I’d like to apologize. I’ve been really pissy lately, mostly because I’ve had my fill of being insulted and sneered at, and every attempt I’ve made to engage in a polite discussion has been met with loud derision rather than actual debate. That’s in real life, mind. If you look at my location you might note that I’m an island in a sea of liberalism. No one around here is willing to admit that I might possible have good, logical reasons for holding a position, and I’m always summarily dismissed with “you must be stupid to think that way.” How do I counter that?
I avoid political threads on the SDMB because I know I’m not going to react well. I take too much abuse in the real world to want to subject myself to more on a message board I visit for recreation. I really should have stuck with my personal “no politics” policy, especially this week, but there are far, far to many threads in all forums to avoid.
So I’m sorry, AHunter3. I can see that you really do want to hold an honest, forthright discussion and that you really do want to understand why I believe the way I do. This thread was a noble effort, and I shouldn’t have shit all over it. That said, I’m not up to the challenge, because in my experience it never works out and everybody walks away tired and frustrated.
Speaking for myself, no. I have a very hard time imagining a scenario whereby I would vote for a Democrat for president. The last one with values that seem similar to mine would be JFK, and I’ve often said that he would probably be regarded as a Republican by today’s standards.
I’ve said in other threads I think a cultural civil war is going on in this country. On one side is the left and on the other is the right, and while I readily admit that much good has come from the left over the last few decades in terms of the advancement of personal rights, I think much else about the quality of life in this country has suffered because of liberal influence.
So, being as how I am much more in line philosophically with the conservative mindset, it would be very unlikely that would I vote to put a Democrat in the White House.
Regarding foreign policy, I think several things you said are true. Things change with the wind in these matters. Countries that were our staunchest allies fifty years ago are our antagonists now, and countries that were our mortal enemies then are strong allies now, and have been for years.
Mostly, I find other countries objections to our actions to be irony made manifest. They condemn us for acting in our own best interests and not taking into account theirs, but I don’t know of any country anywhere in the world that sublimates its own best interests to that of either the world community or a specific set of allies. In other words, I think they’re demanding of us something that no other country in the world is doing, and for no other reason than that it suits them.
I think we have to be as diplomatic as we reasonably can, but I certainly don’t think we should sublimate our own national interests and most especially our own safety and security to that of some other country or group of countries.
It’s getting late, or should I say early (it’s 7:50 where I am) and I’m getting tired. I hope this all makes sense. My apologies if not, as I’m too tired even to preview…but I hope this answers your question at least somewhat.
Yeah, that was getting tiresome. And he did describe a lot of policy initiatives, each of which seemed nice in its own right, but each of which were going to cost money we don’t have right now and aren’t going to get, not if we aren’t raising taxes on people making less than 200K/yr and still intend on increasing military spending and funding for homeland security.
I think a lot of us liberals were thinking “Dream on, the Republican Congress isn’t going to let even half of this see the light of day. Just go in there and mop up Iraq and international relations and balance the freakin’ budget and quit promising the moon. You can’t do all that shit. If we weren’t at war and had a budget surplus and a booming economy, then maybe.”
Note that I said they seemed nice in their own right. He’d do his “I have a plan” number and explain it (or point you to his web site, which would do so) and we’d be saying “Yeah, that would be cool”.
It’s funny, I suppose, but a lot of us had faith that he’d bring fiscal responsibility back to the White House partly as a consequence of having a Republican Congress to clip the wings from some of his dreams. I figured Democratic Health Insurance Plan II wasn’t going to make it out of the docks before sinking. Expanded college tuition assistance plans, yeah maybe.
I think this election has pretty much cemented that observation into place.
Try taking a big step back and looking at the world, not just the country. I guess you’re happy as long as it’s not your end of the boat that’s leaking.
I rarely post my conservative views on this board because many liberal responses tend to be so angry and, dare I say, narrow minded. This doesn’t excuse many conservative idiots I have read on this board. I think we have all thought to ourselves ‘This guy/girl is on MY side?! Holy Crap!’ But I think I have found a thread where I can be reasoned.
What I really hope we can accomplish over the next four years is an end to the divisiveness that has had a stranglehold on the nation. Neither side has been willing to give ground, and I think it all goes back to 2000 because of this situation: The Left says “Our guy really won” and The Right says "No, our guy really won.
Even after September 11, when The President had historical support, many liberals supported him only because he was the only thing we had, not because they liked him. Slowly, the real divide exposed itself again when Pres. Bush recognized a War on Terrorism, and decided to make it an offensive, rather than defensive, war. It doesn’t help that He screwed up stuff in the fight, and that conservatives tried to defend it when serious re-evaluation was necessary, but some blame can be placed on liberals too. I think so because they have had a natural, and justified, opposition to war, but refused to work with Pres. Bush to fight an effective war (I am not invoking Sen. Kerry, but he had the rhetoric right.) because he was not Their Guy. Conservatives took the opposite approach. We decided that we had to support him in the War on Terrorism, no matter what, because he was Our Guy. Everyone is at fault for The Divide.
Bush now has a mandate, and has the votes in congress to do what he wants. I sincerely hope he doesn’t take this approach. The first thing he needs to do upon inauguration is extend an olive branch to all Americans and encourage everyone to stop the bickering. He can set an example by working with the Democrats in congress first, especially Sen. Kerry, instead of the Republicans. If he and Kerry can be on good terms after the dirtiest campaign in recent history, then maybe people will see that the rift is curable. The way I see it, this is the most important thing: Before we think about abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research, tax cuts, Iraq, outsourcing, welfare, etc., we need to remind each other that we are all Americans and we are all in this together. We are smart enough to compromise, and we need to, yet we don’t want to.
Once we stand on equal ground -by “we” I mean Americans-, and stop viewing each other as unreasonable enemies, but rather reasonable opponents, then we can start debating these other issues. In the Big Scheme of Things, the issues I mentioned above are all piddly crap if we can’t stand together.
In less-civilized and poorer nations, civil wars have been started over lesser divides. I don’t think this will happen, but I do think that a continued bitter rift will eventually lead to the loss of The United States as the powerful and good nation that I think it is.
Yes, Giraffe, I hope we know what we are doing, too.
#1: The economy is going to get better. This is a bit disingenious of me, because I don’t believe that much that happens in an economy- good or bad- can be attributed to the government. But if you’re worried that four more Bush years will mean four more years of slow growth and murky maybe-we’re-in-a-recession, let me assure you that it won’t be the case.
#2: Bush has already announced that he is going to reform Social Security. Whether you agree with any of his ideas or not- and I don’t know what his ideas are, yet, exactly- there is no question that Social Security needs to be reformed. In ten years, the Baby Boomers are going to start receiving Social Security benefits, and that means we’re going to be moving from a system where more payments are received than benefits sent out to one where more benefits are sent out than payments received. Up to this point, even discussing the idea that maybe a change needs to be made to Social Security has been met with serious hysteria from the AARP and Democrats who don’t want to rock the boat; their idea has been that curtailed government spending (i.e., Gore’s lockbox) would make up the difference. Of course, that would mean government not spending money that’s sitting right in front of it, begging to be pork.
With his ‘mandate’, Bush is going to try and ‘reform’ Social Security. Even if you don’t like his ideas, adding ideas into the political discourse is going to force Democrats to likewise come up with ideas to make Social Security more stable. Which means that, rather than pretending that there’s no real problem with it (which is what we’ve done for thirty years), we can actually start discussing possible solutions.
#3: Peace in the Middle East may be more approachable than ever. Sharon, with Bush’s backing, has won passage of restrictions of further settlements in Gaza. Arafat’s death opens up the possibility that the next Palestinian leader can be a better negotiator and less beholden to the fanatical interests there.
I don’t even watch the Daily Show, but I agree with Stewart that the political shows are just bickering without attempts to come to reasonable agreements or at least understandings. I hate that, and so I almost never listen to or watch political shows any more. Even the ones with whom I would more likely agree are run by political bigots who don’t want to listen (Hannity, Limbaugh).
It drains me spiritually to listen to that, plus they do get freako calls from people like the guy I heard who wanted there to be a law that talk shows would have to present and argue for both sides of an issue. A law. The solution to everything. Well, this guy was not mainstream, so I forgive the Dems for his jumping on their train.
I don’t believe I heard anybody give an answer to the OPs question! What I expect Bush and the Republicans in congress to do is appoint 3 or 4 supreme court justices who don’t feel they have the right to legislate from the bench.
Much of the bickering comes from people who have insulated themselves from opposite viewpoints, or rejected them without reasoning, like Rush Limbaugh. They don’t have discussions with others, only themselves, and base their thinking on these inward arguments. Without outside stimulation, they get stale in thought and ideology. Then they are aghast when they open up and someone disagrees with them because all that time spent thinking inwardly convinced them that they had discovered the facts. Once they begin arguing with others, they take disagreements personally and defend them, even when they know they are really wrong, again like Rush Limbaugh.