I’m a liberal. I don’t care what side you’re on . . . Give some reasons why I shouldn’t be so deathly afraid for my future and the future of this country.
Ah, the old “burden of proof” fallacy.
It doesn’t work that way. You need to prove your assertion, not demand that others disprove it. Let’s see what you’ve got.
I must agree with J.M.. Tell us what, in particular, makes you feel Armageddon is nigh, and perhaps the question can be better addressed.
We certainly face some serious problems but folks who lived through the great depression and WWII might tell you to get a little perspective. I voted for Bush but IMO the patriot act is a risk to civil liberties. If you saw Michael Moore’s examples of abuses under that act you may think we’re already living in a police state. I saw them as some examples of local authority overstepping their bounds with no truly dire consequences. If we lived in a true police state those people may never be seen again unless their mass graves were dug up.
Things may get worse before they get better but I’d prefer they not. I don’t see things getting better until we begin to stop seeing political choices as black and white as my end of the spectrum vs. yours. We need to meet in the middle on some and agree on principles that really matter.
It is the end of the world!
BOO!
Geez, they really shouldn’t schedule the election so close to Halloween. Way too tempting.
Like the estimatable J.M., I shall await an actually statement of why the Bush presidency is the Armageddon before attempting to debunk it.
Are you one of them Hollywood liberals? If you are, or if you just have a lot of money then you should be happy because instead of stealing your hard earned money for taxes, the government will borrow to fund its wars and half-assed education policies.
If you aren’t rich, then I hope you aren’t too fond of social programs (or have some connection with a local church), don’t have kids that want to learn anything, and aren’t every in need of an abortion.
But hey, if you’re rich, things should be great. If the poor folks get too grabby at least you’ll be able to keep them at bay with an assault rifle.
I figured Pride of the Peaches was concerned about the fact Jay-Z was going to continue the tour without that child molester R-Kelly. What’s this about an election?
Is it just me, or have 75% of everybody at the SDMB lost their freaking minds today?
Get ahold of yourselves, people. It’s an election. Yes, it’s important. Yes, it’s sad that your guy lost. But let’s put things in perspective. The President is just one cog in the machine, and things would have been just as bad (or, for you optimists, just as good) with Kerry running the show.
Bush won’t fark it all up, and Kerry wouldn’t have made it all better.
Now let’s all get back to the serious business of talking about Paris Hilton.
How’s this: Barack Obama soundly defeated Alan Keyes for U. S. Senator from Illinois.
No surprise, but if it had been the other way around, then you could really start worrying.
If Cambodia got past the Khmer Rouge, we can get past this. Hell, there’s no way Bush can fuck up our country as bad as Pol Pot fucked his up. He’s hardly even a Somoza Garcia.
Sure, for some folks (somewhere between 10000 and 250,00 is my wager) it’ll be the end of the world. But c’mon–how likely are you to be one of them?
Daniel
If Cambodia got past the Khmer Rouge, we can get past this. Hell, there’s no way Bush can fuck up our country as bad as Pol Pot fucked his up. He’s hardly even a Somoza Garcia.
Sure, for some folks (somewhere between 10000 and 250,000 is my wager) it’ll be the end of the world. But c’mon–how likely are you to be one of them?
Daniel
[stands up and applauds Chastain]
I’m old enough to remember when people thought Richard M. Nixon being re-elected in 1972 was the Apocalypse. I was a junior in high school, and Wendy and Susan and Lois and the rest of the Students For McGovern Committee were literally in tears on The Day After, stunned that the American electorate, all our parents and grandparents, had collectively gone insane and voted for That Man. They were firmly convinced that the Union would not, could not hold.
They were wrong, eh?
Ditto in 1980. Ronald Reagan, a Hollywood actor? As the freakin’ President?? We were doomed, I tell you, doomed…
Not.
Isn’t this a bad example? Of course, it wasn’t the Apocalypse, but wasn’t Watergate a very bad time in American history, and wasn’t Nixon a crook?
Pol Pot destroyed Cambodia. It wasn’t the end of the world, & Cambodia limped back, a generation later.
Hitler ravaged Europe. It wasn’t the end of the world, though it was a defining moment in history.
Rome fell. It wasn’t the end of the world, just of their order of the world.
In short, it might be the end of you, & the world may be scarred, civilizations may fall, entire species of life wiped out for a 6-month bump in stock valuation, but it’s not the literal end of the whole wide world.
Not that that should be any consolation.
No, no, it’s not the end of the world. It’s the end of the US and whoever we happen to be bombing until we run out of money, sure, but quite a lot of the world won’t fall into that category.
[note: I had not read Left Hand of Dorkness’s post when I posted]
Chastain, Chastain. Yes, Bush is one man. But his party consolidated control of the Senate. So all the other cogs in the machine? Going his farked-up way, also.
If you want to talk about Paris Hilton, something’s wrong with you, boy. No sense of perspective.
Well, all I know is, the terrorists have already won if we can’t talk about Paris Hilton RIGHT NOW HOT DAMMIT! :mad:
In all seriousness, however, let’s say Kerry won. Would that have magically changed the votes cast for all the Republicans who will now serve as Representatives for our government?
I’m not a Bush apologist. I am just a man. And I’m here to tell all of you that John Kerry was not the answer, regardless of how much you know Bush is not.
This, too, shall pass, grasshoppers. Don’t like it? Then it’s a shame that the majority of Americans didn’t feel the same way, or things would have changed. Besides, I hear Toronto’s nice this time of year.
End of the world? It’s not even the end of American liberalism. The left is organized and energized right now in a way it hasn’t been since the '70s. There are dozens of vibrant organizations and networks now that didn’t exist four years ago. We’ve also learned a clearer perspective on what the problems are:
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Roughly half the American people are seriously committed to traditional religious and moral values and will vote on that basis. They are entirely wrong, because those values are entirely wrong. But changing their misguided minds is a propaganda-and-education problem. We have to commit ourselves to the long haul on this front. Remember, we don’t have to convert them all, just enough to tip the balance.
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We need to fight for clean-election laws to stop Pub voter intimidation and to get paper trails on all the electronic machines. We need to seriously consider a national ID card, if that can prevent any doubts about who can vote on e-day.
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We need to change the system. We need a multiparty system and we need ballot fusion, instant runoff voting, and proportional representation. The Pubs have benefited from partisan gerrymandering, and PR makes that impossible.
We can do all this; we have the tools in place.
There is no mention of Kerry in the OP. I read it as referring to all of last night’s election results.
We do not need Instant Runoff Voting. It’s a beacon of false hope for anyone who wants a real multiparty system. There are at least two other voting systems that will do the same thing better.