Debate aftermath

From around the globe..

from JoeUser Forums

Stephen Green is pretty ticked off with how Democrats are trying to undermine the US election with their shenegans. Read it for yourself. And here's a running tally of voter fraud.

Slate has some interesting views on the whole Cheney's Daughter is gay thing. My own point is fairly succinct: If Cheney's daughter were suffering from Parkison's disease, would it have been acceptable for Kerry to bring her up as a reason to fund fetal stem cell research? Perhaps you would think that's okay but I wouldn't necessarily want people so lacking in tack and class to be in my home. Talk about an inappropriate time and place to bring up personal family business.

The election will be close. Whoever wins Ohio is going to win the election. Simple as that. So I won't be staying up too late. I'll just wait to see who wins in Ohio.

My wife is going to vote for Bush. I'll probably be reluctantly be voting for Bush. I'm more of a Kerry detractor at this point than a Bush supporter. I really dislike class warfare bullshit. And Kerry seems to be all about that. It really gets under my skin every time he talks about "the tax cut for the rich". Especially from guys who pay little in taxes relative to their wealth because they hardly earn any taxes. Hey Kerry, how about we start taxing idle, unearned wealth more. Where's that proposal? I'm busting my ass earning money, creating jobs, etc. and you want to raise my taxes?

It's also hard to take the foreign policy views of anyone who voted against the 1990 gulf war resolution seriously. I have no doubt that he would return us to the pragmatic, Clintonian foreign policy that led to 9/11. In fact, Kerry's so pragmatic that he's not going to bother to try to do something about Social Security. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that if we don't dramatically change the system soon, it's going to collapse when those baby boomers retire.

I've known guys like Kerry. He's the guy who doesn't propose very much but just sits back and bitches about the guys doing something. The Democrats should have nominated Howard Dean. At least he has principles.

politics
10,346 views 30 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
Hey Kerry, how about we start taxing idle, unearned wealth more. Where's that proposal? I'm busting my ass earning money, creating jobs, etc. and you want to raise my taxes?


Would you support a revised version of the estate tax?
Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
Bush is destroying the ability to meet our needs in the future by the debt. We must pay for what is important enough to spend. The $7.5 Trillion Debt is heading to $10 Trillion per the Bush budget projection by FY2008. We simply can not spend at the current rate and have the loss in revenue by cutting tax the way Bush has done. His idea of making the Tax cuts pernanent will be that last straw. We will be looking at annual interest of between $450 and 500 Billion every year because of the Bush deficit.

We need the revenue from the tax cuts to the top 2% to pay for our security . We also need the Republicans to cut Pork which is higher under the Republicans than under Democrats. Buash says Kerry is tax and spend and is to the left. Bush is Charge and spend and ad far to the right as anyone. We need a government in the center. Kerry in the White House and the Republicans in control of at least one house of Congress will produce government in the center. We can not afford to have either the Republicans or the Democrats in both ther congress and the Whitre House!
CursorFX - Customize your Windows cursor
Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
Draginol...
Just wondering how much sway the political debates have over there to the final result..?? over here in Oz.. clearly Latham won the debate but didnt win the election, and that went for the last election we had as well.
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
If Cheney's daughter were suffering from Parkison's disease, would it have been acceptable for Kerry to bring her up as a reason to fund fetal stem cell research?
First of all, being gay isn't a sickness, and I think it says something that people are making that analogy.

The relevant comparison would be if Cheney's daughter were black and open about having a white husband -- but the campaign kept him hidden away (which was true until a little over a week ago) -- and Bush supported a constitutional ban on interracial marriage. Also, if Mary Cheney were an active campaigner for Bush/Cheney (which she is), while the Republican National Committee sent out leaflets warning people that a Democratic victory would mean blacks could marry whites.

Mary Cheney has been very active both in this election and the last. She is a public participant in a political campaign where gay marriage is an important enough issue that it's been brought up by the moderators in two debates.
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
Reply #2 By: COL Gene - 10/14/2004 5:26:56 PM
Bush is destroying the ability to meet our needs in the future by the debt. We must pay for what is important enough to spend. The $7.5 Trillion Debt is heading to $10 Trillion per the Bush budget projection by FY2008. We simply can not spend at the current rate and have the loss in revenue by cutting tax the way Bush has done. His idea of making the Tax cuts pernanent will be that last straw. We will be looking at annual interest of between $450 and 500 Billion every year because of the Bush deficit.


This is your personal spin. Bush is touting the debt in half in 5 years.
Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top
I'm as conservative as most (well, center-right, how's that?) but all this "sky is falling" stuff about the current deficit is kind of silly. For most of my lifetime, we've run a deficit. It'll come around; our economy is stronger than the people with a vested interest in it being bad (Kerry, et al) admit.

One of the interesting ironies to me is that the Dems like to harp on how "Clinton" & the courageous Kerry opposed their own party to balance the budget, but what they avoid telling you is that the stock market boom of the 90's raised tax revenues (from those god-awful rich people) so much they couldn't find a way to spend it fast enough. That was a true demonstration of how economic prosperity fills the government's coffers better than anything else.

The focus should be on how to grow the economy & keep government a reasonable burden, not on how to take more of our money from us, rich or poor. Bush is right, it's our money.

Kerry also made a telling comment about the Constitution - about how it "affords" us rights. That fits in with the general view that Government "has" and "gives" to us, rather than "we" have and "give" to the Government, in terms of authority & taxes. The reality and the intent of our Founders was clearly the latter arrangement. The people, in the form of the Constitution, set forth what powers the people would grant to its government, and just to make sure no one got confused, later enumerated the Bill of Rights.

Cheers,
Daiwa

Cheers,
Daiwa
Reply #7 from JoeUser Forums Top
Reply #6 By: Daiwa - 10/14/2004 9:34:10 PM
I'm as conservative as most (well, center-right, how's that?) but all this "sky is falling" stuff about the current deficit is kind of silly. For most of my lifetime, we've run a deficit. It'll come around; our economy is stronger than the people with a vested interest in it being bad (Kerry, et al) admit.

One of the interesting ironies to me is that the Dems like to harp on how "Clinton" & the courageous Kerry opposed their own party to balance the budget, but what they avoid telling you is that the stock market boom of the 90's raised tax revenues (from those god-awful rich people) so much they couldn't find a way to spend it fast enough. That was a true demonstration of how economic prosperity fills the government's coffers better than anything else.

The focus should be on how to grow the economy & keep government a reasonable burden, not on how to take more of our money from us, rich or poor. Bush is right, it's our money.

Kerry also made a telling comment about the Constitution - about how it "affords" us rights. That fits in with the general view that Government "has" and "gives" to us, rather than "we" have and "give" to the Government, in terms of authority & taxes. The reality and the intent of our Founders was clearly the latter arrangement. The people, in the form of the Constitution, set forth what powers the people would grant to its government, and just to make sure no one got confused, later enumerated the Bill of Rights.

Cheers,
Daiwa


Careful now, you know your going to hear a lot of flack for this.
Reply #8 from JoeUser Forums Top
I support the estate tax strongly. I don't like inherited wealth beyond a certain point. However, the debt stuff is nonsense. I don't like deficits or debt either, but our debt as a % of GDP is less than most of the other G8 nations. So let's keep things in perspective.
Reply #9 from JoeUser Forums Top
We're a huge country with huge expenses. Lets factor in the economic conditions Bush inherited from the .com burst. Then factor in 9/11 and currently the War in Iraq, as much as these political spin doctors try to put it, the economy is very roubost and strong. I wouldn't have thrown in my savings into the market if I felt that things were not going to improve.
Reply #10 from PolMach Forums Top
I have one thing to say about Kerry. In the second debate, he said that the sanctions on IraQ would have worked, and that Bush rushed into Iraq. Then, not ten minutes later, he said sanctions on IraN would not work. I don't know if anyone else caught that, but I thought it was interesting
Reply #11 from JoeUser Forums Top
Careful now, you know your going to hear a lot of flack for this.


It's OK, I'm a grown-up (unless you ask my wife!).

Cheers,
Daiwa
Reply #12 from JoeUser Forums Top
"It's also hard to take the foreign policy views of anyone who voted against the 1990 gulf war resolution seriously. I have no doubt that he would return us to the pragmatic, Clintonian foreign policy that led to 9/11."

I think solely blaming 9/11 on Clinton's foreign policies is overly simplistic. Foreign policies going all the way back to the Reagan adminstration helped facilitate that tragic event. There were 3 main players partially responsible for the rise of islamic jihad in Afghanistan (Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the United States). All three countries funded and armed this group as far back as the 1980s. The Reagan administration started a proxy war with the former Soviet Union for their invading Afghanistan as part of the U.S. "containment" strategy during the cold war. This same strategy of containing the Soviets in Afghanistan was continued by George Bush Sr. until they finally withdrew from Afghanistan shortly before the fall of the Berlin wall. The idea was to bog down the Soviet Union in Afganistan with their own little Vietnam war in order to put an economic strain on the Soviet Union's economy and their military for an extended period of time to facilitate the Soviet's collapse. George Bush Sr. continued to fund these islamic groups in Afganistan even after the Soviet Union collapsed, because Afghanistan sort of "fell off the radar screen" after Soviet withdrawl. In fact, at one point George Bush Sr. didn't even seem to KNOW that the CIA was still funding Afghan jihadists! After Soviet withdraw, all the warlords were trying to gain control of the country. The U.S. continued to send arms and money to Afghan warlords whom we thought would be most friendly to the U.S. and U.S. businesses. These warlords were in turn, sending our money and weapons to jihad groups in an effort to gain control of the country. Although this continued to go on during the Clinton administration, CLINTON was the one who finally stopped CIA cash flows to these groups. As you probably aleady know, Osama bin Laden is a byproduct of the Afghan/Soviet mess. He never would have reached "legendary" status in the Muslim world without U.S., Pakistani, and the Saudi money/weapons being sent to Afghanistan to defeat the Soviets. This is very well documented in numerous mainstream books, research, and articles written on the subject...not a "leftist" conspiracy theory. In fact, Pakistan and the Saudi Arabia continued to fund the Taliban and Islamic jihad in Afganistan AFTER Osama attacked the USS Cole and inspite of U.S. pleas for them to knock it off. So, why didn't the U.S. take action against Pakistan or Saudi Arabia? Answer: A combination of politics and a lack of viable military options.

That's why I think it is absolutely ridiculous when Bush calls the Saudis and Pakistan "strong" partners in the war on terror. Did you know that it was the Pakistani head of intelligence who was the "bag-man" for 9/11? The U.S. knows about it too...which is why he was forced to quietly resign. But he was never arrested and put on trial...just like A. Q. Kahn was never punished for selling Pakistan's nuclear weapons secrets to North Korea. Despite all this...Pakistan gets a free pass by George W. Bush. Economic sanctions against Pakistan were lifted and they were REWARDED with 3 BILLION of OUR MONEY! Go figure...

Anyway, my whole point here is that you can't just place the failure to prevent 9/11 on just Democrats or just Republicans. There were a lot of players involved and blaming one person or one party is simply not fair or accurate. There is a lot of blame to go around...
Reply #13 from JoeUser Forums Top
"First of all, being gay isn't a sickness, and I think it says something that people are making that analogy."

blogic, I couldn't agree more. It's comparing apples with oranges.
Reply #14 from JoeUser Forums Top
What do you call a genetic condition that causes humans to be attracted to members of the same sex? I could care less about the sexual preferences of someone but it is abnormal by definition (affects less than 5% of the population).

The point of my analogy is that one shouldn't use your opponent's family members for political fodder. My family is my own private business. If they're not running for public office, leave them out of it.
Reply #15 from JoeUser Forums Top
That Kerry discharge business is very interesting, Drag, particularly the article by Beldar.

For what it's worth, when I resigned from the Naval Reserve one year after being separated from active duty, I simply submitted a letter of resignation and received in return a letter from the Secretary of the Navy (John Lehman at the time) referencing only my resignation and accepting it, a First Endorsement from the CO of the Naval Reserve Personnel Center forwarding the acceptance and requesting surrender of my ID card, and my Honorable Discharge Certificate signed by John Lehman. That was it. Nothing about BuPersMan, Section this or that, or "by direction of".

This was only 3 years after the documents affirming Kerry's discharge were executed, so it is reasonably comparable.

Cheers,
Daiwa
Reply #16 from JoeUser Forums Top
Bush could win without Ohio if he gets both Wisconsin and Iowa and holds all his 2000 states except New Hampshire. I don't expect that to happen though.
Reply #17 from JoeUser Forums Top
Do you count yourself into the 1% of US. richest?
Reply #18 from JoeUser Forums Top
After reading a lot of articles, blogs, etc. about Kerry's reference to Cheney's daughter, I am a bit amazed at the left's seeming insistence on making this into a gay issue.

Bullhorn turned on - IT'S NOT ABOUT BEING GAY! - Bullhorn off

Sorry if that hurt your ears.

It's about the common courtesy of not using your opponents family as a political tool. It is and always has been considered impolite and bad form to do so.

Interestingly enough, whether intended or not, Draginol makes a relevant segue from the issue of Democrats using whatever means necessary to win, noted in Stephen Green's blog, to the uncouth tactic used by Kerry in bringing up Cheney's family for political gain.

The latter being an example of the former?
Reply #19 from JoeUser Forums Top
What do you call a genetic condition that causes humans to be attracted to members of the same sex?


A gift from God. A blessing. Hope for the future of the planet. (Oh, I know what YOU probably call it, but since you asked us I though I might enlighten you that yours is not the only opinion on the matter.)

abnormal by definition (affects less than 5% of the population).


Aside from being unsourced, this number is highly contested. But nevermind that. Let's just ASSume for the moment that this percentage might be accurate. Kind of amazing that you need a Constitutional Ammendment to "protect" marriage from the even smaller percentage of that 5% who want to pursue some state recognition of their partnerships. Straight marriage must be a really delicate and vulnerable institution if it needs constitutional protection from this but not, say, the 50% divorce rate.

Kerry sound-byted the issue. Edwards and Cheney did a better job. Edwards elaborated one of the Dem/Left positions on this issue -- that the FMA is election year tactics to shore up Bush's support with his conservative religious base. The ammendment doesn't have a chance in hell of passing with this congress or even with the most conservative projections of what it is likely to be after the Nov 2 election. Nonetheless, the President chose to make the FMA an election year issue. Nevermind that a family member of his running mate who also campaigns for him happens to be gay and OUT OF THE CLOSET. In response to Edwards, Cheney referenced his support for the president's policies and his acknowledgement of Edwards kind words about his daughter -- and then sacrificed the bulk of his 90 second response -- time he could have used to shift to other rhetoric and other issues.

The Dems didn't bring this issue to the table. But when the GOP does, either in defense of FMA or through questionable flyers, I think it is absolutely justified to note that this is an issue that affects all of is and that gay people can be found in ALL of our families.

As for homosexuality "by definition" being abnormal or analogous to a genetic desease -- I think I've learned a lot more about diseased thinking and abnormality listening to what some of the more rabid conservatives have to say on JU.
Reply #20 from JoeUser Forums Top
What do you call a genetic condition that causes humans to be attracted to members of the same sex? I could care less about the sexual preferences of someone but it is abnormal by definition (affects less than 5% of the population).


Bold statement, but true. May not be a sickness, but certainly abnormal.

A gift from God. A blessing. Hope for the future of the planet. (Oh, I know what YOU probably call it, but since you asked us I though I might enlighten you that yours is not the only opinion on the matter.)

- funniest thing I have read all day. Full of mirth.

Aside from being unsourced, this number is highly contested. But nevermind that. Let's just ASSume for the moment that this percentage might be accurate. Kind of amazing that you need a Constitutional Ammendment to "protect" marriage from the even smaller percentage of that 5% who want to pursue some state recognition of their partnerships. Straight marriage must be a really delicate and vulnerable institution if it needs constitutional protection from this but not, say, the 50% divorce rate.

Not delicate, just that the so called 5% are supported by a liberal media. For the record, Kerry does NOT support gay marriage.

As for homosexuality "by definition" being abnormal or analogous to a genetic desease -- I think I've learned a lot more about diseased thinking and abnormality listening to what some of the more rabid conservatives have to say on JU.

How original. Let's think for just a minute. A lot of people believe evolution, for the sake of argument let's say evolution is the answer. How does homosexuality play into that? Answer, it does not. Homosexuality is doomed to extinction. Unless of course we all start budding or something.
Reply #21 from PolMach Forums Top
Ask a Psychologist if Homosexuality is Genetic?

Logically it could not be genetic because if it was, face it, they would have all died off centuries ago.

I will post more later with sources

- Grim X
Reply #22 from PolMach Forums Top
The Democrats should have nominated Howard Dean.

...and we are at 100% aggreement Drag. .
Reply #23 from JoeUser Forums Top
Hey Bungy, "Hope for the future of the planet"?..Technically it would be bad for mankind if same sex was prevalant since..well..it takes one from each sex to continue life.


Shall we open the "population explosion"can of worms? We should/should not be worried about the carrying capacity of the planet and the 6 billion of us (and growing) that are consuming unrenweable resources at alwarming rates? Nah, let's not go there.

Look, my position is not that everyone must now take the blow-job pledge of allegiance for a queer planet. Unlike (some) conservatives, I don't see this as a gays vs. straights issue. There can be both (all?) forms of sexual orientation on the planet. Thankfully, straight breeders have been successfully populating the planet with gay people (as well as straights, bis, intersexed, etc.) for millenia. I am happy to note that the Cheneys have done their part on this point. Also, thanks to artificial insemination (of both high and low tech varieties) and the fact that being gay doesn't render you incapable of procreation, gay folks can and often do produce children to carry on the procreation function of the human species. Moreover, they don't necessarily produce gay children -- just tolerant and open minded ones (according to some studies -- citations upon request if you're interested). And this, folks, is why I argue that (some) gay people offer

Hope for the future of the planet.


The fact that some people will continue to try to argue from a place that says, "If everybody is gay then there will be no more children" (and the like) really indicates the prevalent shoddy level of thinking on this topic. Make the issue as black an white as you can, I guess. Spread fear of a declining population (despite all the evidence and reasoning to the contrary). Whatever. Of course, these are the same folks who are made uncomfortable by the fact that their VP has an openly gay daughter. And isn't that really why members of the Bush administration are calling "foul" when the Dems keep reminding us that gays are everywhere, even in and connected to the Bush administration?

Forget the analogies. Forget the "it would be like" bullshit. If one of Kerry's daughters was gay, the GOP couldn't get much mileage out of pointing it out. Because while Kerry does not support gay marriage (but does support recognition of gay partnerships) this is not the sort of information that would alienate much if any of his base. That is an important difference between these candidates, and one that Bush and the GOP bring to the table by supporting an unwinnable FMA act and campaigning with homophobic mass mailings.
Reply #24 from JoeUser Forums Top
That's an interesting definition of abnormality there. How about left-handed people? That's about the same percentage - and there may be a Link between left-handedness and homosexuality!

And heck, so what if it is abnormal? I'm perfectly willing not to be normal in various ways myself - it's rather abnormal to sit in a darkened room for eight hours a day peering at a screen, but it seems to be something people want . . .
Reply #25 from JoeUser Forums Top
This seems like the only appropos article for this. The liberal media are in high gear today trying to swamp us with both propaganda and selective bad news.

Many commentators say that because U.S. foreign policy affects everyone on the planet, world citizens should have a say in who wins the White House.

Jonathan Freedland, a columnist and former U.S. correspondent for the left-leaning British newspaper The Guardian, wrote recently about being summarily dismissed by Bob Dole while covering the Kansas Republican’s failed White House bid in 1996. “No votes in Liverpool,” Dole said curtly upon hearing the Briton’s accent. He then took a question from an American reporter.

But, Freedland argued, that is no longer a sufficient response. “For who could honestly describe the 2004 contest of George Bush and John Kerry as a domestic affair? … Shouldn’t the men who want to be president win the support of Liverpool and Leipzig as well as Louisville and Lexington?”


This is from an article on MSNBC.COM today by Daniel Strieff titled, "Kerry widely favored abroad, polls show."

Whether he's favored elsewhere or not, we're electing our President, not theirs. It used to be that it was the Republicans who were allegedly behind the globalization of politics (remember the Trilateral Commission hysteria?). Now we know better. Scary stuff.

Cheers,
Daiwa