I think it’s a mistake to confuse **elucidator **with the Democratic party.
It’s mudslinging either way. The question is simply whether the truth will wash the mud off. (Hint: the Bushies stay dirty.)
I’m not that interested in politics; I don’t follow current event very closely. From my distant vantage point, here’s what I see:
Bush and his cohorts try to gain support by pointing at terrorists and yelling “They’re trying to ruin america! Support us; we’re not them!”
The liberals I hear around here (which is, in fact, the bulk of my exposure to politics) try to gain support by pointing at the Republicans and yelling “They’re trying to ruin america! Support us; we’re not them!”
I get the feeling you’re simply trying to light a fire under my ass, to depose the vile and evil Bush, bringer of plagues and apocolypses. Problem is, I like cool heads, not hot asses (unless they’re on a friendly female, anyway). As I think has been said, there is ample evidence that the current administration is bad. Now convince me that your alternative isn’t.
Or, don’t bother. I’ve belatedly remembered that I live in Idaho, so my vote has no importance anyway. (It’ll take more than rhetoric to convince me this state has turned purple, incidentally.)
And vice-versa.
Say it with me. Elucidator is not the Democratic party. He speaks for himself, not all liberals or all Democrats or all socialists or all child-molesters or all furries. See how that works? If one liberal insults you, you’ve been insulted by that one particular guy, not all liberals. And that doesn’t give you license to insult all liberals or even all furries because “they started it first”. No, one guy started it. Insult him if you must, that doesn’t give you license to insult everyone else you imagine might agree with him. You only get to insult them when that particular person explicitly states that they DO agree with him. Not when you infer by their silence that they would have agreed with him.
It is correct that elucidator is not the speaker for the Democratic party; he has merely gotten my attention lately for being very aggressive (and charmingly/disturbingly flamboyant) in his anti-bush approach.
Still, though I chose him as an example I could easily back up my statements about without having to bother with browsing other threads, I stand by my general statements about the “support” for the Democrats on this board as a whole. In actuality virtually nobody actually supports the Democrats; they merely oppose the Republicans. As a person who is not inclined to choose the lesser of two evils, pointing out the evil of the Republicans is only half the battle; one must convince me that the Democrats are any better. And “they haven’t yet had the unopposed opportunity to do be as bad, the way the Republicans have,” is uncompelling argument.
Just another Republican, as far as I’m concerned. I see nothing special about him personally, and I have no desire to give them any more power by voting for any Republican.
In my case, because I don’t like the Democrats. I’ve never voted for a politician in my life, and I doubt I ever will; only against. As far as I’m concerned, the Democrats are spineless, incompetent, corrupt scum, and the the Republicans are fanatic, incompetent, corrupt, sociopathic monsters. Scum > Monsters.
That is the choice that you have, and refusing to choose is also a choice.
They didn’t do so much damage when they were in charge. Damage control is my voting watchword; I don’t expect to find any good people running for office.
You have no idea how amazingly encouraging you are.
Come now. It is blatantly obvious that Al Gore would not have invaded Iraq if his election as President had been allowed to happen by the Supreme Court. He was not in thrall to the PNAC as the current Administation is, and he had no personal stake in the matter as the current Resident does. And while it’s impossible to say with an certainty that a Gore Administration would have done a better job than Bush’s FEMA administration did in the aftermath of Katrina, it seems very likely that he would have – it is hard to see how he could have done worse. Simply by not appointing an incompetent party hack as head of FEMA, Gore would almost certainly have done better than Bush.
And it’s almost a certainty that Gore wouldn’t have tried to instigate a proglram of legalized torture, massive illegal detention and illegal wiretaps. I’m sure Gore would have invaded Afghanistan if it had happened on his watch (it might not have: Gore might have been more inclined to swat at flies than Bush) but he would have handled the aftermath much better simply because he wouldn’t have squandered all that money, political capital, armed forces and human life invading Afghanistan – he would have it to use for other purposes, like crushing the Taliban properly in southern Afghanistan.
The point of all this is that the Dems do not NEED a ten-point program to be better stewards of the country than the Pubbies – all they really have to promise is rationality and moderation. The Pubbies have been massively stupid and monumentally corrupt on their watch, simple rationality and moderation will be an enormous improvement over the Pubbies. In short, not being a Republican is in fact enough, and more than enough, in any frame of reference where reality makes a difference. Now whether American voters exist in such a frame of reference remains to be seen.
Allies?
I’m on my own side; where other people choose to stand is their business.
Apparently they choose to stand as far away from you as possible.
Save your breath. Begbert2 said he doesn’t really care about politics because he lives in Idaho or something. I think his intent was to take a shot at Elucidator but that went badly.
Sorry, my post was to Evil Captor.
No, you idiot. elucidator was merely a convenient example of the problem, and frankly, he’s not that bad an offender. Sure, he doesn’t include any actual content in his “rally the proletariat” posts (instead preferring to, I don’t know, encourage all the liberals around here to be …more liberal? How many undecideds on here are likely to be swayed by rallying rhetoric? Wouldn’t the 'Pubs have already swept them up with their rallying rhetoric?) but regardless elucidator’s posts are generaly at least inoffensive. I could instead, for example, have picked a shitsack like you. Cute the way you refer to me dismissively, and that my “taking a shot” “went badly”? Good lord, can’t you people back away from the Ad Hominem for one second? Are your positions so flimsy that you can no longer even see a disagreeing post without attacking the poster out of sheer reflex? If the Neo-Cons weren’t so obviously undeserving, I might feel obligated to vote for them just to spite you. (I won’t though; I need more reason to vote for someone than the mere fact that their opposition are dipshits.) :mad:
I need to back off from this “debate” a bit. But I definitely second the pitting. In the desperate desire to rid yourself of Bush, a select vocal portion of you liberals have started to become him. Shout “Terrorist!” or “Bush Sympathizer!”; it’s exactly the same thing.
Is that it? Is that really the best you can do? How fucking pitiful. Though, in truth, I expected no better probably having read the better part of elucidator’s posts.
Bush-bashing you say? Deservedly so, every fuckin’ byte he’s managed to post against that criminal dickwad. For while you’ve obviously been looking under your bed every night for “Osamas,” elucidator has been worrying and fighting as well as he can, about the future of your nation. Both in his own eyes and in the eyes of the world.
That you haven’t noticed your country’s steady decline into the gutter says a whole lot more about you than it does about 'luc being “deranged.” IOW, you’re a complete idiot or have more than a handful of shares at Halliburton.
Meawhile, I posit you’re the one living a sick, sick delusion:
Knowing all you know about Iraq and any number of other lies – unless, once again, you shy away from any other activity than looking for terrorists under your bed and those of your loved ones, which I understand could be quite time-consuming – the simple statement that you think Bush is the “better of two evils,” really, really makes me question your sanity. It also reassures me, that mine wouldn’t be the first turd sandwhich you’ve eaten. In fact, double-deckers are unlikely to satisfy your appetite for Bushit, sir. Thnen again, be appy, you must be getting plenty of fiber in your daily diet. Yet something else you should thank you Misleader for.
What a waste of flesh you are. Then again, it may not be your fault said flesh came without a brain.
All the best. Sincerely or maybe not,
~Why, me, of course.
So, say you’re in a game of wits to the death. The pirate has offered you two goblets of wine. You know that there is iocane powder in the goblet on the left. There may or may not be iocane powder inthe goblet on the right.
You choose to drink the one you know is poisoned?
Voting for the Republicans is like drinking poisoned wine??? I thought it was supposed to be coolaid…
[Richard Nixon]
That would be “Kool-Aid”. But that would be wrong.
[/RN]
It was actually Flavor Aid.
Never match wits with a Cecilian when death is on the line.
Really know how to hurt a guy, don’t you?
In not so many words, but I remember Dems lashing out about this sort of rhetoric in 2000 referring to Clinton.
If it was wrong then, it’s wrong now.
Seriously, unless McCain is the nominee in '08, I’m going non-party. I proudly stand in the camp of Bush supporters, realizing that nobody can destroy this country in 8 years and legacies take longer than 20 years to play out. What I hate about Bush is not outweighed by what is being done now that should have been done years ago. (There was only one attack on the WTC, right?)
Unpopular actions are being taken (some I disagree with) that were never addressed because former leaders were concerned about poplularity. Leadership isn’t about likeability. I’d prefer Bush in the Oval Office, but would really like to party with Clinton for a night. As far as the two men personally, I’d trust Bush to watch the kids while carousing with Clinton rather than the other way around. It’s my opinion of character of the people, not how they do their jobs.
US politics have become the used-car salesmen stereotype. It doesn’t matter what the lot is, you instinctively don’t trust him or her. You have to buy a car, so you hope you pick the guy that will screw you less.
At the same time, they’re a bit like a new boss. They come in, run things counter to what you’re used to and you see all the changes as glaring flaws. At some point the boss leaves and the debate begins. If it doesn’t start before that. People don’t like change, it’s an unofficial universal rule.
5 years later people are still lamenting the boss, or they’re enjoying industry growth based on those long-ago decisions. I say long-ago since 5 years is such a huge time frame for more and more people. Either way, the changes are good or bad, and are played out in a time frame that isn’t based on a daily blog or hourly updates.
This is NOT a direct comparison to any politician today, but I’d remind everyone that Lincoln was rather unpopular in a few years of his Presidency. Sometimes the anger of any change needs to be reflected on before making concrete ascertaitions of the changes.
And as I’ve come to believe, there will be those set on one side agreeing with me, and another ready to prove me wrong. We won’t know for years the full fallout of policies in place today. But it’s going to be great fodder to debate on a real-time basis. Just so long as the years 1992-2001 are excluded.
Because many will deride history if someone is mentioned during those years. I’m hoping, if McCain isn’t in Office, it’s Hillary. (God help me.) At least that way those that squelch Clinton references will have to forego Bush references.
Somehow I don’t think that will happen.
I used to clutch my banky, too. It kept me safe and warm against the monsters under my bed. When I was 4.
A few things happened in the last 30 years that made me realize my banky wasn’t the shield I thought it was. In fact, it had become thread-bare and kinda useless. On cold nights, my parents turned up the furnace. At one point I had a night-light. Eventually I realized that there were bad people that really did want to get me, but I trusted people to do what they could to keep me safe. Or at least keep the baddies from camping out under my bed.
I didn’t like it. Nosirree. I had a swatch of banky in the scrapbook and the night-light bulb burned out. I was left to trust people that severly limited my right to do whatever I wanted, and I was pissed! Somehow they came down hard on things I did wrong that I felt were my right to do.
Yes, I’m making a comparison to “Big Brother”.
That’s what leaders are. They are elected leaders, and good or bad they move our country to new directions. Avoidance of war, activating war, pick a poison. (Grape is my fave)
Each and every one of us (US Dopers, international Dopers have their own leaders to deal with) work to perfect the longest running democracy/republic as best we can.
For all the talk of the country going to hell in a handbasket, we’ll be here for years and years before we ever get to Woodrow Wilson. If we honestly debate what the US has/is doing wrong in the world.
But there is no honest debate. Not in the sense we try to promote. It’s sideline potshots trying to one-up any given poster. Useless in the real sense, but entertaining.
And about as useful as this post.