Hence you Username. 
I think that might have been me John.
In some cases, I think there is a weird desire by certain people to WANT to perceive themselves as victims. They like the feeling of anger that it entails. And so everything becomes personal, even when it’s clearly not. This mindset is most often observed in undergraduates at cushy schools with too much time on their hands. They need to feel aligned with the oppressed and put-upon in this world.
If I’m not angry to the point of delerium, I’m not alive.
If you want to see a good movie that illustrates this type of behavior, watch Citizen Ruth. If you don’t laugh your ass off at BOTH sides, you’ve got a problem.
I think it’s more exasperation then anger. It is with the people who consider themselves well informed at least. I find myself asking over and over who believes this line we’re being fed?
I’ll check that out.
Are you crazy? America hasn’t had this much fun with an election since 1972!
If you like political satire, you should enjoy it. It stars Laura Dern and has a hilarious minor appearance by Burt Reynolds.
Yes. Batshit crazy.
It is not. Be calmed.
Go find a book about the civil war. Or perhaps even about the presidential campaign of Jefferson. Stay away from anything newer than 1960. Those might be too fresh. Learn a little more about what political campaigns and political rhetoric was like 100 years ago and you might see this season in perspective.
In the meantime remember that most American’s don’t vote. They don’t precisely because it is not a matter of life or death. Keep your passion for the political process, that’s a good thing. But lose the hatred. It will only poison your mind. I’m speaking from experience here.
You know what? I don’t LIKE being told I shouldn’t be angry.
Like this.
Fuck you. Bush stole the election. That’s why I’VE been angry for 4 years. He stole the election (want to talk movies? Watch Unprecedented), then spent 4 years running this country into the ground while people slept, or didn’t care, or encouraged, or saw and were appalled. He’s still doing it. He’ll keep on doing it if re-elected.
Tell me I’m playing the victim? Fuck you. You’re undecided my ass. You know exactly who you’re going to vote for.
Anyone who isn’t a crazy-loon right-winger (who’d vote for Bush even if he promised to nuke Europe), or doesn’t vote at all because they’re “tired of the debate” or whatthefuckever pansy-assed I-Hate-My-Country-So-THERE! reason they give, needs to look at this page:
http://www.thousandreasons.org/
It’s only the beginning. Tell me we have no reason to be angry. I dare you.
The right-wing spent 8 years piling on Bill Clinton for stupid little shit (which was crazy, because Democrats had far more reason to be upset with old Bill than the average Republican), then used their evil Republican Noise Machine to turn a good, fine, decent man like Al Gore, who would have made an excellent president and who almost certainly would have stopped 9/11 before it happened, into a joke. Then they stole the election, then, once they were in power, had the nerve to say “we all need to get along…we need to stop the anger and hatred” which gave them license to do anything they wanted, and if we complained, we looked like the insane loonballs.
Fuck that shit! I’m angry and I have REASONS to be angry. Reasons that are quite a bit more important than getting a fucking blowjob, then lying about it out of embarrassment.
You don’t have any REASON to be angry.
What? He dared me!
You’re nuts. I really do hope Bush wins now. How will that make you feel? Huh???
You could not be more wrong Cluricaun.
We wish to turn back the clock to at least before Roosevelt. Privatizing Social Security should be the appropriate nail in the coffin for the New Deal. That would take us to the 20’s, not 50’s ya big silly.
No, believe it or not, Equipoise is a sweet little old grandmother…who’s lost her mind.
We had vitriol back then, but it did not “leak out” into as many threads. There would be, literaly, two or three angry threads, and that was it.
With your name I would expect nothing less.
You folks wanna know why things are so angry? I can tell you. There are two reasons.
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The left feels that the election was stolen from them. The 2000 election was so close ( no, I don’t believe that it is possible to say who got even the popular vote) that it was pretty much a coin flip. A coin flip, that is, that got left to a, barely, right-wing majority Supreme Court. So all those on the left feel like Bush was forced on them through unfair and illegitimate means.
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George W. Bush fulfills, in their minds, pretty much every negative stereotype of a right-winger that the left has. He is, not that I agree with this, a white male, born-again Christian (in that he was a crazy hedonistic fuck-up once, but has now “seen the light”) who uses this to appeal to, successfully even (!), middle America. He is born of “old money”, what’s more, old right-wing political money, he is ignorant and stupid (two very different things) connected to big and unpopular businesses (oil) and is giving them, his “cronies”, special breaks when he can because he is just an ignorant and stupid tool. Because of this he is like salt in their wound of 2000. Because of this every shity thing he does hurts them doubly worse, as if a thousand voices were saying “nyah nyaaah” right to their face.
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Opal, we will always love you, our dear, sweet Opal.
Is there any left-winger that disagrees with this?
I think you should be angry at yourself for beliving everything you read on the internet. :rolleyes:
And please, do tell, how a President Gore would have prevented 9/11 in the 7 1/2 months between the inauguration and the attacks?
An attack years in the planning, by the way.
In answer to the OP, my guess is that people are inherently tribal. Arguing “us” against “them” is instinctive. Being somewhat civilized, we generally keep it within limits because if we poor too much emotion into an issue that others consider trivial, mockery will arise.
But politics is supposed to be about important issues. Especially when there’s a war going on. So now people feel free to indulge in the most extreme of partisan combat and feel justified doing so because of the supposed weight of the issue.
Yeah, but you’ve just been a bastion of impartiality lately, John. :rolleyes:
Seriously, some of you dudes need to get off your high horse.
Yes.
I don’t give one shit about the 2000 election. People should really let that shit go, it’s not a factor anymore. What’s so important to me is if he’s reelected, it’s like the American people putting a huge stamp of approval on what he’s done. We had no idea what it was going to be like this when he was elected, but we do now.
No, the concern with Bush is he’s going to get us nuked.
She’s probably off hacking someone with a kitchen knife! 
Well, there is the possibility that he could have.
Any single detail could have stopped 9/11.
Viewed objectively, the Bin Ladin operation had to go off just right…or it would have failed.
In point of fact, it was only a partial success–one plane never reached its target, & other aircraft were rumored to on the list of targets to be siezed, but all planes were grounded, far too quickly. Most people forget that. We did stop at least some of the attacks, via air traffic control & the FAA lockdown on flights.
So, given that some relatively simple things threw a monkeywrench into the works—yes; Al Gore could have stopped or, more likely, great reduced the effectiveness, of the 9/11 attacks. Bush’s error was to sit in front of those kids in the Texas preschool, & do nothing for the first , critical 15 minutes. Virtually anything he could have ordered could have bollixed the Al Qida attack, to some degree.