My point being that prayer in school is a minor issue in all practical ways. And what kind of pressure is going to be put on these kids to pray in school? Teachers can’t get kids to do homework, how the fuck are they going to get them to pray? And even if they did, who the hell cares? For the record, I was raised in a Jewish home and attended shul until I was 12 and am not pretty much an agnostic/Buddhist (alternating Thursdays) and have no desire to see prayer in school but I see it as a lesser of a number of evils and yet it keeps being pointed out as being a MAJOR bad thing about Bush. Come on! There are lots more reasons to mistrust the little fucker. The jist, which you seem to have missed is that the comparisons of Bush and Gore seems to be pretty lopsided depending on who they are coming from. Both candidates are pond scum for varying reasons.
Both of them have stances that I find intolerable. Nader’s worst traits are the things he really can’t do anything about anyhow so I choose him. You used the term “pipe dream”, and i agree about a lot of that, but thats the point. I’m not threatened by a pipe dream.
zen101
D.F.A.
As a side note: Anyone live in Oregon here? Notice how Ron Wyden if for Gore (obviously) and in his ads promoting him he states that “Gore is the only candidate for the environment”. Uh…huh? Not that he is “The only MAJOR candidate for the environment.” But he is the only one out there at all. Dunno’ why it bothers me but it does.
Another aside is people who think that anyone who supports Nader must be some kind of pinko liberal. Thats’ just bullshit. If you know what D.F.A. is then you might give pause to wonder why someone with that tag would support a Green party candidate.
According to the Hartford Courant (sorry, I don’t have a cite) even Nader doesn’t agree with the Green platform and isn’t a member of the Green party–this was simply a way for both to get more exposure this time around. Regarding the OP, even if Ralph did drop out of the race, my guess is that he would encourage his supporters to write in “none of the above,” which is what he encouraged people to do in '96.
For the record, I’m a Bush supporter who will be voting for Nader.
I see it as having to choose between The Man Without a Heart (Gore) and The Man Without a Brain (Bush). (Did you see the cartoon by Sack depicting them as The Tin Man and The Scarecrow? So true, so true.)
You have been seriously crabby lately, dude. You didn’t used to be so harsh…and this response to perfectly un-hostile requests and opinions is pretty fucking harsh.
Ummm, I don’t want to put words in The Ryan’s mouth, but I think his point when he said
was not that you should vote for Gore instead of Nader, but that people who say “A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush” are full of shit.
You see, he said “Even among people that would otherwise vote for Gore…”, which to me says he agrees with those who say that not everyone voting for Nader would otherwise vote Gore.
The main point I took from that was that it is idiotic to say that a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush, because if you were going to vote Gore and instead voted Bush, you are taking one from Gore and giving one to Bush. If you instead vote for Nader, or don’t vote at all and go felch Satan’s pet dead goat, you are only taking one vote from Gore, you aren’t giving one to Bush. So it is half a vote for Bush.
When you factor in all the people who would otherwise vote for someone else or not at all, a vote for Nader is more like 0.127[sup]*[/sup] votes for Bush.
Oh, and I think it’s funny that people consider switching from Nader to Harry Browne. It’s your right, but I have the right to find it amusing. That’s like saying “I was going to vote for gigantic tax increases and a total social welfare state, but I’m slightly changing my position to completely eliminate all social programs and remove the income tax entirely.” It’s like deciding a Mercedes is too expensive and scrounging a pair of crusty roller blades from a dumpster instead. If you are simply voting for ‘not Bush or Gore’, then it seems to me you are no different than those who think they must vote for Bush or Gore or they’ll be “throwing their vote away”.
I’m still undecided - I’ve always leaned libertarian, though I agree with Drain that the extreme flavor can’t work. It’s a shame the Reform party is so full of nutjobs. Ventura '04!![sup]**[/sup]
[sup]*[/sup]: 78% of all statistics are made up.
[sup]**[/sup]: Just kidding. Maybe.
