Bush’s runaway spending and illegal alien position pretty much floored me. Very disappointed but then Hey! Whatta ya expect from a pol?
We can do better than Bush as the reigning Republican for sure but that’s not going to happen. He’s still an arful lot better than allowing Mr. Slimey, John Kerry, in the White House. Eight years of Bill & Hilary was enough to gag generations of maggots.
Here’s an idea for the Dems. MOVE TO ANOTHER COUNTRY!! Let the 'pubs and the 'tarians sort it out.
I’m a registered Republican, and I voted for Bush. I certainly thought he was a much better choice than Gore. But I’m surely not happy with Bush. This crap about a Constitutional ammendment against gay marriage is either:
(a) Political pandering to the far right, which I find abhorrent; the President of my country ought, ideally, to be a man of convicions. Or
(b) Means that he is seriously disturbed by the idea of same sex marriage. This is equally abhorrent. While I myself am fairly conservative, religiously speaking, all this talk of same-sex marriage threatening the “sanctity of marriage” gets a great big WTF from me! I mean, whose marriage is going to be threatened if my sister marries the woman she’s lived with for 20 years? Not mine, that’s for sure! I mean, hey buddy, if your marriage is so weak that some same-sex marriages will threaten it, then that’s your problem!
I also don’t care for his statements against pornography. It’s none of his freakin’ business what’s in my night-stand drawer as long as nothing in there is breaking the law!
Also, I’d like to say that I’m pleasantly amazed at how civilized this thread has remained thus far.
Resgistered Republican. Voted straight Republican since Bill Clinton’s first term.
I hate him. Iraq was a stupid ego trip. The Patriot Act is an assault on civil liberties. The Marriage Ammendment actually leaves me speechless. Besides being mean, it’s just dumb. But the main reason that I and others vote and probably will vote again for Bush or any Republican is that they are less worse than Democrat alternative.
This was then case when I was 25 and you were 15… Clinton was president then. Now that you know this, plan ahead and don’t count on SS when you retire. After you see what the tax increases that the Dems will pass hould they get in the office do to your paycheck, maybe you’ll change your mind about the Republicans.
I did, and now my world is vastly different at 35 then it was a short ten years ago.
Please expound. What do you reasonably expect that Kerry would do that would be worse, and how?
JXJohns, who observed
, have you also considered what the debt service and inflation caused by the record government borrowing the Republicans have already passed will do to your paycheck?
John Corrado, where to start?
Your taxes would go up under Kerry, you say? See the previous answer, considering that you do have responsibilities to more people than yourself. Re the alleged inevitability of not only deficits but deficit *increases * as you suggest, have you already forgotten the increasing *surpluses * we had just 3 years ago? Why do you think it’s now not only unreasonable to get those back, but impossible, and that it must only get worse?
North Korea didn’t have the bomb or serious bomb “program related activities” until Bush decided they weren’t worth talking to anymore. Say what you will about bribery and coaxing; it was, in fact, working at containing the threat to us and to South Korea, though the NK people were and still are suffering. Re the spread of violence in the Balkans, what are you complaining about? Those efforts, too, worked as well as anything can. Your contempt for successful policies is puzzling.
One defintie one is that Kerry is vehemently anti-gun while Bush is mildly anti-gun. Kerry like the last Democrat would probably Executive Order more anti-gun measures. Bush probably won’t now or in a next term.
I agree completely. this issue more than any other will keep me from voting Kerry, or most other democrats for some time I am sure. As far as deficit spending goes, it’s nothing new. CLinton did it, Bush did it and if Kerry is elected, he will do it as well.
Kerry has promised to “roll-back” the tax cuts for the “rich”. Sorry folks but that “rich” is now me. This is what I aluded to regarding my life now as compared to ten years ago. Apparently, I am now affluent because my wife and I bring in a few bucks. I appreciate the tax relief that Bush got for me. I will show my appreciation by my vote in November.
That being said, the runaway spending, war related or otherwise has got to stop. A democrat controlled Senate or house wouldn’t be such a bad thing. AS far as I am concerned, gridlock is good.
I am making more money now, than I was three years ago. Less of it is going to taxes, and inflation is not a concern of anyone at this point unless you are reading something that I have missed.
Runaway spending is something that Repiublicans have always blamed on the Democrats. After Bush wins in November, I expect some major changes.
Ya. They just pulled a bomb program out of their asses within a few months of GW taking office. :rolleyes:
The Clinton bribes failed. All that time, they were secretly working on a weapons program. Granted, the bribes did work for Clinton, since being a good Democrat, he didn’t have to deal with the problem, just put a happy spin to it and pass the buck.
This is exactly where I am. The goodwill engendered by Bush’s performance in the post-9/11 days and the support I had right through the summer of '03 are gone thanks to the two-facedness of the pandering to the base with FMA and the betrayal of same with the cash mad spending that’s been going on. It is frightening that Rove & Co. think that they can keep true conservatives around with this obnoxious discrimination ploy when both it and the deficit-running turn conservative principles entirely upon their heads.
Right now, my intention is to vote for the Libertarian party candidate, whoever he may be. Bush isn’t going to win New York no matter who I vote for, so I won’t be doing any part to elect Kerry, and at least then I won’t have to feel that my vote was given to someone who has squandered my trust and abused the hopes of a nation that needed to be given reasons to support him.
And so was Saddam :rolleyes: right back at ya. But nothing much was really happening until Bush decided to just blow 'em off, did it? Containment was working well, if unnervingly, in both places. Whatever Bush thinks he is doing is not.
Are you serious? You’d really rather spend lives than dollars on the problem?
JXJohns, thanks for clarifying that you really aren’t concerned about anyone but yourself. Not all of us who are considered “rich” by most, and got our part of that payout of the money being seized from our children, share that screw-em-all mindset, though.
You asked about inflation - that’s more of a long-term issue, but one that is becoming decreasingly possible to avoid with every year of the Republican deficits that you mysteriously claim will reverse after the election. The fewer options a government has to handle its debt, the more likely it is to essentially print more money to pay it. But the other options are running out fast, and the international money markets that are rapidly reducing the dollar to junk status show it already.
The Gaspod You are being whooshed, though not in the way you mean it. Leper It is courageous, because although the public is against gay marriage, it is split on an amendment. It is not the safe thing to do to wade into a debate with this level of passion and vitriol on the other side, especially with the level of Whig histiography amoung the general public. A less courageous politician would try to avoid the subject during an election year or try to have it both ways as Kerry is doing. Bambi I don’t know where you live but the news here says that most of Al-Queda’s leadership is dead or in jail and most of the rest is on the run. If you call OBL hiding out in caves one step ahead of the US army “operating with impunity” than you have a different definition of that than I do.
You will be paying for Medicare and Social Security the rest of your life. That is one of the prices you pay for being an american and allowing old people to vote. I am a little older than you but when I was your age the president -WJC- was saying that balancing the budget too soon would wreck the economy. I can not remember a time in my life where there was not hand wringing over the deficit and yet I can not think of one negative consequence of the deficit I have seen in my lifetime. Also there have been Chicken Littles about the environment my entire life and yet the air and water keep getting cleaner and cleaner. One of the benefits of being a little older is that after a while hysterical warnings that don’t come true lose their ability to frighten you.
As for gay marriage, you didn’t expect us to sit by while a handful of judges and activist mayors decide to redefine the basic institution of society did you? If your concern is really states rights, remember that 38 of the state legislators will have to pass the amendment for it to be ratified which is 38 more than will get a chance to vote for or against it if the courts impose gay marriage on the country.
I think it bears mentioning here that Libya’s recent abandoning of its weapons and terrorist problems came about after nearly a year’s worth of what you call “Clintonian intense negotiations” on the part of the Bush and Bliar administrations. I’m not sure how well dialogue would have ended up working with North Korea, but if Bush had followed through on the power plant deals worked out between Pyongyang and the Clinton administration, there’s a chance they wouldn’t have done this. You never know what happens when you keep your word, but it’s easy to figure what happens when you don’t. And all told, I’d say the Balkans worked out far better than they would have if we’d ignored them.
Never underestimate the power of Clintonian intense negotiations! Revive diplomacy now!
To address both of these points (one of which I find considerably more intelligent than the other):
(1) I vaguely recall hearing that even during Clinton’s time we weren’t following through on all aspects of the deal because of Republicans in Congress refusing to appropriate the money. Alas, I can’t find any cite on this at the moment, and never did closely check the veracity of this claim…But, maybe someone who knows more of the details can dig it up and see if it is true or not.
(2) We actually don’t know how much of a bomb program the North Koreans have and, particularly, if they have a bomb at all. All we know is that they claim to, a claim that may or may not be true. Some of the details of their claim seem a bit hard to believe and there are good reasons to believe they might claim this whether true or not, particularly in light of the current Administration’s propensity to attack nations who have not yet acquired a bomb but who we believe may in the future. In this regard, here and here is some information from physicist Robert Park on the subject:
That evil Clinton! And, he did the same passing the buck thing with the federal budget…Passing on an unsustainable budget surplus to Bush! Fortunately, Bush appears to have been up to the task of dealing with it and has now turned it into a nice healthy long-term structural deficit!
I was a Republican until two weeks ago. Then I switched, because belonging to a party controlled by GW Bush makes me sick. I never voted for a Democratic presidential candidate before Al Gore. I did vote for Richard Nixon, and Nixon was a far, far better president than Bush.
I am quite astonished by some of what I am reading here. It is like people have selective memory. I know Republicans have been tarring Democrats with being deficit spenders for decades, but doesn’t anyone remember the surplus? Is having a 500 billion dollar deficit, with trillions to come, really worth it because the NRA has you convinced that the Democrats will steal your guns? (Kerry hunts, and owns guns, by the way.)
Another thing I can’t understand - why a tax increase to fund the war on terrorism and the Iraqi occupation is so awful. I suppose people are for it, but not to the extent of actually paying for it.
When I started this thread, it was to ask for opinions, not get into a debate. God knows there are enough gay marriage threads going on right now, but I just can’t let this rest.
I guess your statement can be read in two ways, maybe more:
A family is the smallest group, out of which larger groups are formed, to make up ‘the society’ (whatever that is).
A family is, historically, historically, the foundation, from which society came.
I just checked the US census bureau, and found out that around a quarter of American houshold comprise of one person. Married couple with 1-15 kids are about 30% of all households, and that leaves us with 45% who are either married, without kids, or single parents, or :eek: gay. All in all, the classic nuclear family is (as of 1998, the latest figures I could find) in a minority comprising only 30% of the population. The numbers get a little skewed, as the statistics I check into don’t go into age groups and middle aged and retired people must be a significant part of the 70% who are not married with kids at home.Link.
As for the family being the foundation for society, from a historic point of view, in reality, it was more of a comune. The nuclear family with a dad who goes to work and a stay at home mom who raises the kids is a fairly recent invention, in many ways confined to the years 1945-1970 (I’m being shallow enough to think that you don’t picture a mom at work and dad at home).
Oppose gay marriage all you want, but you need to find sharper arguments to convince me. Not that I think you’ll try, though.
In other news, according to a national survey 61% of the Swedish population support gay marriage rights. According to a EU survey, 70% of the population support it.
I am a Libertarian that most likely would have voted for Bush if I was of age in the 2000 election.
Given his complete failures at fiscal responsibility, eroding civil rights, proposing a stupid and trivial constitutional amendment, and just generally being an ass, I will not be voting for him.
I will most likely look to elect whoever the Democratic nominee is because of te current House and Senate Republican majorities. I figure that whoever the president is can be some pinko-commie loser all they want, but if their nametag says “Democrat”, they won’t be getting any major public welfare spending programs like the Medicare Prescription Bill past congress.
Kerry’s own words in the campaign are clearly the most anti-gun. I assume that his voting record is as well. He most likely will use Executive Orders, as Clinton did, to enact anti-gun measures so he’ll never get my vote. It makes him more of an ass than Bush in this Grand Ole Party member’s eyes and that’s pretty low.
