Did you vote for Bush? If so, why?

In My Humble Opinion
61

I’ve studied history all my life, both for personal enjoyment and as a predictor for political and social trends. Because of this interest I found no surprises in the events of 2001. When I listened to President Bush’s reasons for the Iraq war it was clear (to me) that he intended a regime change in the region.

I personally feel the war on terrorism will be a significant one. Most wars are won at a cost far greater than necessary because countries ignore the inevitable tide of hatred that drives them. In the case of Iran, their parliament just ended a political debate over nuclear research by chanting “death to America”. It is not unusual for this type of rhetoric from Iran but the level of it has increased substantially this year. Public demonization of an adversary by a government is a classic precursor to war.

Iran is in a region where hatred toward Western Culture is taught as a substitute for religious virtue. This is a weapon more powerful than any bomb and requires a new strategy to defeat it. Altering the political nature of the region represents the least violent method of achieving this goal.

Iraq represents the best chance of regime change in the region. President Bush took the initiative I think will result in the fewest deaths.

62

It has not been proven that Iraq didn’t have the weapons, it’s been proven that we didn’t KNOW if they had the weapons.

Further, some of us - such as myself - NEVER believed that we’d find weapons of mass destruction, nor did we care. We knew Iraq was bad, one reason why being in the post directly above yours.

I feel differently. I find the fact that Saddam’s forces have fired thousands of times upon our forces in the past decade to be more than enough to justify invading a country that DOESN’T have sanctions against them, nevermind one that does.

I’d delve into the rest of your post, but I’ve gotten a pretty strong indication that you haven’t read a single post in this whole thread.

63

[QUOTE=Magiver]

Altering the political nature of the region represents the least violent method of achieving this goal.

I’m not a history buff but I’ve been around a while.
The “Arab league” is the reason there is so much difficulty in the area. IIRC if one arab country gets in trouble they all come together to help. Its amazing that anyone thinks that hatred of the US is something new.
Attacking Irac without provication seems to me to be quite possibly a good reason for them to be pissed off.

64

WRONG
I read it all.

[Quote=SPOOF]

I feel differently. I find the fact that Saddam’s forces have fired thousands of times upon our forces in the past decade to be more than enough to justify invading a country that DOESN’T have sanctions against them, nevermind one that does.

Well then you scare me too.

65

It is becoming increasingly clear that the reason France, Russia, and Germany wanted no part of this war is because they were profiting greatly through the Oil for Food program, now becoming knows as the Oil for Food Scandal.

Illegal under whose standards? The UN itself passed 17 resolutions over 12 years demading that Iraq dismantle its WMD program. Saddam threw out the UN inspectors time and time again. UN resolution 1551 authorized any member nation to enforce the resolutions.

With all due respect, a failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine. Anyone who is relying on Social Security to see them through their golden years is a fool.

And if the UN says no. then what?

So if you have a hive of hornets under your front porch, you see fit to leave them there as long as they don’t sting anyone?

We already are. No one else seems to be interested or have the resources to root out terrorists where they live.

Ah, yes, the old blood for oil argument. Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m not paying 50 cents a gallon for gas around here. We’re not there for the oil. We’re there to make sure they don’t hurt us over here. Yes, we need oil. So does the rest of the world. Isn’t it in the world’s interest that we make the oil-producing nations safer and free?

66

And here we have one of the fundamental disconnects between the sides.

justwannano says that firing hundreds of times on our forces (who were operating with UN guidelines) is not a pretext for further attack. I truly wonder what is, then.

As long as there are disagreements this deep, there’s going to be some ruffled fur. We just have to learn to live with it, and learn to discuss without calling names. You’ll notice you’ve jumped on the requested track of this thread.

67

This reminds me that I need to ask what the argument is that Bush is fighting a war for oil I’m really asking. I’ve heard many lefties make this charge, but I’ve never heard a single bit of the logic or evidence behind it.

Is it so Haliburton could get government contracts? This would make Bush venal on a level I didn’t think any reasonable person would actually believe.

If it’s not that, then what is it? To get “our hands on the oil”? How are our hands on it? Please be specific.

Is it to open the fields to exploitation? Apparently they were being exploited all along, with the help of illegal actions on the parts of some European countries, if I have my facts straight.

Note my conversational tone. If anyone decides to just throw insults, well, yo mamma.

68

How many question marks do you need, anyway? :wink:

This is the second time someone’s explicitely ignored the tone set by the OP. There are like a kajillion threads where people can vent their spleen and type multiple question marks and rant and rave. The nice thing about this thread was that it wasn’t one of them. It’s been pretty civil and interesting. (Well, most of the time.) Speaking for myself, I hope it can stay that way.

69

[QUOTE=justwannano]

I’m not going to disagree with you on this. Just this week Saudi religious scholars urged Iraqi Muslims to fight both the government and the troops supporting it. The upcoming battle in Falluja may very well be a pivotal event. There is no way Iraq is going to be cheap or easy but I think it is the best prospect in the region for a democratic society. Although Saddam ruled with an iron fist he still had Nassar-like qualities of social structure so Iraqis already have a taste of secular leadership. Too bad he was a megalomaniac.

The funding of Islamic “training camps” around the world is a cost-effective way of spreading terrorism. It is difficult to fight using a contemporary army. IMO, the war is better fought on a social level. If a country has a democratic government then legitimate commerce will follow. People who are free from tyranny will naturally trade thoughts of war for a job. It’s human nature. Iran is already a hot-bed of government discontent among its youth. If Iraq and Afghanistan become models of non-violent prosperity it will put a squeeze on Iran, particularly since it shares a religion with Iraq.

70

In response to a statement made by myself about the iraq war being illegal:

ivylas wrote

Illegal under whose standards? The UN itself passed 17 resolutions over 12 years
demading that Iraq dismantle its WMD program. Saddam threw out the UN inspectors
time and time again. UN resolution 1551 authorized any member nation to enforce the
resolutions.

The reasonable person would have understood that the UN should handle the situation.
Not some cowboy.

Looking down from her Ivory tower ivylas writes:

With all due respect, a failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on
mine. Anyone who is relying on Social Security to see them through their golden years is
a fool.
Quote:Me
Its also amazing to hear anyone say that Kerry would ask permission from the UN
before attacking in defense of the US. What he said was he would get help before taking
on a war.

Quote ivylas
And if the UN says no. then what?

Well why wouldn?t they say no? They couldn?t find any weapons of mass destruction.

Quote ivylas
So if you have a hive of hornets under your front porch, you see fit to leave them there as
long as they don’t sting anyone?

I guess that is the difference between a reasonable man and someone that goes of half
cocked . Yes I would leave them there.The ones that invade my home get killed though.
Quote:
Its also funny that Kerrys? choice of another lawyer for vice president would be
scrutinized since 2 oilmen got us into a war with a mideastern oil producing country
which had no chance of whipping us.

Ah, yes, the old blood for oil argument. Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m not paying
50 cents a gallon for gas around here. We’re not there for the oil. We’re there to make
sure they don’t hurt us over here. Yes, we need oil. So does the rest of the world. Isn’t it in
the world’s interest that we make the oil-producing nations safer and free?
[Reply With Quote]
No. the comparison was just to show that W used someone that had the same
background as he did. No difference between W and Kerry.

Isn’t it in the world’s interest that we make the oil-producing nations safer and free?

So we force our way on the whole world? Isn?t that arrogance?

Quote Cardinal
justwannano says that firing hundreds of times on our forces (who were operating with
UN guidelines) is not a pretext for further attack. I truly wonder what is, then.

Sounds like the frustration of someone who has unwanted guests trying to force their
ideology upon them.

War is the last resort.
We had no proof of WMDs

71

I did not vote for Bush, but I did discuss in great detail why the people I work with did, who seemed to do so in about a 15:1 ratio, over Kerry voters. And I’m going to detail their reasons, trying to avoid editorial comment.

  • Some voted for the more “Christian” candidate. No other reason needed.

  • Some cited “gun control” as their number one reason. Kerry’s “hunting trip” actually was what galvanized a couple of people to vote Bush.

  • I know of one person that voted for him simply due to being from Texas.

  • A handful of people cited “better connection with the military”, or at least that they felt as bad as Iraq was, it could be worse.

*But the main, main over-riding reason people said they voted for him was the economy. My co-workers were unanimous in believing that the bad economy was due solely to 9/11 and the response to it, and that long-term wise Bush would be better. They were very interested in (that is, in favour of) privatization of Social Security, continuing the tax cuts, and reduction of government.

  • One thing which was neither a big positive or negative was the environment. Most of my co-workers want Kyoto-level reductions in CO2, and harsher emissions controls - mainly because, however, this means money for us. They also almost all wanted a much higher CAFE (“50 mpg” was touted a lot), even though most of them drive huge SUVs, Hummers, or Corvette-level sports cars. However, most of my co-workers are highly in favour of the NSR policies of Bush, as well as drilling in Alaska, gas drilling in parks, keeping the SPR, etc.

  • Another HUGE issue, however, was tort reform. Tort reform was one reason that anti-Kerry votes were made - people felt that Kerry would be much, much more likely to not only resist any and all tort reform, but would actively seek to increase the ability to file frivilous lawsuits. They felt that Bush would at least fight for tort reform (but no one expects success). In any event, I guess it was Edwards who cost Kerry on this point, rightly or wrongly.

  • Gays and gay marriage was never mentioned once. If I pushed the issue in private conversation, the answer from even the most conservative of them (the man with the signed poster of G. Gordon Liddy on his office wall) said “Eh, who cares, let them get married. None of my damn business.” However, before one gains hope, he did also object to having gays around children, as they were “more likely to be pedophiles”.

Anyhow. That’s what I was told people had as their reasons, out of a sample size of about 30 or so Bush voters, and about 2 Kerry voters (one Kerry voter voted for him on the basis of abortion, something no Bush voter mentioned, and the other because she “didn’t like Bush’s sneer”).

72

Does this pass as a clearminded reply? Do you really think you’re helping your cause? Do other Dems reading your thread think, “You really nailed 'em with that one!”

“Cowboy”. How, oh… smug, vague, and unconvincing.

Again, a brilliant riposte. More liberal spittle-foaming venom. (I do realize that people like Limbaugh do it too, btw.) There are people so mad about this election and the fact that their right to win it was violated that they can’t quite articulate themselves on the matter. I have to give it all the raised eyebrow when it goes beyond the disappointments and into the by-now stereotypical liberal fuming, especially when it shows a feeling of betrayal by the populace. You see, the people deserve the vote except for when they vote “stupid”.

I literally have no idea what that means. Seriously. In case you care, you have one more chance to make some real sense in a reasonable manner before I just start skipping your posts.

Well, sort of. You have to admit that if there’d been found a trailer of nerve gas, Bush would be hailed as some sort of hero psychic protector. Since it wasn’t (although that doesn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t there), it’s at best a big question to wrestle with and at worst a reason to throw the bum out.

73

Jinx:

I’m not going to respond to the actual arguments of your post. As others have said, there are threads for that in GD and in the Pit, and this isn’t it. But I have to respond to this:

“Am I asking the working class to…”??? Who the hell do you think I am, Donald Trump? I’m a 33-year-old computer programmer with a wife and five kids. My yearly salary has fewer than six digits in it. I am working class. And I do trust him.

I’ve lost a job due to lack of work four times during my career. The first was in October of 1999…not Bush. Second time was June of 2000. I was working for a company called Kozmo.com, some of you may have heard of us. We were working with visions of stock options and a soon-to-come IPO in our eyes, we expected to be the next Amazon, the next Yahoo. Then the IPO plans were pushed off, investors got cold feet, the tech market tanked, and I got laid off…all this was in the winter/spring of 2000. Not Bush. That was the start of the economy’s and the job market’s downward slide. Then the company I next hooked up with went belly-up in November 2000. Bush wasn’t even confirmed as the president-elect yet then.

Fourth time I was laid off was in April of 2003. That was under Bush. But then, just five months later, I was hired back by that same company, which had managed a nice turnaround, and I’m working for them still.

So hell, yes, this member of the working class trusts Bush. On the economy, at least, raw numbers are nothing if you don’t place them in the context of overall movement. And I think I had a pretty decent, working-class look at how that movement went, thank you.

74

Quote Cardinal
Again, a brilliant riposte. More liberal spittle-foaming venom. (I do realize that people like Limbaugh do it too, btw.) There are people so mad about this election and the fact that their right to win it was violated that they can’t quite articulate themselves on the matter. I have to give it all the raised eyebrow when it goes beyond the disappointments and into the by-now stereotypical liberal fuming, especially when it shows a feeling of betrayal by the populace. You see, the people deserve the vote except for when they vote “stupid”.

Quote:
I think you must be overly tired. This makes no sense at all.

Quote Cardinal
justwannano says that firing hundreds of times on our forces (who were operating with
UN guidelines) is not a pretext for further attack. I truly wonder what is, then.

Sounds like the frustration of someone who has unwanted guests trying to force their ideology upon them.

I literally have no idea what that means. Seriously. In case you care, you have one more chance to make some real sense in a reasonable manner before I just start skipping your posts.

So you can’t understand why a occupied country could be frustrated ???
Hello

Your arguements are nonsence. You’d better go to bed now.

75

I’m going to try to skip the cheap route of picking on your spelling. Ahem:

“More liberal spittle-foaming venom. (I do realize that people like Limbaugh do it too, btw.)”

There are replies that are merely loud and frustrated and angry venting, with little subtance. This is one. There are Republicans who do it too, eg Rush Limbaugh.

“There are people so mad about this election and the fact that their right to win it was violated that they can’t quite articulate themselves on the matter.”

Some people are so angry about the election that they seem to think that they had a civil right to win it. It seems also to be affecting their articulation of their points as to why the election outcome was a bad thing.

“I have to give it all the raised eyebrow when it goes beyond the disappointments and into the by-now stereotypical liberal fuming, especially when it shows a feeling of betrayal by the populace. You see, the people deserve the vote except for when they vote “stupid”.”

It makes me stare at people a little weirdly when they go beyond the ranting and start implying that the “people” have let them down, or worse, that the populace as a majority must somehow have been eating lead paint chips or breathing mercury fumes for the past year.

They actually start me wondering for a moment if they truly believe in democracy, because their betrayed hurt reaches a level at which I expect them to go the next step and ask that only a select few “smart” and “informed” and “reasonable” people get to vote. They of course are automatically in that group. People who disagree with them evidently aren’t.

In case you were wondering, it’s this attitude that draws the “elitist” charge for some Democrats. The harcore “Tom Hayden” liberal kind are all for the common man until the “stupid” common man decides he doesn’t want to vote for them. Then they’re ready to beat him over the head and declare he’s too stupid to know what’s good for him. This then often gets turned into an argument for more government involvement in people’s lives, for which that group hardly needs encouragement.

Iraq wasn’t occupied during the era of the no-fly zone. It was prohibited from flying war planes, yes. And somehow, as I tell my students, my sympathy gland is not secreting for Iraq in this matter, seeing as how it brought it on itself (or Saddam brought it on, take your pick).

At this point, I’ll have to assume that your snarkiness is simply a defense mechanism to help avoid reasonable statements and cogent arguments.

This thread is going to get kicked over to to GD in a moment, just watch, and it won’t be my fault. And even if it doesn’t, your attitude pointedly violates the spirit the OP was shooting for. Please go to GD and scream. That’s why I don’t read GD. It’s like “Crossfire”, but without all the warmth and comraderie. Can you get a volume control for a message board?

76

Quote Cardinal

I’m going to try to skip the cheap route of picking on your spelling. Ahem

At this point, I’ll have to assume that your snarkiness is simply a defense mechanism to help avoid reasonable statements and cogent arguments.

. And somehow, as I tell my students, my sympathy gland is not secreting for Iraq in this matter, seeing as how it brought it on itself (or Saddam brought it on,

Well ain’t you something.
A teacher are you?
I looked in 2 home dictionarys and Merriam Websters on line and you know what I found? Snarkiness isn’t in the dictionary.

LOL you should have given up and gone to bed .

77

justwannano, I’ve had to read hijacks about how evil Bush was, how evil Republicans are, and how evil conservatives and “neo cons” are for 4+ years now with pretty much zero control exercised to prevent marginalization of 50% or so of the electorate - including such ignorant tactics as plays on words like a 5-year old would make (“repugnicans”) and personal appearance slurs which more belong in the mouth of a supremacist (“monkeyboy”, “chimp in chief”, etc). In nearly every thread that even remotely has a political subject to it. In nearly every forum on this board.

The OP of this thread said, in plain English:

I didn’t vote for Bush. Did not support Bush. Did not like Bush. And yet, somehow, I was able to present, in the spirit and letter asked by the OP and in the spirit of the forum “IMHO”, the poll-like responses needed by the OP.

Either take your ranting and/or fight to the Pit, start a new thread espousing your viewpoints and position statement in the appropriate forum, or shut up.

78

I’m afraid I may have encourage justwannano by responding. Mr. Biggles asked a clarifying question and I was happy to reply. It does not seem that justwannano is interested in learning how our Bush-voting minds work.

In other words, ditto Una.

79

This, thanks to ivylass, Cardinal, and many others, is the best thread currently running on the board. I voted for Kerry, and I would ask, nay beg, justwanno to bug off. This is a very rare opportunity to hear everyone’s reasoning for their political choices without vitriol, I realy want to keep it that way.

80

Well, if I may intrude upon Una’s poll:

I couldn’t care less what his religion is.

I had a big :rolleyes: at his hunting trip, but it didn’t change my mind.

Now, that’s an informed voter! :smack:

I’m with you on the first part of that one. I trust Bush to respect the military better than Kerry would.

The economy was not an issue for me, personally, but I am very interested in the last points of your poll.

Also, not on my radar as far as issues go…

I was a bit irritated that Edwards won cases in NC with what may have been shaky science, but that didn’t factor in too greatly in my decision.

I disagree with Bush on this one. Why should the gov’t get in the way of how two consenting adults want to love?

For me, the overriding issue was the War on Terror. I trust Bush to keep America safe, with or without the UN approval.