It is really aggravating to me to have Bush referred to as my President, my boy, my hero, and all sorts of other things in an attempt to neutralize my comments. I have stated my intent to vote for Kerry in multiple threads, every time in response to someone who tries to attack me by making me out to be a Bush supporter.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Four years ago I was a Bush supporter, yes, but I am willing to admit that in retrospect I made a mistake. However, that does not make me a Kerry supporter. Not at all.
I think that this post lays out my current beliefs very well.
So, do you all understand that? I am not voting for Bush. I reserve the right to criticize both candidates as I see fit. Got it? Good. Because I am sick to death of the attempted ad hominem attacks upon me simply because I choose to voice my opinion.
I know what you mean Airman. If you aren’t in lock step with everyone else on this board you MUST be a Bush supporter. If you disagree with Kerry, you have GOT to support Bush. You just can’t get it through peoples heads that BOTH of these bozos are lame. I have blowero over in another thread yanking my chain in a futile attempt to get me to just admit I’m a secret Bush supporter and card carrying Republican.
I, too, am voting for Kerry, although I would have preferred another Democratic candidate. It’s sad that one has to vote for the lesser of two evils (as it were). I don’t think either of the candidates is really evil – well, maybe Bush – but I wish there were somebody I could really be happy supporting. To me, Kerry is just the “not Bush” choice. I would have preferred Howard Dean, even though he wasn’t around long enough for me to know exactly why. Let’s just say I think he’s a more substrantial man, who also is not Bush.
That’s more of the simplistic absolutist ‘thinking’ that some of the liberals or so-called liberals on the board have been using. How does it make you any different than they to use their same methodology?
sigh
Now you’re probably going to claim that I was whooshed and you were using sarcasm and parodying the actions of those you deplore.
They’ve even called me a Bush supporter, despite that I’m the only one I know of who has pinned on him the label of “tyrant”. Like DesertGeezer said, it’s all just shitty. After arguments from WaterJ and others, I’m going to vote for Kerry (while holding my nose) if he has a statistical chance in my state. Otherwise, I’m voting for Badnarik. And beyond that, fuck it.
More examples of how amazingly partisan this shit has become. It seems that some people work on the all or nothing way of thinking. If I’m gonna vote for Bush then everything connected to the GOP must be good and true and everything the Dems do or say must be wrong and evil and visa versa.
I voted for the current government in Ireland. Before that election I’ve voted for nearly every party at some stage depending on the candidates positions (we also have PR over here so can vote for several candidates at the same time just giving them different preferences)
Airman and Lib have been the two that I’ve seen hassled the most about this but there is a lot of it on the boards and IRL I dare say.
Hopefully it will diminish after the next election but I doubt it. I can see US politics being very split for the next couple of years at least due to the anger and distrust in the other side that has manifested itself since 9/11
I regard you as a model of a man of principles, Airman Doors, and would hope that my conduct would be similar in similar circumstances. Sorry that you have gotten shit about your position.
The only acceptable position on the SDMB is to hate Bush. It is not enough to disagree with him, or to vote for someone else. Nothing less than hatred - literal hatred - is acceptable.
The hive mind does not tolerate dissent. And to an extremist, every position looks extreme. Except his own.
It’s too bad, but there it is. Nuance is the enemy. Moderation is betrayal.
Feh. Typical liberal flip-flopping. You no longer support strong, decisive leadership? You no longer believe in family values? Have you always hated America, children, and adorable puppies, or did you zig-zag on those in the last four years too? Just how much money have you given to Hillary-the-fascist-Nazi’s campaign, you hemp-wearing globalization protesting pinko? Have you bought the Barbara Streissand boxed set yet, you tax-and-spend troop-hating fool?
I understand the frustration and sarcasm you use here, Shodan, but you will find that there are any number of people who may not be overly thrilled with Kerry, but intend to vote for him, like Airman Doors, simply because Mr. Bush’s actions, policies, and/or evidenced attitudes have triggered their gag quotient. Sounds like a horrible thing to say of a President, but to give you the alternate view, consider James Buchanan, whose ineptitude and indecisiveness during Secession Winter resulted in the magnitude of the Civil War as we know it.
I would be happy to outline for you several things which Mr. Bush has done well, and in which I support him, but I would have to append to that an outline of vastly more steps in which he has made bad choices, and another in which he has violated his own word, showing himself not to be a man of integrity and moral uprightness but one of political expedience, another in which he is prepared to play the Pharisee (in the pejorative sense from the Gospels, not the sense in which a practicing Orthodox Jew is one), and another in which he is (IMO) subverting the cause of freedom – because one place in which I agree with the tinfoil-hat right is that American freedoms are slowly being eroded away. And Mr. Bush is not happy with that Fabian exfoliation of them, but has seemingly ordered an air strike and armored columns against them. (I presume you’ve seen enough discussions of existing and proposed laws in the past 3.5 years to know what I’m talking about here, even if you don’t agree with it.)
Mr. Kerry no doubt has his virtues, but he has made something of a fool of himself in this campaign. But I believe he will get a large number of votes, not because of what he stands for himself, but because he is widely perceived as the only viable alternative to Mr. Bush – and a fair proportion of moderates agree in general terms with my last paragraph, and would vote for Pumbaa the Warthog in preference to giving Mr. Bush a mandate to continue as he has for another quadrennium.
Yep. Nothing says “I’m an individual” like climbing aboard the “They’re all alike” bandwagon.
And for what it’s worth, I came to my own hatred of Bush all on my own. It was the decision of an educated individual, not because of some masturbatory hive mind fantasy that you seem to entertain.
Is Pumbaa on the ballot? Please? Anywhere? I’ll move…anyplace in America where I have a viable choice other than the two fucktards put forth by the major parties this election.
Shodan, Speaking as a non-partisan human, I have to say that I find your post in this thread to be rather snarky and mean. The OP, and indeed most people in the thread, are expressing nuanced political opinions, yet you somehow feel the need to come in and take a pot shot.
While it may be true that the overall tone of the SDMB is left leaning, my impression is that the blind partisans of the Left are pretty balanced by the blind partisans of the Right (hint: you are part of what makes that balance happen). To be honest, both sides are an embarrassment. It seems like you just don’t get it.
Airman, I have no way of knowing if you have read a single thing that I have posted so I will state a couple of things. First, I do tend to have a Liberal/Left leaning in my politics. Given that your politics (from what I can see) are somewhat contrary to my own, I want to tell you that you seem to me to be the very definition of Loyal Opposition. By that I mean that you seem to have a deep desire for what is best for the country and, while we may disagree on the best way to get there, this is something that we share. I only wish that there were more folks like you on both sides of the debate.
xtisme - I’ve read a great number of your posts and Airman’s over the past year. Your position is perfectly clear to me: you’re a Republican, but you realize that Bush’s policies are totally off the deep end.
Where I differ with you is that while I have no brief for or against Kerry as a candidate, ISTM that Kerry hardly has to be a savior to improve on Bush; all he needs in order to do that is to bear a passing resemblance to a moderately intelligent grownup in his management of the country. He can do that, and his choice of advisors strongly suggests to me that he has every intention of doing so. But it’s clear that this is our area of disagreement.
Airman, I’ve not only read many of your posts over the past year, but last year we talked about politics in some depth on a few occasions. (As well as talking about life, the Universe, and everything.) And quite honestly, it’s only from our conversations that I’m aware that you’ve rejected Bush. If I only knew you from your posts here, the only way I’d know that you didn’t solidly back 95% of Bush’s agenda is your occasional protestation that you have no intention of voting for him.
In short, my take is that where you stand really isn’t very clear from the run of your posts. So while it’s still wrong for others to label you as a Bush-booster, I don’t find it surprising that some are doing so.
I never trusted Bush. Four years ago, I would have supported Bradley but didn’t get the chance and ended up not supporting anyone. You can bet this year that I will vote and I want Bush out!
There’s a really nice article that was written by Leonard Read, founder of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), about this very topic The Lesser of Two Evils, and despite the fact that it was written in 1963, remains pertinent as ever, especially with the “choice” that we have in 2004.
I honestly wish that I could vote “None of the Above” in 2004. I really don’t care for either one of the candidates, and a 3rd party vote is sadly tokenism at best. If someone held a gun to my head and made me choose one, I may well choose Bush (mostly since I’m more frightened of the left than of the right), but Kerry would create a gridlock with a Republican Congress, and that’s not a bad thing either. If Badnarik could get enough votes to make people take notice of Libertarian positions, I’d vote for him in a second, but that probably won’t happen.
I think the biggest regret is that there wasn’t a Republican primary to get a better candidate.
