Well, I already knew you weren’t voting for Bush, Airman. But I hope the message reaches those who don’t missed out on your decision.
**Shodan **(and xtisme, to a lesser degree), it seems to me that you’re doing what you characterize as a fault in others. Is it some form of sarcasm, or are you unable to see the parallel? Or do you just not care? I’m not trying to attack you, just seeking clarification.
You’ve always struck me as conservative, A. D.
Not stupid.
Or insane, for that matter.
In 2001, I agreed with him about his first tax cut.
In 2002, I agreed with him about the cut on taxes on dividends.
I still do.
But the thing is, at some point you realize that the man is impervious to logic. He continues down the same path because of his ideology, not because he actually thought through the consequences of his actions.
This is apparent in everything he does. He’s a minor leaguer who managed to make it to the majors, but he simply doesn’t have what it takes to stay there. If he did, he would have caught someone: out of the Big Four of Islamic Terrorism, he hasn’t caught a single one. He’s plunged us into the worst trade and fiscal deficits ever, and into a guerrilla war as demoralizing and unnecessary, if not as lethal, as Viet Nam. Not only does he show no comprehension that he has done so, from his words and actions it’s apparent that he wants to do more of the same.
Exactly what you would expect of an ideologue of extremely limited intelligence.
I expect to vehemently disagree with all kinds of things about Kerry. But I can honestly say, without reservation, that Bush is the worst President we’ve had since Nixon, who left office with a 20% approval rating. That Bush is doing better is simply a reflection of the fact that the economy is doing better, through no fault of Bush’s.
Bully for you. We were all SO very terribly concerned about you. Whoever you are.
Now we can all sleep.
If you’d climb off that cross, we could use the wood.
Knock yourself out. Or not. Whatever.
Like I said - anyone who is not an extremist of the Left is labeled an extremist of the Right. By extremists of the Left.
Regards,
Shodan
Well, I’m flattered you’ve read some of my posts in the past…you are one of the dozen or so posters that I really respect their debating and writing style, though we disagree on many points. Actually, though, I’m NOT a Republican. I broke with the party when Bush’s daddy was in his first term. My problem with the party was (and is) all the quasi-religious bullshit they were always spouting. During the Reagan era and before I was a solid Republican, I was even in the local chapter of College Republicans at my school. However I became increasingly frustrated and distant from the party until Bush I’s re-election bid. At that point I began looking at the 3rd parties, and voted for Perot…not because I thought he could win but because I found I couldn’t support either of the other two choices.
Well, I can’t speak for Shodan obviously, but its more frustration on my part. Sometimes it just bubbles over. I get attacked in my posts sometimes not because of the content (which is admittedly light compared to some of you on this board…I usually just give my opinion and rarely do I provide the massive cites that are common place here), but because I’m not in lock step with everyone else in bashing the administration.
Many of the Iraqi threads I’ve touched in are perfect examples. I’ve tried to make it clear that I completely disagree with the administration on this stupid war…although admittedly my REASONS for disagreement aren’t the same as most other anti-war people here. However when I see folks posting about how ‘bad’ it is, etc etc, I just can’t sit still or bump along with everyone else…and I get hammered as a war supporter. Never mind that its one of the primary reasons I’m NOT voting for Bush…I’m a Bush supporter and a war supporter by fiat.
Hell, I got my first pitting due to me just trying to say…why the hell is 1000 deaths important at all? Why that number and not, say, 666, or 922? And for pointing out my OBSERVATION that there ARE some folks out there that have been anticipating the 1000th death. I wasn’t asked to give a cite because the person blasting me wasn’t interested in a cite…I was just a Bushie warmonger…or something.
Economics is another subject that I get hammered on for the same reason. I’m a fiscal conservative and I believe strongly in fiscal conservatism. Somehow though in the threads I’ve participated in that translates somehow into me supporting Bush (and being asked to defend him :smack: )…even though I’ve made it clear multiple times that Bush is NOT a fiscal conservative and I have no desire to defend most of his strange policies.
‘Secret liberal-hater’ ehe? :rolleyes: I don’t even hate YOU, you putz, let alone all ‘liberals’. Hell, I don’t even hate rjung or reeder for that matter. I feel that the fiscal policies of many liberals is flawed (from my own reading of history)…but that doesn’t mean I hate them. I just DISAGREE with them, and even at that I don’t ALWAYS disagree with EVERYTHING they say or propose. Nor do I feel, as you’ve tried your best to paint me, that all Democrats are Liberals…or all Republicans are Conservatives. Its a ridiculous assertion by you with zero basis in fact.
As for pitting you, why would I bother. When I have the time I’ve enjoyed some of our exchanges…when we’ve been able to keep things civil at least. In addition, I don’t pit anyone. It has nothing to do with ‘having a pair’. My pair works fine, thanks. I just don’t feel the need to flame on someone about their views, no matter how out there I might think they are. If I can’t keep it civil in GD, of if things get too ridiculous I just walk away from the thread.
-XT
I know following the recommendation I’m about to make would mean taking your life into a whole new direction and awakening parts of your brain that have never been used, but maybe you should start, you know, thinking before posting.
What you’re saying here isn’t just bullshit, it’s silly bullshit and makes no sense. The only “acceptable” position is to vote for Kerry and hate Bush? “Acceptable” by whom? The board’s administration? If not, why are you complaining? Aren’t individual posters allowed to voice any opinions (with the exception of hate-speech) they may have?
You’re making it out as if there’s some leftist conspiracy on this board. This may be a result of your stupidity or your dishonesty, both of which you’ve demonstrated amply in the past, but either way, it makes you look like a fool. Just a piece of advice from the Extreme Left.
What the fuck does it take to get someone on the ballot with some brains? No, really, I mean that. If anyone wants to beat Bush, all they’ve gotta do is simply hammer one theme, over and over again: Where’s Osama, Stupid? That’s all they’ve gotta do, and they’ll be a serious contender for the White House. Yet, nobody is doing that. Not Kerry, not Nader, not whomever the Libertarians are fielding this year, nobody. Why the fuck not?
Timing.
The voting public has a short attention span.
“Acceptable” to those who pile onto anyone who refuses to curtsy before the sacred cow of Bush-hatred. Exactly as I said, if you could trouble yourself to read it.
Nowhere did I say “every liberal is a moron” or anything of the sort. I agreed with Airman (and Liberal and xtisme) about something we all observed - that any position except extreme Bush-hatred gets the kind of sniping and drive-bys and snarkiness characteristic of the Usual Suspects.
Mostly the latter.
Because, as I said, the extremists hereabouts mostly ignore nuance when it comes to people’s positions on Bush.
Same thing here. And the contrast between the smears thrown out by the far Left, and the delicate respect for shading they expect in return, gets pretty damn tiresome.
OK,if you push me, I will admit it comes mostly from morons like Demostylesand rjung. But they are far from rare on the SDMB. And even the “non-partisans” like Binarydrone have a tendency to treat Bush supporters as if they were mindless drones.
As I said, whatever.
Regards,
Shodan
Pumbaa, a dark horse, er, warthog candidate at first, showed real promise coming into the New Hampshire primary. In many ways, he was a dream candidate: charismatic, enthusiastic, intelligent and witty. He had been decorated for his bravery during the Scar Wars and had calmly weathered the controversy that arose after the (later discredited) hyena vets claimed that he cried like a baby and hid in a cave the whole time. And after 6 months on the Atkins Diet, he was looking mighty fine as well.
Then Fox News got ahold of the fact that as a young man he had co-habitated with a meerkat. Draw your own conclusions. Pumbaa denied it at first and claimed it was another ungrounded attack from the hyenas, but after pictures surfaced, he quietly withdrew from the race.
Pity.
You can chant all the stupid slogans you want, but it takes more than that to win a presidential election. Because if your candidate has a past with ANY color in it, he will be taken out and skewered by the media. A lot of potentially great leaders would never dream of running for office because they don’t want to be put under the scrutiny of a bloodthirsty media. They don’t want the fact that they actually inhaled once or maybe even twice to be paraded around to the world. They don’t want the affair they had back in 1985 to be made public. They don’t want their teenage children to be made the butt of Jay Leno’s jokes. They don’t want records of something they did THIRTY years ago to be analyzed and investigated ad nauseum.
Osama bin laden is still at large? Christ on a cracker, we haven’t even gotten past the VIETNAM WAR yet.
You have no right to speak on behalf of all Bush supporters. You are whining solely on behalf of yourself. The people on this message board know nothing about you, apart from information and impressions gained through your posts. Similarly, you know the same about the rest of us. If it seems to you that you’re being treated like a “mindless drone”, it may have something to do with the stuff you post.
For the record, I don’t think you’re a mindless drone. “Lying bigotted fool” is my choice of words, as I’ve told you before.
Ya, because, uh, we Bush-supporters love the endless one-liners and stupid drive-by posts that you and rjung crap out. :rolleyes:
Fucking idiot.
Well, Tuckerfan, I’ve been saying it anyway, repeatedly. This bullshit about taking it to the terrorists when they haven’t caught any of the really big fish, and when terrorist incidents are up dramatically worldwide, really shouldn’t be allowed to stand.
Osama, Omar, Zawahiri and Zarqawi are all still at large, and Kerry needs to say that over and over again. I honestly don’t know why he isn’t.
Airman Doors has it right, as I am another of those I’m-voting-for-Kerry-but-I-generally-dislike-liberal-politics people, and I get the same treatment. In a recent thread I was talking about Bush’s poll numbers going up, and even though I clearly stated in my 5th post to the thread that I was voting for Kerry(before that I had taken great pains to pose all of my questions in a neutral manner) for the rest of the thread I continued to be treated as if I was posting “Bush Ubër Alles” every other line by some of the usual gang of liberal idiots. I’ll tell you one thing. I have decided to vote for Kerry, but it’s a close thing, and anytime I get dog plied by the far left goon squad because I am not turning handsprings at the opportunity to vote for a screeching baboon like Kerry, my visceral reaction is to vote for Bush because I don’t want anything to do with a candidate whose most vocal supporters seem to have no ability to read what one has actually posted instead of their preconceived notion of what he is going to say(in that thread, one of the brain dead partisans even did the online equivelent of sticking his fingers in his ears and screaming LALALALALALALA rather than admitting he had made an obvious mistake when I pointed it out) and who treat anyone who isn’t 100% agreed with them that Bush is **EVIL ** like they are a drooling moron. I have to forcibly remind myself to ignore them and vote the way I intended to because that decision was based upon a long, hard thought process, not a jingoistic knee jerk.
PunditLisa: Thank you! (He said with tears of laughter rolling from his eyes.) That was a beautiful over-the-top defense of my hyperbole.
Timon, of course, has been posing for nude photos for dirty magazines like Smithsonian and Natural History, capitalizing on his 15 minutes of fame. 
Can you please cite a post of mine where I treat someone poorly because they are a Bush supporter? I ask because this is something that I am actively trying not to do, and assuming that you can find such a cite I would guess that I owe that person an apology.
Also, you really don’t quite have it right. The reason that I am in conflict with you has nothing to do with the fact that you happen to be on the other side of the political spectrum than I. There are many posters here that you could say that about that I respect and can get along with (i.e. the OP). Again, the problem that I have with you is that you seem to me to be blindly partisan and my take on that is that blind partisanship is one of the single greatest threats facing my beloved country. In short, I have to say that I see you as part of the problem. And, just to make sure that I am being clear, I specifically have problems with all partisanship. Be it from the Left or the Right.
All of that being said, it is true that I cannot fathom how anyone could support Bush. The thing is that I wish that I could have an honest debate or conversation about that (you know, to better understand other humans) without the partisan crap coming in to play.
You know, I’m beginning to think that Kerry doesn’t want the White House. His idiotic statement that the Assault Weapons Ban is an anti-terrorist measure being a prime example of sheer stupidity. Not because I give one whit about assault weapons and whether or not they should be banned, but because linking it to terrorists is as absurd as Bush’s statement that terrorists plan on poisoning perscription drugs from Canada. As 9/11 demonstrated, terrorists don’t need assault weapons to do major damage. Nor is someone who’s under the misguided notion that killing innocent women and children somehow gets them a slot in heaven with 72 virgins going to worry about piddly little things like laws prohibiting them from modifying a weapon so it violates the ban.
The man reminds me of Ed Muskie at this point. In Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, the good Dr Thompson relates how a Muskie campaign aide said, after Muskie got beaten like a gong in the early Dem primaries, that “we need to give the voters a reason to vote for our man.”
Bingo! Kind of the point of running a campaign in the first place, eh? Maybe we can get the Kerry folks to start functioning at this basic level?
They do say Kerry is good in the late innings, as he certainly showed in Iowa. We’ll see.