I’m very curious to hear the opnions of any of our dopers in the Armed Forces about yesterday’s elections. What do you think, and what’s the general feeling you get from your fellow soldiers? Are people happy or not? Is there a sense that this will change things in Iraq for the better or worse?
I have a brother in the Army and I’m dying to hear his thoughts, but he’s in Ranger School and incommunicado for a couple of weeks, so I turn to all of you instead.
Dont care at all. I can’t stand politicians or politics. I haven’t seen one I didn’t think was full of shit, and they all play stupid little games to get elected. I’d like to see just a straight shooter who didn’t try to fucking spin every little thing.
And I can’t stand the whole bipartisan thing. No matter who I vote for, i will pretty much hate half of the things on his agenda and half of all the decision he makes.
Who the fuck decided that people who are pro Big Business and anti Gun Registration, automatically are pro Conservative Values and hardcore antiDrug antiGambling and antiVice. It’s bullshit. It’s impossible to support a strong Defense budget and necessary military intervention across the globe without also supporting antiGay marriage legislation. One must either choose to have more government programs to help the lazy, uneducated, or support programs that promote sensorship. Can’t be against both.
Cant support an increase in military strength without supporting a decrease in civil rights. Are there really people out there who agree with everything their party believes? It’s bullshit.
I’m sick of it. I’ll never agree completely with any one party, so politics just dont work for me. But you know, even if I didn’t agree with a view or decision a politician made, I would still support him and respect him, if he wasn’t totally full of shit or shady–which all of them are.
I’ve only heard a couple comments. Mainly the concerns among the military are pay cuts (specifically, smaller pay raises), and some safety (terrorism) issues. But I think the safety and terrorism shit is unfounded. It’s not like Democrats want to be attacked or something.
Indifference is more like it.
Haven’t heard anything either way. Personally, I dont know that it will possible to say that any particular change is a result of Dems in control, or the fact that Rummy resigned. So it will be hard to say if it was the elections, or the resignation that caused any change we see. Either way, I would just like to see more effort over there. More effort in Afgahnistan, and more US national support for the whole cause. I wish people would stop being so damn focused on the lack of WMD and all the “why did we invade” crap and start focusing at the problem at hand. Politicians are still arguing about whether we should have ever entered that country. Fuck, man. What’s done is done. Lets figure out how to rebuild that place and unify its people into some sort of respectable government operation.
We should flood that country with Civil Affairs operations and private business investment. The whole thing is growing stagnant. Whether we did the right thing by going in there should no longer be a current debate. That gets in the way of the real issue: How do we make things right, and leave there with some respectable sense of “Mission Accomplished”?
Political views in the military are as vast as anywhere else. It seems that hating faggots and loving Jesus is an enlistment requirement sometimes, but whatever…
Yesterday afternoon, out reminding people that it was election day, I was absolutely astonished & speechless by this response:
Afterwards, I thought of several responses:
But none of those would have been likely to get that guy out to vote – at least, not for my candidates. So it’s probably best that I just went on to other houses. But what the heck was he thinking?
Maybe he just sees the futility in the whole thing. i agree with him, though I dont think it has much to do with actually being in the military.
Well, I had the usual comments from people that ‘all politicians are the same’. Which I think is pretty obviously ridiculous. But that’s a subject for another thread, and has been discussed before.
I just couldn’t understand why he connected being in the military with having no need to vote.
Maybe he thinks the armed forces should be politically neutral?
How’s the elections going to change this? Personally, I don’t want to avoid Iraq. I want Iraq to be a success. If that means that 80% of the military needs to flood that place all at once with hammers and shovels to rebuild it from the ground up, so be it.
And if some soldier was concerned about deployment to Iraq, which politicians have said “If you vote for me, you will not have to deploy to Iraq”?
Politicians are going to serve the will (or at least what they believe to be the will) of the majority of the people. Changing politicians does not change the will or view of the people. If all the people said “we want to stay in Iraq and fix the problems we’ve created”, then the politicians (D or R) are going to do that. If they say “We want to leave there ASAP”, then the politicians are going to go that route.
I risk my life to secure the right and ability of the people to vote. Not a person. A person does not need to vote for every single election. I think the vast majority of us can’t just go to a poll, we have to do the absentee thing, which is a pain in the ass. If there was a specific law or bill to vote for, I might do that if I had a strong enough opinion on it. President, yea I’d probably vote if I cared enough about one or the other. But mainly, I don’t see or rather, can’t see, a direct cause/effect of which politician I vote for and what happens in my life.
They do. And always will. How is voting going to change this? How is voting going to change the opinion of the people?
This seems to come out of thin air. Either it doesn’t follow logically or its me who isn’t following. We’re not out their voting for CPTs and LTCs. We’re not even voting for Generals. Please tell me which politician is going to help my commanders make less mistakes, and I will vote for him.
None of those would have worked for me. However, if you explained to me specifically why you support your candidate and why he’s better than his opponent, I may go vote for him. The problem is that political adds I see all seem to be the same garbage. Their vague and inane. Give me some noshit specifics and you could easily convince me.
Pardon the hijack, but can you give me an example of something that was accomplished recently that was 100% positive and was the result of one politician, or at least a small handfull?
The bills are so fucked up that a person can’t support strict antiterrorism measures without also allowing antigambling laws passed. That’s just bullshit. And, while it may not be something wrong with a certain politician, it is something wrong with the system itself. Which is why some people dont see the point in voting for these fuckers. It doesn’t seem to matter who’s in control. I’ll always hate half of what they ever accomplish.
I’m with you there. Maybe just because it’s such a pain in the ass doing the absentee thing and it doesn’t really seem like it makes a difference. It’s a very low effect to effort ratio.
Another thing that I should have mentioned earlier. Living in Georgia and having to vote on Florida reps, I hear nothing about my candidates. As I’ve said, I don’t agree with all the values of either party, so I can’t simply support my party. I’m a registered Republican, but only so I can vote in those primaries. I’ll be exposed to presidential candidates no matter where I am, which would explain my likelyhood of voting for President, but not much else.
Maybe this is what he meant when he said “I’m in the military, I dont vote”. Maybe he was telling you “I can’t vote for your guy because I’m in the military and registered in another state. In fact, I know nothing about my candidates, so I wont bother voting.”
I rarely voted during my military career, at least until the latter part of it. I think the Nixon years are what finally stirred my lethargy. What I cared about was: are we going to avoid another disastrous war, are we getting a pay raise this year, and what are my chances of getting promoted?
Here in Minnesota, you can register right at the polling place, and vote right then, if you have resided in the state for 20 days. (It was obvious that he had, from what I could see of his house just from the door.)
And registering & voting in Minnesota is fine, even if he had been previously registered in another state. Just as long as he doesn’t vote in BOTH states.