Wow, I actually inspired a lefty meltdown that was roundly given a pimp-slap by Shodan!?!
This makes me happier than the election win!! (Well, almost) 
Tart 
Before this gets out of hand – no, strike that. Long after this has gotten out of hand, Duffer, let me say something. You probably don’t remember me, but I’m a guy who almost always disagrees with you. I’ve done so on the board at least four or five times. But I’ve also always given you the respect due a thinking man. Allow me courtesy in turn when you respond.
Surely there has to be a source of satisfaction in you that doesn’t stem merely from the discomiting of your political adversaries, because, let’s face it, that would be stupid and mean. If the election means more to you than that, if there is an actual policy that will be pursued, a thing done that would otherwise be left undone, what is it? I’m certain that you do not agree with every single item on every single ballot in every county of every state that managed to win approval. So tally it up for me, explain why the benefits outweigh the costs. Then you’ll actually be defending a position, instead of glorying in what many consider to be their misfortune. There’s a certain lack of that here.
I address this to you, duffer, unfairly, simply because in my experience you’re likely to think, consider and answer honestly. Please do.
This doesn’t really have so much to do with the election as Dio’s seemingly endless comparisons of Bush to Hitler. In fact, I almost emailed a mod to see if I could change the thread title. It seemed a little harsh as I enjoy almost all his posts in other forums (except when he gets a dig in on Pubs in, say, a thread on how to make tea)
I do remember you and enjoy your posts as well. (This thread is turning into a love-fest, damnit** Brutus ** and Shodan!)
Calling me a thinking man may get you in some hot water around here, though. 
But I like to think I’m steadily getting a little better.
If that didn’t answer you question, let me know and I’ll see if I can clarify further.
Oh, for fuck’s sake! I thought I was looking through the thread I started. Shit!
Can anyone report that, or if a mod wanders in delete it so I can get a resonse that actually is germaine to the thread and question?
Goddamn. I hope this isn’t an omen of what today is going to be like.
What a fucking idiot! :smack:
IOW, “How can I explain to the Americans why progressive solutions are in their best interest?”
Gee, I have no idea.
Dre2xl, thank you for the well thought out post. I confess to repeating a good portion of it to the liberals at our school who were wailing and whining in the office this morning. They got the point. I think it actually got through to several of them that moving to the extreme left wasn’t going to get them anywhere, and that they could have won this thing easily if they had seen that earlier. So, thanks again for your analysis, and I hope you don’t mind my wholesale lifting of it this morning. I did give you a credit, however!
still happy dancing
I had no idea the pleasure I would get from all of this. If you could only see the fucking smile on my face.
Keep smiling. As they unload those flag-draped boxes, the ones they won’t let you see, keep smiling. Because you own those boxes now, you ratified it, you put your stamp of approval. When someone tells you 100,000 Iraqis are dead who shouldn’t be, just smile and say thats a wild exaggeration, can’t be more than 50,000, tops.
Roe/Wade will be overturned, so smile. Won’t be any problem to the privileged women, never was, just a plane ticket to another country, a quick “procedure” and she’s good as new. Women of lesser status are another matter. You see, abortions are going to happen regardless. People screw up, that’s what people do. But you have shifted the consequences, now it will take place in back alleys and underground facilities, just like it did in the good old days. So when you read about that frightened young girl who bled to death in a taxicab, smile. She’s yours. And, heck, she deserved it, the little slut.
Nobody in his right mind really believes you can cut taxes and spend a gazillion bucks on war at the same time. Except, apparently, you and yours. You must believe in magic, clearly, you don’t believe in arithmetic. So, smile!
When your boss shafts you for overtime pay, and you don’t dare make a squeek for fear of losing your health insurance, smile!
We tried, you wouldn’t listen, so all of this belongs to you. Smile.
This is assuming they cared about the consequences. They don’t.
’luci, you miss the point. The Red staters don’t care about the war dead on either, they are happy with shitty jobs, they don’t want health care, and trhey’re glad that legal abortion will end, because when they voted for Duby, they got the one thing that really matters to them–they got to stick it to the fags. That’s what drove the turnout on Tuesday. Remember, “moral values” to Red staters has nothing to do with integrity, responsibility, honor, or fiscal restraint. They couldn’t give a shit how many Americans die because of Bush’‘s lies. They don’t care that his out-of-control spending is going to bankrupt our country. No, they voted for Bush not as President, but as Pontifex Maximus, charged with enforcing their religious strictures against man-on-man lovin’.
As long as Dubya keeps the gays down, he can kill all the Americans and Iraqis he likes and spend this country into the poorhouse.
With all due respect to my bent brethren and sistren, I think you exaggerate. The Bush anti-gay agenda is somewhat muffled, its the hate that dare not speak its name. They framed the question quite well: they don’t talk about doing stuff against gays, they frame the question in terms of preventing gays from doing stuff to the rest of us, i.e., forcing gay marriage into legal acceptance. Thats a subtle distinction, but meaningful.
And, Globe Gobbler, I think they do care about the consequences. But the chickens haven’t come home to roost yet, the consequences haven’t been made manifest. Sooner or later, the cold equations begin to sort out. The Republicans managed to postpone the consequences until after the election, but they’re still there. And there can be no more doubt on whose shoulders those consequences rest.
The question then becomes not whether the Pubbies will win 2006, or 2008, but if they will ever win again.
I think the point is the people who elected him don’t give a shit about those consequences. THIS is the bitter pill we have to swallow 'Luci.
I remember the same prediction right after Watergate forced Nixon’s resignation.
Four years of Carter fixed that…
Oh Christ, it’s not like Kerry would have done much for gays anyway. His whole ‘leave it up to the states’ is what happened, and they all voted, sadly, for repression. I’m sick of people touting Kerry as if he was a miracle cure. If you really want change, it needs to start in the House and Senate.
Wow, a libertarian, liberal, and conservative agreed with my post. Thanks Liberal, gobear, and Silenus!
gobear, I’ve been seeing your posts today, and you’ve definitely got part of it. Civility and sincere pride in America are important steps, just don’t forget that part of the problem was that no Democrat took the time to provide a reasoned solution, instead of spending their energies on My Pet Goat et al, so be sure and flesh out your platform.
In all sincerity, thank you for being open-minded and not publicly going for the kneejerk “see, this proves that all Americans are stupid” reasoning.
Rumor has it that
Hit Submit before I finished typing up my post!
Rumor has it that Howard Dean is the new DNC chairman.
If there’s any substance to that, say hello to a filibuster-proof GOP.
Ohio doper checking in here, who is proud to have helped push Ohio barely into Bush’s column. Although I’m not too proud to be from Montgomery County/Dayton (the Kerry county in the southwest that is surrounded by Bush counties). Oh well, it was nice to visit Hamilton county (the red county that is inner-city Cincinnati) that day for a business trip. Personally, I was so giddy yesterday that I could’ve wandered the streets of Cincinnati, thanking everyone on the streets (and probably would’ve gotten lots of funny looks).
A big thanks to all the Bush Dopers that helped him win the swing states. I hope none of you were discouraged from voting that day by some of the exit polls that showed Kerry way ahead. I’m glad no exit pollers were at my voting place. I probably would’ve told them Kerry or Nader or something, just to screw with their numbers.
In order for any candidate to defeat a sitting President, he must 1) convince the public that the other candidate has done a poor job, and 2) convince the public that he is a man of integrity and could do a better job. Ronald Reagan did both of those to Jimmy Carter in 1980. Bill Clinton did both of those to George H.W. Bush in 1992. John Kerry certainly did the first to George W. Bush this election (anyone heard the phrase “Anyone But Bush”?), but he failed to do the second.
Being blinded with rage and not being honest with yourself about why you’re losing will only get you into deeper trouble. It’s why the Republicans lost house seats in 1998 amid the Lewinsky scandal, and it’s why the Democrats lost the Presidential race, Senate seats, and House seats just two days ago.
It’s always been my understanding that a President with a 50% or high approval rating will probably be re-elected. One with an approval rating below 45% will probably lose his job. And it will be a photo finish for one with an approval rating of 47 or 48%. Bush had a 47% approval rating going into the election. What pushed him over the top, IMO, was the fact that moral issues were the top concern among voters this election, something on which Bush is stronger than Kerry.
The SDMB has done much to improve my opinion of the American people. The election result, and the gloating on this thread, has undone much of that.
Fucking morons.
When the next 9/11 happens, you know why. Fuckwits.
OK, let me justify that… I don’t mean to belittle the horror of the attacks, or imply that I would like to see a repeat of them. Of course I wouldn’t. What I mean is that the great American electorate has given the next generation of terrorists all the excuse their twisted minds need to plot and carry out attack after attack after attack after attack.
America needs to get out of Iraq, get out of Sharon’s back passage and put its own house in order; then perhaps the United States will once again be respected.