I Told You So

[MaxTheVool]

@Bricker

They should have woken you up, and made you understand - finally - that REASONABLE PEOPLE MAY DIFFER.

When have I ever said otherwise? When has any SDMB liberal ever said otherwise? Who, precisely, is this thread directed at?

You never heard me bad-mouth Senator Kerry. I always called it like it was: he was a fine and honorable man, a war hero, and if elected would undoubtedly do a fine job. I simply didn’t think he was the best man for the job. But I didn’t demonize him.

And that has been noted and respected, at least by me. (Since I’m castigating you for speaking to liberals as a group, it would be hypocritical of me to claim to speak for all liberals)

You haven’t learned, have you, lefties? No, you’re still singing the same refrain,

What refrain? That I believe Bush is a terrible president? Well, of course I’m still singing it. Did you expect me to say “well, all of those strong and passionately felt objections to him that I had have vanished now that 51% of the population has voted for him”?

You’re still blaming everyone else for your failure to reach the American public.

I have no idea what, precisely, this means. I am very very certain that the democratic position in this election was the Better one, with a capital B, although I don’t want to demonize those who disagree. That said, we did not win this election, and this being a democracy, our view did not prevail. Why didn’t we win? A combination of factors, many of which were errors in campaign strategy on our side. Who would possibly deny that?

I also claim that the Republicans ran an incredibly dirty campaign, but I’m stating that as a matter of (claimed) historical fact, not as some kind of whining-to-mommy-oh-the-mean-Republicans-cheated.

Get it through your heads that your opinions may be honestly held, and carefully reasoned, but it doens’t make them (a) unalterably correct, or (b) universally held.

Well, duh!

The side of the aisle that’s supposed to celebrate tolerance and diversity has been remarkably INtolerant of any opinions that do not follow the Sacred Leftist Screed.

Here’s where you lose me. The side of the aisle that’s supposed to be celebrating individuality (your side) contains a number of people, including, at least in this instance, you (and, far more often, Shodan), who are lumping all liberals together. There is no Sacred Leftist Screed. Plenty of liberals are actual thinking human beings, not the intolerant puppets from Team America. I expect better from you.
As for intolerance, I will make the following statement, which I’ve made before and will make again: Being opposed to gay marriage (and I’m not talking here about necessarily supporting or opposing any particular law or proposition… I’m talking about someone who honestly believes, law and government aside, that gay people should not have the right to get married) is a position which is wrong, evil and bigoted. That doesn’t mean that anyone who holds that position is utterly bereft or redeeming qualities, intelligence, humanity, etc. But that position is just WRONG.

[Ghanima]

You were right, we were wrong.
You’re smart, we’re dumb.
You’re the greatest, we’re the worst.
You’re very handsome, we are not attractive.

Happy now?

[Mtgman]

@Bricker

Listen: the SDMB is not at all like the real world. Here you have lots of lefties, telling each other what you want to hear. Out in the real world you have real voters. They’re not swayed by the knowledge that all progressive, enlightened people hate Bush and all he stands for. They should have woken you up, and made you understand - finally - that REASONABLE PEOPLE MAY DIFFER.

And people may be unreasonable. And people may be rationally ignorant. And people may be irrationally ignorant. And people may be decieved. And people may be lots of things. Some respectable, some despicable. Some people, possibly large numbers of people, fit into these alternate categories. Enough to swing an election almost certainly, although those wishing to confine all these people to one party or another are almost certainly making foolish assertions.

@Bricker

You haven’t learned, have you, lefties? No, you’re still singing the same refrain, tinged now with desperation because it seems that enough Americans didn’t believe you to give Mr. Bush the largest popular vote count of any President in history. You’re still blaming everyone else for your failure to reach the American public.

In the election held in the time when America had the largest population of any election in history. Still doesn’t seem to have broken the record for percentage turnout(at least according to early reports.

@Bricker

Get it through your heads that your opinions may be honestly held, and carefully reasoned, but it doens’t make them (a) unalterably correct, or (b) universally held. The side of the aisle that’s supposed to celebrate tolerance and diversity has been remarkably INtolerant of any opinions that do not follow the Sacred Leftist Screed. This is the result. Continue down this path, and I’ll have a simialr message for you in 2006 at the mid-term elections. Start treating people with differing political priorities like PEOPLE and not demons, and my 2006 message to you will be congratulatory as you gain seats instead of gloating as you lose them.

Never considered myself “screed” material, but then I’ve never aligned myself with either party. I was pretty much anyone but Bush in this election because I despise his foreign and fiscal policy. I actually am pro-life, pro-gun, and lots of other “conservative” things. I just put them all in the balance and came out anti-Bush primarially because of Iraq. Had we not gone to war in Iraq and had concentrated on Afghanistan, not just the Taleban, but the actual country and rebuilding(rebuilding of the heroin crop seems to be doing well though!) it I would probably have been a Bush supporter.

@Hamlet

While I agree that many members of the Board need to stop demonizing those who disagree with them, any point you hope to make will be overshone by the lack of maturity and divisiveness you’ve exhibited here.

Indeed, it appears he has become that which he hates. When I first saw him doing this I tried, out of the respect I had for him at the time, to alert him to it. Still, his life and he may spend it as he wishes. "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.

Enjoy,
Steven

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

I said Bush would win too but I don’t see why some people being overly optimistic before an election is somehow pitworthy. You could have just as easily been wrong. Would that make you an asshole?

[Brutus]

@MaxTheVool

When have I ever said otherwise? When has any SDMB liberal ever said otherwise? Who, precisely, is this thread directed at?

(Let’s set aside how amazingly disingenous your statement is for a moment)

You have an incredible persecution complex. First, you jump up and down and try to get me to call you a Moore-on back here. Now you are jumping up and trying to claim that Bricker was addressing you? A bit nutty, you know.

[blowero]

@kidchameleon

You think incorrectly.

O.K., everyone except kidchameleon wished you would cut it out, Bricker.

[qupte]
another post:
He stuck his neck out and made the prediction a long time ago, and now I think he’s entitled to follow through after he’s been proven right. It isn’t everybody who writes such a bold OP (as the one he did earlier in the year, and also in 2002), so he deserves his day.

[/quote]

Oh, please. Stuck his neck out? Because he predicted that Bush, who was consistently ahead in polls all along, would win? Big fucking deal.

[rjung]

Damn me for hoping my fellow citizens would prove to be smarter and more tolerant than they did.

[Harborwolf]

I believe that it is proper manners to inform ya’ll that a fair amount of you involved in this thread are being pitted by me here, though I will leave bricker out since he is merely backing up a statement he made earlier.

Enjoy ya wine man.

[Bruce_Daddy]

@Orbifold

Obviously, I disagree. Bricker, in the various threads in which he’s been gloating over his predictive powers, has been a childish ass.

I don’t see that, guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.

Bricker rocks.

[MaxTheVool]

@Brutus

When have I ever said otherwise? When has any SDMB liberal ever said otherwise? Who, precisely, is this thread directed at?

(Let’s set aside how amazingly disingenous your statement is for a moment)

No, let’s not. How is my statement disingenuous?

You have an incredible persecution complex. First, you jump up and down and try to get me to call you a Moore-on back here. Now you are jumping up and trying to claim that Bricker was addressing you? A bit nutty, you know.

The point I’m trying to make is one that I made at great length to Shodan here.

But to sum it up yet again, say whatever mean things you want about, or to, specific posters. But the moment you start addressing entire groups (be they pro-Bush, anti-Bush, anti-Chocolate or pro-sex-with-sheep) as if they think with one mind and speak with one voice, you’re (a) wrong, and (b) drastically decreasing the likelihood of actual meaningful communication occurring.

If you want to call someone a moron, or a “Moore-on”, have the balls to call them that by name. If you actually literally think that every person who voted against Bush is a moron, have the balls to say that. But casting vague aspersions about liberals, or anti-Bush folk, as a whole, is cheap and serves no purpose other than to make yourself feel good.

[Liberal]

@blowero

Don’t know who these “lefties” are, but I’m a liberal, and I suspected that Bush would win all along. I had hoped Kerry would win, but I certainly didn’t think it was a sure thing. You seem to be suffering from the delusion that every Democrat on the SDMB believed Kerry would win, and that you have somehow “beaten” us. That’s utter bullshit. All I can say is your constant clucking about Bush’s victory is unbelievably annoying, and I think I speak for everyone here in saying we really wish you would just cut it out.

You don’t speak for me. And you’re not a liberal. Marx wasn’t a liberal; he was a leftist.

[Guinastasia]

@yosemite

Guin, it’s getting so I know whenever I see that you’ve posted in one of these threads that you’ll be saying something really nasty to those who disagree with you, or basically telling them to fuck off in a somewhat petulant manner. You’re not the only one who is doing it, of course, but I always kind of held you to a higher standard.

Please don’t-hold me to a higher standard, that is. Right now, I’m going through a very tough period, things are shitty, and I’m really getting tired of having to smile and play the nice guy. I’ve been tired of it for a very long time, and I don’t have the energy anymore.

And basically, Bricker has done nothing but point out that he was right, he predicted it, blah blah blah. Fine, we get it. However, right now, there are very dear friends of mine who are worried about their civil rights. There is a war going on right now, and Americans are coming back in boxes…and the people who started that war are joking about it. The economy is in the shitter, our schools are being fucked sideways, my area just suffered a devastating flood…and I’m sick of taking the high road.

Right now, I am in the process of trying to reevaluate my life, and some royal fuck ups I’ve committed and trying to change, and I’m going through a lot of shit. So I just don’t have the strength for it, all right?

All I know is that yesterday, an overwhelming majority voted for discrimination and bigotry. (I’m talking about the gay marriage bans, not the Bush reelection) To take away something from their fellow human beings, to deny them their fundamental rights. Something that would not have affected them IN THE LEAST…but now will have a very devastating effect on some people I care about. And that frightens me.

So forgive me for being a bit shrill and petulant right now.

[jayjay]

The problem with Bricker’s OP being, of course, that even in a democracy, the majority isn’t necessarily right. The fact that Bush got 51% of the vote doesn’t automatically mean he’s a competent, noble human being with amazing presidential talents and a keen knack for diplomacy. Even with 51% of the vote, Bush is still a bumbling, stumbling, stuttering, venal, grown-up fratboy with an incredible and undeserved sense of ego and a great ability to deny fact when it’s presented to his face.

Bricker’s worship of process is getting in the way of his perception of reality.

[John_Mace]

Rick: Congrats on calling it, but don’t get too full of yourself. Sure, you took a lot of flack, but this eleciton could reasonably have gone either way. You called it, even before you knew who Bush was running against? Come on-- that was as much luck as anything. We could have all flipped a coin and half of us would’ve been right.

[Steve_MB]

@Bricker

Continue down this path, and I’ll have a simialr message for you in 2006 at the mid-term elections.

Well, I have a message for Republicans. You are In Charge. No more excuses. Get the budget under control, taxes cut (for everybody), Iraq stabilized, etc, or 2006 is going to be the mirror image of 1994.

[Steve_MB]

@Waverly

Let’s put this “largest popular vote” fallacy to bed, shall we?

Yes, let’s. It’s the same idiotic nonsense used by Hollywood to hail the latest “all-time record” (as measured in nominal dollars).

[elucidator]

Of course, I disagree. But I point out to friend Bricker that you have ratified Bush’s War. You had a chance, but didn’t take it, and now its yours. Right around 1,000 of our best and brightest so far. Have you any reason to believe, any reason at all, that it won’t be 2,000? 5,000? 10,000? Will you still be happy-dancing?

When he tells you that Iraq is an integral part of the “War on Terror”, do you really believe him? Have you any evidence to support such a conclusion? Any at all? The man is a dangerous fool, who believes himself to be a Leader of Men, Elmer Fudd channeling Wintson Churchill. I didn’t put him there, you did.

[jshore]

@jayjay

The problem with Bricker’s OP being, of course, that even in a democracy, the majority isn’t necessarily right. The fact that Bush got 51% of the vote doesn’t automatically mean he’s a competent, noble human being with amazing presidential talents and a keen knack for diplomacy. Even with 51% of the vote, Bush is still a bumbling, stumbling, stuttering, venal, grown-up fratboy with an incredible and undeserved sense of ego and a great ability to deny fact when it’s presented to his face.

Yup. And, I for one refused to make any predictions about the outcome of the election.

But, Bricker, I guess from a right-wing perspective (and without remembering where you specifically were on all of these things), after being wrong about so many things in regards to the Iraq War (the existence of WMD or WMD programs, connections with Al Qaeda, how easy things would go, the credibility of the President you support relative to that of a ruthless dictator, …), I guess it might make you feel good to be right for a change. My congratulations to you!

[Scylla]

In all seriousness, the thing that really gets me is all the ignorance. You see it so often on these boards. Maybe it’s a very vocal minority of lefties that give me this impression, but I have a theory as to why the left is losing so badly.

I’d like you to consider it if you’re on the left and upset about how wrong your country has gone.

I submit to you that the reason you really lost is that you don’t know who we are, what motivates us, what we believe, and what we are trying to do.

You think you do. You have a preconception. You’ve painted a picture in your heads and you interpret everything based on that picture. You’ve demonized your opposition, and you don’t know them and so you can’t defeat them.

Now the pendulum has swung so far to the right that our system of checks and balances is in jeopardy. I think it’s in large part because of your ignorance. You’ve decided who we are and reacted to that perception.

That perception is wrong, and you didn’t connect because nobody got your message because you weren’t relevant.

If you want to defeat us, if you want to serve your country and make it better, if you want to restore the balance of power, you need to know us, and by knowing us, like and respect us.

Once you really understand where the rest of the country is coming from. Once you look at them as your allies and friends, you can effect change and contribute.

If you continue to misrepresent who we are and what we beleive and allow yourself the luxury of those misperceptions, you are going to continue to lose. Your voice will not be heard. You will not engage in the arena of ideas and we will all be the less for it.

[MaxTheVool]

@Scylla

but I have a theory as to why the left is losing so badly.

Losing so badly? 51-48 is hardly a blowout, and in 2000 Gore won a majority of the popular vote. It’s not like democrats are becoming an endangered species, or anything.
(Not that I’m either agreeing or disagreeing with the meat of your post)