Need a reason to not vote for Bushco?

The BBQ Pit
21

iampunha, by all means I’d love to see the threads, though not necessary. I tend to trust even those I disagree with if they seem worthy of it. I was just trying to impart my opinion that the Bush bashing threads are really getting old. For ever 5 or 6 I see, they could be combined into one.

Yes, I get it. The left hates Bush. What a suprise. Now Move On (remember that little ditty the left sang a few years back?)

I’d give a lot more credence to it if at least one of you lefties would post a thread praising the hundreds of good things that have happened. Cite? Sure, if me ever meet I’ll introduce you to a family friend, former roommate and a frat brother that have all served honorably. None have killed anyone, all were happy with what they have done, and all have pics and cards of Iraqi families he’s helped in personal, direct ways.

Anyone forget the US is still in Afghanistan? I love how the talking heads admit the generally accepted good we’ve done there, yet don’t give Bush any credit. I’m just left here to vote in Nov as my family will, and sit back and watch the flames of the Pit. It’s fine with me, as I have as much chance of changing a lefties mind as they have of changing mine.

22

IIRC, the calls of costs and purpose were all the left decrying the right for “investigating the truth”. Is that an unfair summary? If so, this will really tell me where the conservatives stand and I’ll just stick to GQ/MPSIMS/CS and IMHO.

23

You’re such a political lapdog, duffer. I love the way you assume that everyone who dislikes Bush is therefore a Kerry supporter and a “lefty.”

I got news for you bud: a lot of people on the boards and most of the people I’ve talked to off the boards dislike them both.

When I go to the polls in November I’m not voting for Kerry, I’m voting against Bush.

24

and this is different from me not voting for Bush but against Kerry, how?

So a lot of people you know don’t like either. Is this supposed to include you? I hope not. That is a political lapdog. Voting for something you don’t beleive in. How about Nader? If you don’t like Bush nor Kerry, you still have a choice. Guess you’ll vote your conscience or your hated. Not my place to say what you should do.

25

They were debates which took place before you registered here and which you have already admitted to never reading. How can you “recall correctly” anything about them?

26

Then stop fucking reading them, ya knob.

Well, see, this is the Pit. Threads about good things rarely appear. If you want to start a thread to discuss the positive accomplishments of the Bush administration, no one’s stopping you. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of anything.

27

Here I thought a political lapdog was someone who believed something because one party said it … and quite frankly, for some of us it’s a “which of these candidates is least likely to fuck up the country beyond reasonable repair?” thought. While I am not such the fan of John Kerry (Nader is fairly well impotent in the political arena IMO, at least until he gets 5% anywhere but his own house), he at least does not seem to have the resolve to make “American” a slur in a foreign country, nor make it reality with the blistering speed Bush has demonstrated.

If Bush-bashing threads are getting old, perhaps the answer is to guarantee that they will stop this November (well, really January) by … not voting for Bush;)

28

Thanks 'pun. You said it so I don’t have to.

I will add one thing, an important point that duffer brought up: I would vote my conscience if I felt it was represented somewhere. Since I don’t feel that way I’ll vote for that candidate that is " least likely to fuck up the country beyond reasonable repair."

29

Mine is, for the most part, but my mother has as good a chance of winning this Presidential election as she did last one. Thus will I go to my polling place this November and hold my nose. However, at least I will not have to remove my olfactory sensors altogether.

I am meanwhile open to suggestions of what candidate I ought to vote for (with reasons, of course; “Bush sux” ain’t where it’s at). I suspect that I will do with this election what I did with the last one and open a thread in GD. It went peacefully enough last time.

30

I understand the impulse, duffer but, in all honesty, can’t enourage you to change your mind beyond what you decide is right. FWIW, I’m not a partisan for either “side” and have been bemused by sniping from all directions. The “left” might hate Bush but it’s no less virulent than the hatred for Clinton on the “right”. (I use quotation marks because I’m no longer sure that there’s much distinction left beyond hype.)
Presidents are executives, nothing more. IMO we put way too much weight on the office, most of it misplaced, especially symbolically. All of 'em must deal with layer upon layer of entrenched shit. I mostly judge presidents on how they deal with all that sludge. (Not that most of it isn’t baggage, owed to those who pay to get them elected.)
FWIW, I’m a stubborn (independent) centrist. Neither party owns virtue or patriotism. Nobody’s candidate can possibly come to power cleanly. I judge presidents–and candidates–by how they handle all the trailing sludge on behalf of the country, all of us, other countries, the whole shebang. That’s the job. It’s either handled effectively or not. Everything else is pretty much ribbons on the package.
I’ve never understood rabid party hatreds, mostly because neither party seems to embody much beyond self interest. Sad, cynical, but true. Clinton isn’t the either/or standard. I won’t vote for Bush, no matter who runs against him, because he fucked up, badly. He’s a lousy executive, domestically and internationally. He and his team could screw up a one-car parade. He’s a washout as a CEO. Nitpicking forensic comparisons to Clinton (or any previous president) are sterile.
This is why I don’t hang out in the Pit all that often. (Besides the fact that I’m awake into the morning with a wrenched back. <g>)

Veb

31

Don’t you have an official Bush bashing thread Reeder?

32

Don’t you do Google spelling popularity checks? “Shinola” gives about 17,600 hits, while “Shineola” turns up only about 1,480 plus the admonishment “Did you mean ‘shinola’?” Dictionaries are really the result of popularity contests anyway, but years out of date; Google has its finger on the pulse of current spelling trends. Further research indicates “Shinola” is the correct spelling of the famed shoe polish brand. Carry on.

33

Duffer, let’s see if you can wrap your head around the following:
GWB is in the oval office. People left of center are pissed about this and when they find something that affirm their hatred, be it something GWB has done, is about to do, or something they read somewhere, they come here and vent.
People who like having GWB in the White House don’t. If your content with something, there really is no reason to start thread saying “Isn’t Bush a great guy!” or “Gotta lova that Rumsfeld!”. You might notice that there aren’t a lot of threads praising the virtue of Kerry, by the more prolific Bush bashers.

Should Kerry win the election, I doubt there will be a lot of threads from democrats singing his praise, however, I expect there to be a lot of threads from prolific conservative Dopers, pointing out all his faults, at which point, the board might be perceived as right leaning, from the sheer number of htreads devouted to Kerry bashing.

What you don’t seem to understand is that Dio, Lucy, Reeder as well as Brutus, Sam Stone, Shodan aren’t out to convince each other. The idea of a debate is for the opposing teams to present the best arguments they can, so the audience might be swayed from one side to the other. Your idea that those who bash Bush now, should to the same to Kerry, should he win, is ludicrous and juvenile.

34

Quite frankly, I’d hope and expect at least some of the non-GOP dopers to retain their critical eye of any substantially high-ranking government official. I know I will. I’m not exactly looking forward to the next four years regardless of which of the likely two should win.

35

My Father is active in Tennessee politics, to the point of having run for the State Senate & various City Council positions.

According to him, the “No Child Left Behind” program has certainly left Tennessee behind.

School administrators are quitting, rather than be fired for not meeting unfunded goals. Governments here are completely unwilling to raise taxes to meet these goals, due to a local “tax revolt” that actually led to violence in the State Legislature in 2002. And several school board seats in Tennessee may go empty on election day. Even though school boartd seats are seen as the first step in many political careers, nobody wants them. No prospective candidate wants the job, merely to preside over diaster. What will be done to meet the legal requirements is anybody’s guess.

Tennesse is in serious danger of failing to meet the goals laid out. What happens if we don’t? I don’t know, & neither does Dad.

But if it results in withholding more Federal funds from education, it’s gonna be a total disaster.

36

Yes, I do understand this argument. I’ve never claimed to have all the answers. If I did we’d all be living harmoniously forever. My main problem is the constant Bush=Satan rhetoric I see here. Now, in all honesty, the SDMB is a rather small sampling of the US electorate. I would doubt a poll of Dopers would come close to the 50/50 we seem to be at now. (Sorry non-US Dopers, I’m counting people whose votes will affect this election). So I’m left to defend conservatism. Gaspode, would you consider it juvenile to respond to blanket statements of Republicans being Right-wing fundamentalists that want to kill old people and children, poison the water they drink and pollute the air they breath? Show me a pic of Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush, Powell and others wearing masks while visiting America’s cities. (Not ones after disasters).

You realize not everyone voting Republican wants to rape your puppy, right? Some of us are educated (though a little hot-tempered) and really want to preserve our country for future generations.

If anyone really believes one President can kill off the USA, it’s time to remove the tin-foil. There are way too many checks and balances set up to allow one person to royally fuck it all up. Hence the structure of governance.

And Otto, what can I say? Your 3rd grade name-calling really makes me take your arguments into consideration. Way to argue a point while putting me in my place. :dubious:

37

duffer - I do see that there are sensible and eloquent GOP Dopers. And the amount of Bush bashing threads are swamping the pit. Even though I can’t vote in the US election, I take a keen interest, as I think most Europeans do, simply because what happens in US politics will affect us all. If the dollar takes a plunge it’ll be bad for our export industry but good for those that import US goods. With NATO expanding to countries near my country, it’s a hot topic in our political debate if Sweden should (officially) lay off the policy of neutrality and join.

And even if Im’m right of center in Sweden, I’m surely left of center on the American scale. But I don’t read the Bush bashing threads anymore, unless they are related to a specific hot topic (e.g. torture in Iraqi jail). A blanket “Look what dubya did now!” isn’t enough for me to torment the hamsters.

But I’m getting very tired of the “this board is so left leaning” argument. Going by the threads in the pit and GD, it might seem so, but unless there is a poll including all Dopers, I don’t think we can know if that’s the fact. As it is now, we can only deduct that some left-of-center posters are very prolific in started threads bashing Bush.

38

Gaspode, very fair response. I wonder how accurate a poll of Dopers would be concerning left/right views.

Is there a way a mod of any board could conduct this? I suspect it would take too much time and would be wildly inaccurate. But it would be interesting.

39

If you didn’t make some sort of allowance for “wildly left” vs. “intelligent left”, and its corresponding sides (and center, and other), you’d have even more worthless a result than if you did;)

Your best bet might be to write up some sort of political quiz and post it somewhere for all to see. That wouldn’t get into the nuances of the particular person’s political leaning, however. Consider this question (purely for the purpose of this thread: any discussion of the answer can go somewhere else because this doesn’t need any more hijacking):

“Would you be more inclined to vote for a pro-life candidate or a pro-choice candidate?”

I personally would be more inclined to vote for a candidate who doesn’t have any intention of casting a vote where s/he is most likely not qualified (few politicians are medical practitioners, after all) academically. Plus, consider the fact that some democrats will vote for a pro-life candidate and some republicans will vote for a pro-choice candidate. Your poll would be more accurate if it were a sort of “explain your political beliefs WRT these ideas, and list them, first in order of their importance to you, and second regarding your belief on how important they are to the country as a whole.”

That would probably take a little longer to score, though;)

40

iampunha, you bring up great reasons a poll would never work here. So I have to therefore go by what I see on these boards. And since I’ve seen a smattering (and that’s being generous) of pro-Bush posts here, I can only go by empirical (SP?) evidence of the heavily left-wing bent of the majority here.

And I have no problem with it. I think most would agree, as I’ve seen admitted in a number of threads, that the SDMB posters are more left than right. Heavily. There are plenty of conservative message boards, I’m sure. But hand-to-God, this is the only message I subscribe to. In fact, it’s the only one I read/post to. I knew what I was getting into when I paid. Somewhere else I was accused of lurking in a derisive manner. So what? Been registered for 6 months, followed the boards for years, but my registration date is now important?

I guess what pisses me off is not that most here hate Bush and will bend over backwards to slam him. It’s that so many think the fact he respirates oxygen molecules makes him the anti-Christ. I could go on a tangent about Carter, but what the hell would be the point? Anyone thinking they are superior to the current administration is open to run for the office in Nov.

Anyone who has the answers to all things unknown has my vote. But hurry, you have til Nov to get my family to vote for anyone other than Bush. I’m taking the “pragmatic” approach as a lifelong history student and will judge the fallout of any policy decision when the results are fully realized.

I have a few books written by WWII vets, and a fair number or periodicals that decried the use of “The Bomb” in Japan.

What happened? Collateral damage, of course. But also a victory in war against a regime that wanted to conquer the US. And lest we forget, they attacked us first.

Fast forward 40 years, after spending US money to rebuild Japan,
(the Marshall Plan can wait for another thread) we sent gobs of money to Tokyo buying almost any product they produced. The Japanese may hate us, but we made damn sure to take care of them to keep them a power to balance out the Communist influence in China and North Korea. Just imagine what we could do for freedom in the middle east with Iraq!

It’s easy for me, as an American, to say we are superior. I try to temper it by realizing that it’s hubris. But it’s my damn country, I’ll be proud of it. Deal with it. We’ve helped a few countries from having to learn the Russian language. And even you shit on us (Pay attention France) we’ll still be the first to help you out if you are threatened. No matter who is in the White House