(Libertarian-leaning democrat here…)
Trying very hard not to derail an interesting and generally polite thread, but… is that because of how much you like Bush, or because of how much you dislike/disagree-with democratic politicians?
(Side note, even MORE risking derailing the thread… I can understand and sympathize with just about all of the opinions expressed in this thread. Some I agree with. Some I disagree with but feel are just different priority weightings. Some, I completely and totally disagree with, irreconcilably, but can intellectually understand how a decent well-meaning patriotic person could hold those views. I can certainly understand someone voting for Bush because they felt that the overall Republican platform was closer to their beliefs than the other available choices. What I can NOT understand is someone being actively proud and happy that Bush, specifically, is president… the fact that he was elected I find disappointing and frustrating. The fact that he shows up high in polls of greatest Americans ever I find utterly baffling.)
(Which, I hope, doesn’t stop me from being able to be polite and respectful towards an active Bush supporter. For purposes of cliche, I’d like to say that some of my best friends are Bush supporters. But that’s just not true. However, one of my friendly acquaintances is a Bush supporter.)
I was quite the liberal, until I got my very first paycheck in 1973. When I realized the government money was my money, I became a die-hard Republican (somewhere off to the right of the NRA), and have voted that way ever since.
Bush only appeals to people who don’t understand the difference between “doing something” and “doing something useful”.
In the nineteenth century, the Xhosa tribe in Africa was slowly losing its land to the expanding British Empire. Everybody in the Xhosa tribe recognized that the British were a serious threat to the Xhosa way of life but there was no consensus on how the problem should be handled. Unfortunately, the chief, Sarili, became convinced that the key to defeating the British was a magic rite involving killing all the tribe’s cattle and burning all their crops. When he presented this plan, many of the tribespeople questioned both the cost of destroying all their food sources and the unlikelihood that this destruction would have any effect on the British. But Sarili was chief and his word was law, so the killing and burning was carried out. And, of course, the British did not disappear. Sarili insisted that the problem was that some people were holding back and not killing enough cattle and burning enough crops. In the end, the Xhosa tribe essentially collapsed due to starvation and the British moved in and took over all their land.
No one’s asked me to kill my cattle and burn my crops. The economy is going strong, gas prices are dropping, and quite frankly, if all the pooh-heads in Congress and the Senate would get off their collective asses and do something rather than saying, “A Democrat/Republican proposed it? Then I’m against it! Period!” we might actually get something accomplished.
Social Security reform? Shot down. Immigration reform? Shot down. (Don’t talk to me about Medicaid Prescription…I’m ashamed of that already.)
Walloon, I wanted to apologize for this reply, which is needlessly bitchy and doesn’t answer your question.
The federal government doesn’t currently have a posistion on sex toys (that I’m aware of). Nor do I expect them to take one in the near future. I was simply making the point that when you say “I welcome the government (federal or otherwise) into my personal business”, you should perhaps consider how *far * into your business you’re willing to welcome them. And it’s not as though the government passing and enforcing laws regarding people’s sex lives is inconceivable, or for that matter without precedent.
Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, Texas and Tennessee have all banned or attempted to ban the sale of sex toys.
Not to hijack (this should probably be a different thread), but what’s with the poeple howling about “State’s Rights” being stepped on by the Federal government? If you’re against the government interfering in your private life, does it really matter if it’s the federal government or the State government?
We should probably start another thread to discuss it, but I *think * that the reason people get het up over “state’s rights” vs. “federal government” is that in theory, like minded people tend to cluster, and you can always leave the state if you want (at least for more easily than you can leave the country). That is, at least, the only reason I can think of for someone to care whether the state government or federal government has passed a particular law.
Hey now, the only reason I wasn’t a Republican in high school is that I didn’t turn 18 until two months before graduation, so I obviously wasn’t registered yet I wasn’t yet in my twenties when I cast my first vote for a Republican presidential candidate, though.
I have to disagree that Bush doesn’t care about polls.
He’s changed his stance frequently, but deftly, in line with public opinion (google “Bush” AND “steel tariffs”, or his varying positions on whether we needed a Department of Homeland Security or a 9/11 commission). It took a while, but he finally acknowledged errors in the Katrina relief effort. His statement of the war’s “straining the American psyche” sounded eerily reminiscent of Carter’s “malaise” quote (both of which I agree were basically true).
You don’t have to “please everyone” to get elected (sometimes, you don’t even need a majority). And it doesn’t take courage to alienate people who will never vote for you, or whose votes you don’t need to get re-elected.
Well, I’m technically a Democrat, but that’ll probably change, soon enough. I didn’t vote for Bush in the last election (Mostly because of Domestic issues—gay rights, abortion, the FCC, etc.), I’m guessing I’ll vote for the Republican who runs in about 10 years, riding on the disgruntled-conservatives-and-moderates-who-think-the-leftists-stabbed-them-in-the-back wave. (I figure that history repeats itself, but that means I still have a 50-50 chance of ending up with Reagan 2.0.)
I’ll probably end up registering as a Republican when I’m old, and I’m horrified at the direction the young people are taking the country. (I’m a pretty easy-going guy now, so I already shudder to think of what will, inevitably, shock and horrify me in a quarter of a century.)
It is with great pride and humility that I accept this nomination and will do everything in my power to fulfill the duties of the office Waitaminnit Let’s Have a Cold One and Think This Over.
Think there is a chance of bringing some centrist Democrats over?
I wasn’t yet in my twenties when I cast my first vote for a Republican presidential candidate, though.