Do Democrats Care About Terrorism Any More?

Great Debates
61

Since terrorist attacks on US soil are far and few, it is natural that the public start to focus on more pressing issues, namely, their jobs and health care. It is the job of the president to constantly remind them of the security issues, continue to get the adequate financial and moral support and implement relevant policies.

Sadly, Bush has messed it up with mixing up Saddam and terrorism and overusing the terrorism word almost bordering on scaremongering. May be the people are a bit immune and jaded to hearing of terrorist threats, levels and weapons of mass destruction.

As to your OP, I think it is difficult to say which issue is more important: one’s job and living standards OR one’s security. Clearly, both are equally important and interlinked. That said, I do believe that the Govt can do more for providing security than jobs.

62

Opening a debate based on a poorly-written article concerning a poorly-designed survey, and appearing in an organ of the right, is kind of sad. The National Review is not interested in publishing anything except that which serves to get Bush and company re-elected. But since I’m here, I may as well go on.

A correctly-designed survey would have compared Republican vs. Democrat responses. It would have been a national survey. It would have not been solely based on exit polls, and would have attempted a statistically valid random sample. It would have presented hard numbers for someplace other than South Carolina. It would have recognized that the war in Iraq is tied in with terrorism and national security; specifically, with the Bush administration’s bungling of all three issues. It would have taken into account that perhaps, just perhaps, the electorate realizes that any president will have to grapple with terrorism and national security, so that the question is really moot. But correctly-designed surveys are not the NR’s stock in trade; partisan politics is.

I am a Democrat, and I am deeply concerned with the issues of national security, terrorism, and civil liberties (the latter being conspicuously absent from the NR poll). I believe that Bush is a terrible president, but I would vote for him if I thought his opponent was going to ignore national security. But guess what: it isn’t going to happen. I also tend to assume that any of the Democratic contenders would be less likely than Bush to spend billions on red herrings, and be more likely to get to the issue at hand.

63

That would be an incorrect interpretation of what I said. The difference is one of kind, not of degree. If you can find a quote in the OP deliberately designed to mislead the reader about who the quote is from, then I will agree with you that it is a difference in degree only. If you can’t, you should retract your statement.

64

John, the very specific thing that was the particular last straw for the particular last holdout moderator for **december ** was what you said it was, yes, and that isn’t the case here. But that was just one way of many to do what is described with a banned word here, and not nearly the first way he’d used or the first time he’d done one of those things, either. The accumulated weight of all of them is really what did it for him, not just that one final post, remember? Without the mods’ unanimous-verdict rule, he wouldn’t have had a chance to get to that point.

Mods, I’ve tried to stay on the safe line of the rule here - if I’ve failed, my apologies in advance. I think the situation here is clear anyway.

65

Elvis:

If you’d like to open a Pit thread and discuss this further, I’ll be happy to elaborate. Let’s not hijack this thread any further.

66

Aw, shucks! Might as well give it up, guys, ol’ Shodan’s onto us!

What hope is there? The world entire joins hands to sing glad hymns of praise to the US. The Shining One bestrides the world like a colossus, a worthy successor to St. Ronnie of Hollywood, while the evildoers shrink from the light that streams from his stern visage. How can we hope to compete with a man whose words soar on the wings of imagination, unhindered by facts? His is the truth that surpasseth all understanding, his, the faith-based foreign policy, guided by a clairovoyant certainty, he knows what evil-based program activities lurk in the hearts of our enemies. Note well how North Korea has flung itself prostate before his might, begging his mercy! They have beheld the mighty Flight Suit, with its heavily burdened package of virile, manly leadership! Truly, our enemies are on the run, over 75% destroyed! We have this straight from the horses, ah, mouth.

We cannot fool him, he is well aware that those so-called “polls” that purport the ridiculous notion that the Shining One is not universally loved are but a feverish concoction of liberal media, that the next election will be merely a reflection of the crushing landslide of the last, when he came within a whisker of an actual majority of the voters!

Nope, he’s on to us, there’s nothing left but sackcloth and ashes. Alas!

67

ElvisL1ves, I am not going to rehash the december banning here.

However, if you are implying that Sam Stone’s post was trolling in any form, you are merely wrong. For you to imply that it was, is - well, SOP for this board and some of its members.

december and Sam have some things in common - they both tend to be conservative, they both persist in doing so without responding to baiting by the leftists here, and they both start OPs that raise questions that make the lefties here uncomfortable. But basically, that’s it.

Regards,
Shodan

68

Uh, as I was the one who brought up the december reference, and since the OP specifically objected to it, I’ll just say one thing more, then shut up about it.

I must say I’m a bit surprised at how personally the OP, given his long familiarity with this forum, has taken all this, and I apologize profusely for offending him. I will not, however, retract the december comparison, in the context of his conduct in this thread. Anyway, the objection I made was directed only to the OP’s debating tactics in this particular thread, not to his personal political choices. If he wishes to believe otherwise, I can’t stop him, but such a belief would be wrong.

69

One more time: Neither the poll quoted by the OP, or the poll linked to by John Mace, ask which issue is most important.
Both polls ask people which issue was most important in determining which candidate they voted for.

If a meteor was on a collision course with Earth, that would be the most important issue, but if none of the candidates are Superman it could still be placed dead last on a list of issues important in determining one’s vote.
I submit that none of the current candidates are Super-Anti-Terrorist-Man, and therefore it is unsurprising that terrorism is placed low on the list of issues important in determining one’s vote.
NO conclusions can be drawn from such a question about what issues people find important. There is no “it’s not perfect, but we can draw some conclusions”.

Conluding anything from such a question about what issues people find important is absolutely, 100% unsupported.

70

Sam, my apologies, then. Since I have no real reason to believe you’re lying about your interaction with the Canadian social safety net, I’m sorry I implied that you were sucking from the public teat with the same mouth with which you were running it down.

Hell, I’ve been wrong before, I’ll be wrong again. Ain’t no big thang… :smiley:

71

Sam,

Instead of delving into the question of who you were accusing of what, or which end of the political spectrum is shortsighted, I think I will speak to the issue of how important terrorism is, in my opinion.

Not very.

I wish it were less, but unless the media and the people independently decide to stop publishing and reading the political ambitions and opinions of criminals, terrorism will not decrease. People don’t blow themselves up to get a page nine reference on the crimes committed list. They do it to cause changes in the way people, mostly American and European people act. The government can do nothing about it. Cops and soldiers can’t fight terrorism. Terrorists are just ordinary people who have learned by example that the powers of governments are most effectively attacked by individuals, acting alone.

Since George II began the Great Crusade Against the Axis of Evil, we have managed to convince a fair portion of the people of the middle east that our soldiers randomly fire into crowds, and call in air strikes on women and children. It doesn’t even matter that it isn’t true. What really happens is of no importance. We are an occupying army, with an indigenous population that already thought we were interested only in their destruction. No one remembers Saddam. They remember the name of every cruiser that fired missiles or guns at Muslim targets, though. The war on terrorism has become terrorism, whether we wish it to be, or not. We have done nothing to make ourselves safer.

But the facts of real life are that terrorists represent a small danger to Americans. Drunk drivers, Doctors, The Electric Company, the mining and forestry industries, each and all represent far greater threats to your life, health and your children’s futures. Bioterrorism? Please! Your chances of being killed by random objects falling out of the sky (about five a year, every year, on the average) are greater than dying from bioterrorism.

The money is trivial, George II thinks that freedom is too dangerous for the common man to wield. The Patriot Act, the Homland Security Agency, the loss of habeas corpus and the right to trial are certainly more than I wish to pay for the supposed protection against terrorism. This is especially true when I see the actual “security measures” implemented. I could blow up anything I felt like, in the DC area. I could go farther, but why bother? The Metro is so convenient.

Now the Great Son of George I tells me that it was right to start a war, even though all the reasons he gave me at the time were all wrong. I am very happy that there is no George III.

Tris

“For there has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefited.” ~ Sun-tzu ~

72

Fox News recently conducted its own poll which, while primarily focused on the presidential campaign, did address this particular issue.

From here.

Briefly, (about halfway down the page)

Clearly, it’s not just Democrats who feel that terrorism is a low priority today. What that says about our country right now I leave to you to decide. But to claim only Dems “do not care about terrorism” is spurious, to say the least.

(As an aside, it’s strange that the poll shows Bush ahead of Kerry by four points, while other polls show him behind by approx. the same numbers. Makes one think that this election may be eerily similar to the last one…)

73

Anybody know anything about Faux new’s methodology? Do they poll Fox News listeners who have expressed a willingness and/or an interest in being polled?

Reason I ask is, most of these numbers are not surprising in the general sense. Which is to say, if I were to be advised that the poll was taken of Fox fans, I would definitely prick up my ears. Clearly, Fox favors a rightish frame of reference, one would expect its fan base to do as well. Now, if amongst that fan base Kerry only trails GeeDubya by four points…

Oh, my! That would have Karl Rove sleeping like a baby: waking up every two hours, pooping his pants and crying himself back to sleep…

74

May I remind everyone that there is no “War On Terror”. It is a misnomer deliberately designed (IMO) to allow the current administration to restrict civil rights as greatly as one would if there were an actual war.

It is a lot like the “War on Some Drugs”. The jack-asses think if they call it a War they can justify no-knock warrents, confiscating property of people never even convicted of a crime (RICO) and disproportionally long sentances for drug offenders who committed small, non-violent offenses.

Sadly, there are may DumbFucks out there who swallow this crap.

75

(My correction to your spelling:))

I think the quote explains the methodology pretty well.

76

So far as “national security” is concerned, I’d say that “Dems” consider this entire process to be autocratic regardless of who’s in power between reps and dems. I can’t imagine a person on earth who thinks that things would have tuirned out much differently if Gore was president, excepting speeches with more cohernence.

Supposedly, Gore would have been interested in a presidency that catered lip service to other projects of society, even if he never was reported to sign anything differently than what we are told that Bush signs.

77

And yet, oddly enough, you only seem to object when the attack is made on one side of the spectrum.

Regards,
Shodan

78

If you have a point to make, make it, in your own words. If not, you know where to go.