?  If we can create a life without the use of any other equipment than what we hide with our clothes, we can create an individual who can think for themselves, and we can teach them how to make choices that won't screw things up for people.  Granted, there are situations where it's difficult to make a decision because the options suck.  That's part of growing up.  Nothing's perfect, nothing will ever be perfect, because we never had perfect to begin with.  Stop acting like it's a great idea to either stick with only the old shit that's obsolete or will become obsolete, but don't rush into change.  Scope it out, but don't take too long about it.

As for the war.  Well, yeah, wars need to be fought, but this particular one's cause has just been twisted, beaten, broken, and lost.  It shouldn't be about revenge because that's a stupid reason.  This is a war against terrorism, it should be about keeping what happened back in '01 from happening again to anyone again.

As far as I'm concerned, peace without war is impossible.  Peace is that part of war where we regroup, decide who we're fighting next (or defending against in case they get ballsy, like the Cold War), and then plan the next campaign.  Man is just an animal, it's in our natural instinct to show that we've got strength so that other's will know they don't get hurt if they don't try to hurt us.  War is pretty much doing just that on a large scale.  It's about being more aggressive, more crazy than them.  That's how we made Japan surrender in the '40s.  We stopped going after just those who were directly fighting and went right after their people with the two deadliest weapons ever actually used intentionally in a conflict.  Right now, a certain faction with an Islamic background is trying to provoke us into doing something really violent, really f**ked up so they can say "SEE?! WE F***ING TOLD YOU THEY WERE EVIL!"  But to be honest, no matter how much you believe that you're doing the right thing, you are wrong if you think it's right to push someone else into doing something like that for any reason.  It doesn't matter if they have a different religion or idealogy or what have you.  If they're on the other side of the planet, and they're leaving you alone, chances are they'll keep leaving you alone unless you mess with them, or you refuse to help them get something they need that  you happen to have.  Not really that simple, but I've already said too much without drinking any hard alcohol.

Once again, this is just a few general ideas, and why I'm not gonna vote, and why I think that those who are gonna complain on an internet forum about what we're forced to hear about everywhere else should just give it a rest and save their energy.

[Fragmaster01]

I'm going to quote my gay friends on the first one: "If straight people can get married, gay people should be able to as well. I'm not sure why gay people would want to get married, but it's their funeral."
Technically, the tax cuts for the rich argument is that people whom have received tax cuts will spend more, the corporations getting money to reallocate funds. Same general ending, companies have a requirement to increase wealth of shareholders, not customers, and thus the money is relevant only if the companies are spending at maximum rate(in which case they're not doing very well).
Well, I'd just leave it with a comment that it's your choice to not vote for the people you agree with. There's nothing stopping that from happening except you, so don't whine if people you don't like get into office.
Conservatives and liberals have stupid views, just as they have smart ones. In regards to all three of the next paragraphs, I'm a believer that government's job is to do what people cannot do very efficiently themselves. People can raise their kids if they try, and the government should be on standby to help the kids if the parents fail. That's just a matter of efficiency, the very nature of government means that they can't deal with things on a case by case basis, which childcare very much is. In regards to war, a government doesn't need was unless its put itself in a position where war is inevitable. For this case, I'd cite the US as a government that sadly has been rather belligerent, and war will happen, and an obvious example of Canada or such where war isn't inevitable due to the fact they don't try to throw their weight around.
They're good ideas, and I see where you're coming from, I just have to respectfully disagree with many of them.

[Darkmoon]

Well, I personally don't vote.

Congratulations. You managed to save me the time of reading everything else you said.

[superluser]

Well, I personally don't vote.

Congratulations. You managed to save me the time of reading everything else you said.

+1.

I'll just add that if you don't vote, you're just as responsible for everything that happens in this country, because we gave you the opportunity to voice your opinion, and you decided not to tell us what you want.

Technically, the tax cuts for the rich argument is that people whom have received tax cuts will spend more, the corporations getting money to reallocate funds. Same general ending, companies have a requirement to increase wealth of shareholders, not customers, and thus the money is relevant only if the companies are spending at maximum rate(in which case they're not doing very well).

This is very controversial. Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980? Anyone? Something-d-o-o economics.

[Vidar]

Technically, the tax cuts for the rich argument is that people whom have received tax cuts will spend more, the corporations getting money to reallocate funds. Same general ending, companies have a requirement to increase wealth of shareholders, not customers, and thus the money is relevant only if the companies are spending at maximum rate(in which case they're not doing very well).

This is very controversial. Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980? Anyone? Something-d-o-o economics.

Reaganomics. It doesn't work. It just guaranties that the rich will get even richer, and the poor need two jobs just to make ends meet. The rich are not going to spend more just because they have to pay less taxes, they spend as much as usual, while watching their fortune grow at an increased rate.
Of course, it was no accident that this policy was invented and implemented by rich people in the first place.

[Alondro]

And how does promising to tax rich people even more help anything?  NO ONE is talking about seriously cutting government's out of control spending.  And for those who don't think Palin in experienced enough, how then is Obama?  His experience is on par with hers, but he's the Presidential candidate, not the VP, therefore he'll be in the hot seat with even less idea what to do.  Which is fine with me.  It'll be very amusing.

As I said, I'm not thrilled with the Republican candidates.  But at least no one has linked them directly to friendships with bombers and anti-Semites *Ayers, Reverend Wright- who is fond of Farrakahn*. 

You know more about a person from who they associate with than from their words.  Anyone can say pretty things while lying their lips off.  But they can't hide who they stand with.

Why on earth would you want someone who from the very start promises to raise taxes, raise government spending, and give the government even more power over your life?

And by the way, it was in the last two years with with Democrats in control of the House and Sensate that the most massive influx of bad mortages were made.  And I quote McCain from 2006: "I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation.  If Congress Does Not Act, American Taxpayers Will Continue To Be Exposed To The Enormous Risk That Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac Pose To The Housing Market, The Overall Financial System, And The Economy As A Whole."

Congress, in response, did nothing.

And I should also note that Democrats were heads of the major banking committees:  Barney Frank, Chuck Schumer, Chris Dodd.  And both Chris Dodd and Senator Obama received more money from Fannie and Freddie than any other government officeholder.

Jim Johnson, once in the running to be Obama's VP pick, was once CEO of Fannie Mae and manipulated earnings reports in 1998 to sucure a 1.9-million dollar bonus for himself, and he resigned from Obama's board of advisors this year after undeniable facts of favoritism from Countrywide were found.

The Democrats are just as dirty as the Republicans.  They just seem to be better at pulling the wool over the eyes of the public; with no small assistance from the media, who, quite deliberately it appears, avoid as much as possible bringing up the past indescresions and unsavory questions about the ruling class of the DNC.

Obama once said he doesn't take money from oil companies.  That's 'technically' true, since a law in existance for a century prohibits corporations from directly donating money to any federal candidate.  HOWEVER:  Obama has accepted more than $213,000 from individuals who work for companies in the oil and gas industry and their spouses.  And two of Obama's bundlers are top executives at oil companies and are listed on his Web site as raising between $50,000 and $100,000 for the presidential hopeful.

Hmm... that was never a front page scandal report.  Had McCain said the exact same thing and the same information been uncovered, you can be sure it'd be plastered upon every paper in the country and be the top story on CNN for several weeks as the great McCain/Big Oil Conspiracy was investigated.

And now a word on the war.  How exactly have we 'lost'?  Where is the victorious enemy's army?  How much of Iraq does the enemy control?  Oh wait, there is no army, the remaining terrorists are in small groups making small suicide attacks that have no strategic value other than intimidation.  They've lost; they just won't give up.  They just hope that they won't run out of people willing to kill themselves before we just get tired out and leave.  Given the duration of this war, the actual casualty rate is incredibly low.  We had single days during the Vietnam War where more soldiers were killed than in whole years of this war. 

The only things I agree with about the opposition to the war was that it was very bad timing and it's been far too expensive considering the low-tech and low-numbers nature of the enemy.  We're spending billions to defend against loonies who just strap a low-cost bomb to themselves or stuff it in a car.  And then we give even more money to the Iraqi government with no promise that they'll ever pay it back.  If we got in this for oil, somebody must have forgotten about that somewhere along the line.

I would've let Hussein bury himself, as I'm quite certain he would've done something stupid soon enough.  But really, if we'd finished this whole mess in 91 when his army was in disarray and Al Quieda wasn't incredibly well-entrenched in so many locations, Iraq wouldn't be an issue now.  Given that the Iraqi people in 91 were hoping so much to see Hussein defeated, it would've been the prime period to give the country the opportunity for democracy.

I'm not going to pretend that the Republicans have done a good job.  They have most certainly not.  But neither have the Democrats.  Congress has the lowest approval rating ever in history.  And they've done little but bicker and fight to attack President Bush since they got control of the House and Senate.  The truth is that neither party has any interest in honesty, justice, or fairness.  One side just happens to be better at pretending they do.  For instance, there are more Democrats in the list of the richest US politicians than Republicans.  And you can bet when they start taxing the rich, they'll find a way to make themselves exempt.  Can I be rich too?Paulson in #2... but then I'm not sure what party he's actually in.  Frankly I think he resides in his own little world.

[Jigsaw Forte]

Well, I personally don't vote.

Congratulations. You managed to save me the time of reading everything else you said.

+1.

I'll just add that if you don't vote, you're just as responsible for everything that happens in this country, because we gave you the opportunity to voice your opinion, and you decided not to tell us what you want.

"Those who refuse to take part in politics are destined to be governed by their inferiors."

-- Plato

[Alkarii]

okay, you missed my point.  If I had only said that I don't vote, then yes, you'd have hit it right on the head.  But what you all seem to have missed was that I said that every politician is in the pocket of one or more corporations, so it really does NOT matter who you vote for, because while they will kiss your ass for the vote, and may do something to help you, it will never be enough because the politicians are receiving money from corporations to vote a certain way on certain legislations that affect how that company can more effeciently bone you out of your money that you worked for.  You guys completely ignored the "WHY" that followed.  I myself have not currently been really governed by the federal government, I've made my decisions, some of them bad, and some of them had been influenced by the media or whatever, but generally I've pretty much always thought it was a bad idea to say that I am governed by someone else, using a system that is only meant to help the larger number of people, but not the individuals.  You vote against something that passes and this royally screws your life over and you can't fix it, all you're likely to get is a fake "You have our deepest condolences."  What does that fix?  How the HELL does that help you when they won't let you be the exception when the exception would save you?  I myself have never liked the idea of telling someone else to do for you what you can do for yourself.  I am constantly bombarded with "be you" and "don't sell out," but let me tell you something.  I can't sell out when there are no buyers, and anytime I try to be me, I make one mistake, which is perfectly natural what with me being human and all, and you guys are like a friggin' pack of hounds telling me that I am, essentially, inferior because I don't support a system that will screw me over most of the time.  This electoral college crap just says that our votes don't really matter that damn much, and in the previous election Bush was actually behind (or so I had been told in class) in the popular vote.  If the majority of people wanted the other guy, the majority just got f****d with a cactus.  True, it was just a few percent margin, like two or three, but the fact is, the people wanted someone else.  And all these damn politicians just sit and get paid several hundred thousand a year just to convince each other to say yes or no on a particular issue.  Yeah, they go and talk to us when they campaign, but when was the last time you saw the president leave the office and go ask individual people what he needed to do to help them?  I haven't heard of it happening lately, but then I've stopped watching TV because all there is on the magic box these days is some jerkoffs in suits trying to scare the hell out of us.  Hell, right now, we need to be strong, we need to work together, all that jazz, but we can't do that very well when anyone in front of the camera is trying their hardest to convince us that everyone standing on the street corner is a drug dealer  or a serial killer/rapist, probably all of that together, and every idea that comes out of D.C. or the various state capitols is seriously going to screw us over.  The country is being torn apart from within, not by terrorists, but by the media and corporations.

Now tell me again why the hell I shouldn't just drop off the grid and show that I support politicians that won't stop that shit from happening.  You people who barely even know me at all have decided that the best course of action is to start acting like I'm a complete idiot because I'm not going to waste my time voting for something that won't do me any good.  I shouldn't have to constantly state that I have all the information to sound like a scholar.  I just have the general issue, average guy's high school education, that's it.  I don't need college, because I don't need to buy some fast-ass car that'll just get me killed, or a target of crime, I don't need a two story house, hell, I live in a house that would be too big for me to live in by myself.  I don't need some expensive shoes, or clothes, or what have you.  All I need is food, shelter, and a way to keep clean, that's it.  Don't tell me otherwise, because it's B.S.  Hell, I'd only need a large amount of money in the beginning to get myself started.  Right now, knowing what I know from high school, and maybe if I bought a couple engineering books from any bookstore, I could design a generator that could run off itself and still power my house.  Make it bigger, do a little more work, I could power the country without burning fuel, and the only work needed is getting it started up and keeping it in shape.  Laws won't allow that, because it doesn't generate a profit, and those laws were pushed by the energy companies putting money in the already overly-paid politicians' pockets.  Just a couple years ago a CHEAP and relatively safe chemical was found that could cure cancer, but the FDA has said "F*** that, we don't want anyone to use it because it's not profitable." I'll probably go find out more about that later.

But seriously, where the hell do you people get off calling me a worthless p.o.s. for exercising my RIGHT to not vote?  I already know that no matter who is in the office for any term in the next 16 years, we're screwed.  Why should I waste my time registering to vote, wasting the gas getting to the polling station and getting back home from there, knowing that no matter who I vote for, it's not gonna help?

Seriously, I can't believe I got a much better reaction saying that I was wanting to enlist compared to saying that I don't vote.  This would be the first presidential election I could vote in, and I had the bad luck of getting options that will only hurt me.

"So, do you want the blue hammer to the nuts, or the red one?"

[Tapewolf]

I think, in summary, what he's saying is that he doesn't want either party to win and is therefore kind of at a loss as to who to vote for.
To be honest, I have the same problem.  In the UK, we have a choice between the incumbent Labour party - who seem to be using 1984 as an instruction manual - or the Tories, who destroyed the economy in the 1980s/1990s.  I don't know about the US, but here we do have a third, centrist party, but they've never yet got enough votes to obtain power, except in local councils.  If they do come into power, they might screw things up too and then I'll have no-one to vote for either.

[Damaris]

That's why voting is often choosing between the percieved lesser of two evils.

However, to not vote when you're old enough, and able, is selfish and shirking your public duty.  I personally am of the opinion that if you do not make your wants known, then you have no space to complain about the state of the country.  By checking out, you lose your ability to have an opinion.  You had your opportunity to make a difference, even if the choices aren't great, and chose not to.

[superluser]

I think, in summary, what he's saying is that he doesn't want either party to win and is therefore kind of at a loss as to who to vote for.

I get what he's saying, but that does not excuse him from voting and not voting does not excuse him from having responsibility for what happens to the country.

We've got something like six candidates for president who have a chance of winning:

Obama/Biden - Democratic
McCain/Palin - Republican
Baldwin/Castle - Constitution
McKinney/Clemente - Green
Barr/Root - Libertarian
Nader/Gonzalez - no party affiliation

And there are at least two others that deserve mention:

Calero/Kennedy - Socialist Workers
Weill/McEnulty - Reform

If Alkarii can't bear to vote for any of these, he can write in Noam Chomsky--he's about as anti-corporate as they get.

I'm fine with anyone voting however that person wishes.  I also believe that you have the right to not vote, but it still remains your duty to vote.  Whatever you do, please get out there and vote on November 4.  You can vote for the person whom I hate the most, for all I care, but please vote.

[Tapewolf]

Just in case anyone is confused, I don't necessarily support his viewpoint, but I do understand where he's coming from.

[superluser]

Just in case anyone is confused, I don't necessarily support his viewpoint, but I do understand where he's coming from.

I wasn't saying you were.  In fact, I made sure that I removed anything that I wrote in the second person, because I didn't want there to be any confusion about whether I was writing to you or to Alkarii.  I kept the second person in the last paragraph because I wanted to address it to everybody (well, everybody in the US, at least).

[Darkmoon]

I tried reading what Alondro wrote, but it was long, and tedious, and saying the exact same things that he's said the last three times (in the last two debate topics), and since we answered those points, and he hasn't moved on... it just didn't seem worth it.