Sorry for the double-post. I thought I had added the “all Democrats” before submitting. Obviously, I hadn’t.
Well, gosh and golly, elucidator, if the Gore Won Florida brigade can’t be trusted, through their biases, dishonesty, or whatever, to get the little stuff right (Libertarian is a Republican? Sam never talks about Canada?), why in the hell would anyone trust them on the big stuff?
Trust Stoid’s recall and interpretation of history and politics? Honestly, I wouldn’t trust her interpretation of Hop On Pop.
As a complete aside, can I please add that I only hope that whoever wins the next election wins it conclusively. I don’t think I could take another 4 years of “Hey, your guy cheated”, “No, your guy cheated first”.
Couldn’t find anything by Stoid, but here’s Scylla’s take: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=69102
Oddly that link is more substantive than most of the last 3 pages of this thread.
The moon, tejota:
Yes, I am partisan. I like it that Bush is in the White House, and not Gore. You’ll notice though that on at least two seperate occasions I’ve said that it’s my opinion that he wouldn’t be there except for a couple of flukes in the election.
Therefore I think your cry of “Partisan influence” in my analysis is unfounded, and merely a rhetorical game. I’d prefer not to play games.
No, on this one you should probably stick to the old faithful “if they’re too stupid to follow instructions, screw thier voting rights” argument. That way you can avoid the unpleasant consequences of basing your arguments on facts.
Unless you’re about to suggest that there was a one-hundred fold disparity in Buchanan support amongst Democratic voters in that particular county, as compared to any other.
Which is, as I’m sure you know, ludicrous. You do know that, right?
I have no idea what you’re asking me. Does it have anything to do with what you quoted?
Are you seriously suggesting you will stand by this standard? So if a poster, any poster, lets pick one at random…say…well, pldennison, just for an instance…if said poster makes a blooper on some small point, that means they cannot be trusted? Is it thier honesty that is in doubt, or thier perceptions?
Thats quite the petard you have there. Yours, I take it?
Are you planning at any point in the foreseeable future to make any arguable, verifiable points? Anything more cogent and relevant than “Stoid is poopy!”?
elucidator:
Good question.
I’ve seen Pld make several errors and have them pointed out to him. In each case he acknowledged the mistake and moved on. He did not repeat the errors.
Based on this I believe PLD consistently upgrades his worldview and opinions based on new data, and that when he posts we get his best effort at objective truth. I beleive that somebody who does this can generally be trusted regardless of their number of bloopers. Somebody who does not, cannot be.
One’s perceptions are always in doubt.
In this thread? On this topic? You bet your ass. Elvis didn’t make a blooper–he told a lie, and an easily verifiable lie at that. I’ll wager you dollars to donuts that Elvis knew damned well that what he was saying about Sam was untrue, and yet he said it anyway. Either that, or he’s got the shortest memory around. It stands to reason that he might not exactly be presenting information on the Florida fiasco accurately.
Same goes for Stoid. For someone who considers herself a regular denizen of GD, she probably knows that Lib holds the two major parties in equal disdain. But as soon as he takes a position on this issue, he’s a “Bush supporter.”
That’s the problem with this whole fucking topic. When the Gore Won Florida brigade sees anyone who dares to disagree with them, then that person must – simply must – be an Evil Partisan Right Wing Bush Voting Jerk and they’re just so STUPID and why, oh why, can’t they just SEE? So they’ll resort to any dishonesty, or paint other posts with any traits, to attempt to advance their argument.
Take for example bordelond. IMO, he’s been eminently level-headed and reasonable in his posts in this thread. So what do Tejota and themoon say about him? He’s whining, he’s partisan, he’s stupid. Same with Rmat–he self-identifies as a Democrat after being accused of partisanship in his pretty reasonable posts.
The irony here is so thick, coming from a member of the “What Stoid said!-What elucidator said!” duo, that I find I can’t roll my eyes far enough.
So, “No”, then?
This is simply far too self-serving to let go. Bush was not trying to thwart the law, he was challenging the law itself as being “illegal”. And he was using the legal process at his disposal to do so. Or maybe he was trying to thwart the law, but not in some devious, immoral way that you seem to believe.
This is an important point. Simply refering to Gore’s team as following “the law” is not precise enough – one has to qualify that it was “Florida law.” The reason that that’s important is that Bush’s team was left with the perfectly ethical recourse of asking that Florida’s law be reviewed for constitutionality by the SCOTUS.
IOW, there was higher law to be considered than Florida state law – there was U.S. law, viz the Constitution.
I don’t see appealing to the highest relevant power as an immoral maneuver at all. I can honestly say I’d feel the same way regardless of which candidate would have first attempted to appeal to the SCOTUS, and regardless of which candidate would have won the SCOTUS’s decision.
Just wanted to say that I’m tempted to use this as a .sig, except that would probably encourage Pldennison more. 
Are you trying to say that because you voted for neither, you have achieved perfect objectivity? Because I don’t accept that B follows A. Looks good on paper, doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. Just cuz you weren’t crazy about any of the players doesn’t mean you are free of bias towards or against any of them, that’s just silly. Nice try, though. (I’ll be going into greater detail on this in a thread later…)
Especially since I think you are reaching so hard you are going to hurt some vital part of your brain with this post, in the context of this discussion. You are going to hold Albert Gore’s feet to the flames for everything every Democrat does? Forget it. Unless you have something better than suspicion to back up your claim (or rather, implication, since you don’t appear to have accused Gore outright) , it’s just your guess/assumption, and doesn’t belong in this argument.
What the hell is “suspicious” about it? They were under a huge time crunch! Was he supposed to wait a week or a month so it wouldn’t look bad? This is just meaningless innuendo that has no place in this discussion. Remember proof/facts/cites/evidence?
And what wacky logic are you using here to make Bush’s lawsuit Gore’s fault? “He followed the rules, I HADDA sue to stop him from following the rules!” HUH?
It looks and sounds a lot like you are embracing the strange Bush-siders belief that this was nothing more or less than a contest between two guys, and everything legal was justified in the quest to win, and all actions in an attempt to do so were morally equivalent. (Hence, Bush “had” to go to court to fight Gore’s attempt to get the votes counted in the manner prescribed by Florida law. That was Bush’s “logical” move.) That’s been the refrain in the background of a lot of the arguments on this subject (see bordelond’s most recent post), and I and other Gore-siders are really puzzled by this. You see, I view it as an election where we are trying to determine the fair and legal winner. The one who got the most votes. Not the one who can pull a win out of the fire using any legal maneuvering available to him. Gigantic difference between the two positions.
Sure they had an agenda. Does that make it Gore’s agenda? Does that mean that Gore sent them to do it? Proof please, otherwise, no go.
Moreover, they didn’t sue about the ballots before because it wasn’t an issue before! The problem did not become evident until the election, why would it? Come ON, already!
And ya know, what is your point with all this? (It can’t be that Gore went to court first. He didn’t, Bush did. That’s been shown already. ) That the butterfly ballots were not a problem? That Buchanan was insanely popular in Florida in ways no one ever dreamed? Because that’s just ridiculous… The ballots were confusing. People voted incorrectly because of it. This is reality.
The only realistic (if unfair) argument on this one is the old “Too dumb to figure it out? Too dumb to have your vote count! Sorry!”
Devious? No. Not possible, since we all knew and had to know what he was doing every step of the way. ( I’m not even gonna consider all the little extras that both camps have been accused of but which were never conclusively proven. Let’s stick with known facts.) Immoral? I guess it depends on your moral code, doesn’t it? As I said originally, I picked the word morality for want of a better one. I would have considered it the ethical, moral, standup thing for him to just grit his teeth, cross his fingers, and let the legal process in place for disputed elections play itself out. He didn’t. Call it whatever you like. I call it grasping, selfish, and shameful.
Stoid
But Stoid, Bush went to court in response to Gore’s initiative. Gore made the first move, by invoking a statute that he was not bound by law to invoke. What other remedy was there for Bush, other than doing nothing? Thus, Gore — and Gore cronies — started the court fights.
Suppose, for example, I were to slander you in public. Ought your suit against me, that would surely follow, to be considered an aggression by you?
I don’t claim to be perfectly objective, but I certainly couldn’t care less which of the two became president. There wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference between them idealogically. One wanted to increase government spending 8%, while the other wanted to increase it 6%. Both wanted to extend the tyrannical bureaucracies even further. Both wanted to extend the insane War on Americans I Mean Drugs. I’m no more of a Bush supporter than you are.
But Gore’s aggression, and his dishonorable renegging, forced the whole sequence of events. Gore is to blame for the whole thing. He could have stopped his cronies, including the eighteen in Palm Beach, with a mere word.
As far as cites, so far I’m the only one who has provided them. The information I’ve given you is well documented. You can use the link I gave you, or search Google with the Plaintiffs’ names. If you have some evidence to the contrary, why not provide it?
My opinion on this is that by December 12th, it was no longer possible to “determine a fair and legal winner” to the satisfaction of all parties involved – and all that remained to settle the election was “legal maneuvering”. Deciding the presidential race was way beyong getting a simpe count by 12/12. Some court somewhere had to clear up the following:
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“Determining a fair and legal winner” could have been done as Florida law dictated – hand counts by the various counties following those counties’ individual policies. But that didn’t square with the U.S. Constitution (quoth the SCOTUS) because it violated “equal protection under the law” for Florida voters.
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In the same vein, “determining a fair and legal winner” could have been done as the Gore team wanted it done – with recounts of certain counties (by Florida law). But the Bush team held to a different standard, hopeful (perhaps confident?) of the eventual finding of unconstitutionality of some of Florida’s election laws.
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Would it have been possible for the Bush and Gore teams to agee on a method of reckoning the overvotes and undervotes? Overseas ballots? Damaged ballots? Both Gore’s and Bush’s teams would have had to agree to some counting standards before a binding, final count could take place, else one party or the other could have called the election results into question – regardless of what Florida law said. Otherwise, we’d have been back to Square One.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Stoid *
**
It is positively mnoral to challenge laws that you believe to be unjust or illegal. This is the whole checks and balances thing they taught us in grade school. The legislative bodies make the laws and the judicial system interprets the law, including whether or not the laws themselves are “legal”. I don’t understand what Bush did that you consider so subversive and immoral? He challenged the law created by the Florida legislature. He challenged it in the appropriate forum, as was his right, both legally and morally. You may disagree with the ultimate interpretation, but the process wa in no way thwarted, subverted or dealt with in an immoral manner.
You are all about characterization, Lib. “first move”? Are you really serious? Is that how you really see it? It’s called asking for a recount. Happens every day in elections. SOP. Election is amazingly close, count ‘em again. Numbers changed? Count ‘em again by hand. SOP SOP SOP.
It is NOT SOP to go running off to court to ask that the SOP be stopped!
Excuse me… “remedy” implies that Gore did something wrong. He did nothing wrong. He did nothing immoral. He did what people who are in an election usually do when the vote is incredibly close. He asked for recounts. He asked for recounts according to the laws of Florida, the state where the election took place. There is no ** need ** for a “remedy” to that, and I’d appreciate it if you’d stop referring to it as a given that there is.
As for the Grand Canyon leap from “Democrats in Florida filed lawsuits over the ballots” to “Gore started the court fights”. Sorry, that’s just a ridiculous lie. Whether it is a lie you know you are telling or a lie you are also telling yourself, I certainly cannot say. But it is a lie, so please stop saying it like it means anything. Or you can prove it. But keep in mind that simply * saying * it again does not constitute proof. And remember, showing that the original lawsuit was started by Democrats does not mean that the original lawsuit was started by Al Gore, m’kay?
Are you making the claim that asking for a recount according to the provisions of Florida law = public slander? Please say you aren’t, because then I’d just have to wish you a nice day and move along to a discussion with someone who is being sensible.
Well, you may not have voted for him, but you seem pretty ready to swallow (or did it originate with you?) some exceptionally creative reasoning to make him the wronged party in this. You certainly are going to bat for his position, in a manner more logically outrageous than I have seen in quite some time, if ever. I’d say that makes you his supporter.
Really? What’s dishonorable? You never responded to my earlier question…do you think elections should be decided by who concedes, or what the votes say? Please answer this: if Gore had not withdrawn his concession, and the final tally had shown him to be the winner, what would you suggest happen then? From HIM, not Bush (who should obviously concede at that point.). There was nothing dishonorable about withdrawing the concession…it was * premature*, and based on incomplete information.
You can label yourself a libertarian, but you are looking through some seriously Bush-Reality-distortion-glasses on this.
You keep calling them his cronies. Have you linked to some evidence of this that I have missed, or do you hope to win the argument through repetition?
I’m not arguing about that first case. I don’t care who was involved, and I haven’t refuted that it was Democrats. In the link you offered the name Al Gore appeared once: “They claim the county’s confusing ballot violated state law and caused them to vote for Pat Buchanan instead of Al Gore.” What exactly was that link supposed to be documenting? That the people who filed the lawsuit were Democrats? They were also Holocaust survivors, teachers, and retired banking officer/homemaker. Gore’s “cronies” :rolleyes: You are the one who keeps making the association that any Democrat = Al Gore. Well, if that’s the case, then Pat Robertson is George W. Bush. Strom Thurmond is George Bush. December is George Bush. My psycho neighbor that wants to nuke the entire mideast is George Bush.
Like I said…depends on your definition of moral. (And please stop putting words in my mouth, ok? The words I use are carefully chosen, generally, and there are plenty of them to choose from.) I think that it’s immoral, not to mention hypocrisy made manifest for a man to sign into law a standard in his own state, then when that same standard looks like it might go against him in another state, he decides that the laws are “unjust”. (By the way, it seems a bit odd to think of a law as being “illegal”. Unconstitutional, maybe…but if it’s the law, it’s legal).
He wasn’t operating from a sense of right and wrong, he was operating from pure, unadulterated self-interest. As I said earlier, maybe Al was, too. But Al’s behavior was right in line with what law and good sense expect in this situation. Bush’s behavior was that of a petulant and grossly spoiled child suffering from a grotesque sense of entitlement.
Ok. What about on November 8? And whoever said that all parties had to be perfectly satisfied? How about shooting for satisfying the majority of the American voting public, most of whom, at the start, were perfectly content to wait for the * truth, * whatever it might be, to be determined.
Convenient and painfully thin excuse. Ask any number of constitutional scholars…hey, screw that, ask the four dissenting justices of SCOTUS! And if it was such a great idea, why did The Fantastic Five make sure to say that this wasn’t to be construed as any kind of meaningful precedent, or whatever lame language they used?
Bah!
Check, please!
Stoid
Stoid:
Brother Scylla’ll be handling this one.
Truly thou art as full of shit as God is mercy. Two automatic recounts are SOP.
“Selective and subjective” is icky in the eyes of all righteous men, and it is only befitting that a plague of lawyers befall Gore (and in case thou hast not gotten it, with a name like “Gore” you know he has to be the bad guy,) and that he be called forth before the Supreme Justices to amend for his sin.
Then how do you explain Earth in the Balance?
A lie? I thinkest not. Methinks Lib is technically mistaken. Lib doth maintain that Gore performeth the first actionable offense. 'Tis true twas Bush who called down the Lawyers, but yea if he was instigated by the unscrupulous actions of that chubby satanic robot Gore, can we really hold it against him?
So 'tis true thou art correct in this.