Pangloss

Really? That's interesting. For what it's worth, as a Florida undecided voter, hearing that everyone in the rest of the world would vote Kerry actually pushes me in the direction of Bush. Partly because I tend to buck the trend anyway, and partly because I know that what the world is pissed about with Bush has a lot to do with what he refused to give THEM. The world treats us like a welfare bazaar. It expects us to do what we're told, regardless of the consequences to ourselves. They complain when we ask them to return the favor. They complain when we don't give away enough money. They complain when we give out too much money (to the "wrong" people). They complain about our hypocrisy, while ignoring their own. Have we returned the favor unkindly? No doubt. I'm sure we deserve a lot of the criticisms the world has leveled against us. But has the world returned that unkindness and error with respect and consideration? Has the Christian world turned the other cheek, and helped its neighbor? Has the world lead the United States into cooperation through honorable example? Yeah, right. That glass house the rest of the world lives in could use a little Windex. And put those stones down before somebody really gets hurt!

Yeah I'm not going to get into this. I just wanted to go on record.

Obviously it means something to you, because you don't want them to be called the same thing. Why re-invent the wheel here? If they're the same, they're the same....

rofl

Sure it does. According to a recent story on ABC News, a dockworker at the Port of Los Angeles is now the single most desirable blue-colar job in the country. And train workers are being hired by the thousands. But somehow I don't think I'll be seeing the president champion this on the stump. (chuckle)

I don't consider it a lie. My complaint here was more along the lines of attempts to mislead or misconstrue, or play on Michael Moore type fears. However, upon further reflection on my part, I think perhaps I should have discarded that point before posting this thread. Kerry's point here is more along the lines of ties with big foreign business than, say, Michael Moore's assertions of outrageous dealings with the bin Laden family on 9/11. So perhaps I was a bit off the mark in that sense in my first post above. Consider this a retraction, and thanks for bringing it up so that I considered it further. Unfortunately none of this affects my other points about deception by the Kerry campaign, so my larger point seems to still be a valid one.

This campaign is becoming characterized by deceit. Forget Iraq/WMDs -- I'm talking about deception taking place right now. I want to know when Kerry is going to drop this ridiculous "ties to the Saudi royal family" line. That's the kind of Michael Moore tactic that's going to get him back into trouble. The reason he was so far behind in the polls before is because of lack of credibility in his attacks. He's dipping right back into that same well these days. In addition: - "$200 billion" is not the amount we've spent on Iraq. It's half that. - "1.6 million jobs lost" is double the actual figure. - Pharms got a $139 billion bailout is well documented to be false (see article here). - "CEOs getting big tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas" is also false (see article above). They get a tax break for keeping income earned overseas out of the country, and that break was part of the original corporate income tax from a century ago. - "We're shutting fire houses who are the first-responders here in America." Misleading. Nothing's ever come up before in the area of federal funding for local firefighters. This smacks of taking advantage of people's lack of knowledge of the issues, like when he talks about school budgets being cut back and implies that that's the federal government's fault (when in fact it's because state budgets have been cut). I agree with Howard Kurtz and the Reliable Sources crew from Sunday -- Kerry *must* know these facts to be inaccurate by now, the way the media has been pounding it home. He can't not know. So how can anyone say that Bush is a liar and Kerry is not? Of course, the Bush campaign hasn't done any better. - "The A.Q. Khan network has been brought to justice." He was actually *pardoned*! (This was the guy who sold nuclear secrets to North Korea!) - "75 percent of "known al-Qaeda leaders have been brought to justice." Blatantly false. This percentage is obviously based on the number of known AQ at the time of 9/11, compared with the number of captured men presumed to be AQ. That's hardly a valid test, even if you set aside the fact that AQ has obviously replaced a lot of those men. - "We've increased funding for dealing with nuclear proliferation about 35 percent since I've been the President." Misleading. The administration wants to cut funding for the program used to secure and eliminate nuclear/chem/bio weapons in the former Soviet Union. He's basing this claim on the fact that overall DoE spending it up 75%. (More about the Bush errors can be found here .) Comments?

Unfortunately civil unions *don't* give the same rights as marriage. Inheritence, medical benefits, adoption issues, all become major problems in civil unions. It's not just a government problem, you also have to get the private sector to recognize that they're the same thing. Aside from the issue of polygamy coming up again, I can't think of a single reason why they can't just be allowed to become "married".

Exactly. I hope you didn't miss my point....

I didn't know what he meant either. And I think I'm pretty well informed. My answer to the question of the subject of this thread is: "None". My answer to the body of the first post of this thread is: "No". I'll tell you guys a funny story about perceptions of the libertarian party. A few months ago I took a prominent Desk Editor of a major international news organziation to task via email for a story they wrote in which they quoted a source at the Cato Institute, which of course is the famous libertarian think-tank. The issue I was expressing my disappointment about isn't material at the moment, but what startled me was the reply, which suggested that since Cato was libertarian, they were therefore "more to the right than the left of the political spectrum". Something tells me the folks at Cato would not be amused to learn they're closet conservatives. (chuckle) (I have these little run-ins with higher-ups in the media all the time, by the way. You'd be amazed at some of the names in my collection -- but *ANYBODY* can do this. They really don't get as much email as you might think, and if you email them they're actually quite likely to read it and maybe even respond. My only advice is that you be respectful and not emotional or extreme in your approach, or you might be a little embarassed when they respond and point out where you made your mistake. As you might imagine, this has happened to me. More than once. And that's all I'm sayin'.)

Doh, I should know better than to check for posts here right before hitting the sack. (grin) (You know what I mean? Once you visit the forum it erases your marker points, so then you're afraid you'll forget to respond to something the next day.) Briefly (but I'll expand on this if I remember), they do concern me, but I think it's important to keep things in perspective. They're still a long way from the Hollywood stereotype Evil Republicans, and I have to actually interpret their words (at least a little) in order to arrive at an actual Fear Factor, if you take my meaning. Also, all rhetorical fears aside, we have an amazingly resilient system of governance in this country. It's been pressed hard in recent years and still shows no signs of outright breakage, or even serious decay. The point here being that the Constitution is intended as a "living document", so let's make it earn its keep by testing the hell out of it. Better to hit it up front with known entities than to have someone sneak around the back door and blind-side us when we're not looking. Throw around a few Jose Padilla's and let's see what happens. It's not pretty, but democracy never is. I'm being facetious here but I hope my meaning is coming across, in my current, very tired state. Obviously I don't mean that we should play around arbitrarily with a citizen's civil rights, for example. I'm just saying if they feel they have a case for suspension of rights on specific grounds, let's hear what they are, apply the constitutional test, and see what happens. Go easy on me, I'm exhausted and probably not expressing myself very well. (grin)

Lol, you guys crack me up! Some really funny posts up there.

I find it very disturbing that people of this nation have allowed the two parties and the corporations to hijack the politics in this nation such that no other parties are heard. I'm doing far more than the average person to change that, through awareness, objectivity, and education. All I can suggest is that you do the same.

I simply mean that there are other sources that are just as knowledgable and more objective in their assessments. Sites that address economic issues with a lot more objectivity. I also think you may be spinning that report a bit. I was unable to find it on their web site, but if you have a link I'd like to see it (maybe it's print-only right now?). I suspect that it actually said that most economists said that the tax cut *did* in fact boost the economy. It just didn't do it as much as they would have liked. That's certainly what Alan Greenspan has said before Congress. And take a look at this quote from the New York Times: That's from this story in their Campaign 2004 section, dated today. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/09/politics/campaign/09bushjobs.html?ex=1097985600&en=70b184f794c5ab68&ei=5040&partner=MOREOVER That's consistent with previous articles I've read about the majority opinions of economists. What you're saying seems to be different. Which tells me that either you or the Economist is doing some spinning, or there's something new here that I need to learn about.

I actually like The Economist, it's one of my favorite sources, but I've followed them long enough to know that it's not an *objective* source, as clearly indicated by today's editorial: http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3282117 Not that there's anything wrong with that, but you have to take their opinion pieces as opinion, not news. As far as that story is concerned, I'd like to know why, if this is some sort of objective indication that the Bush administration to be incorrect in the sense of economic science, the result of the poll was only 70%, not 100%. Science is science. Math is math. How can 30% of them be completely wrong? Isn't it more likely that this is an opinion poll, not a scientific analysis? Anyway, that's what makes that an opinion piece, not a news piece.

When you put it that way you definitely have my attention. Those are perfectly reasonable concerns, IMO.

Some sort of Green party protest at the debate. http://www.progress.org/2004/debates08.htm Maybe they ran out of tin foil hats.

I wondered the same. Perhaps they meant libel lawsuits, but that seems a little odd. If it's based on factual information then they can hardly be sued for libel.

ABB at its most transparent.

I'm going to track you two down and make you kiss and make up. (grin)

Buried in all the thousands of stories you're reading in the press today about how the non-partisan Duelfer report found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction is another finding by the same group: That individuals in France, Russia and China specifically benefitted, illegally, from the oil-for-food program. http://www.indystar.com/articles/0/184723-2300-010.html

True enough. But I do think there's a functional disconnect there in the "liberal" side of the American political spectrum. Clinton was for free trade, except when he temporarily stopped being free trade in order to re-acquire the support of organized labor. After the 1996 election he went right back to being Mr. Free Trade. This position is common in the Democratic party -- Kerry's doing exactly the same thing right now. He's all for free trade, but he still has the support of the labor unions, so he has to be opposed to NAFTA, which makes no sense at all. Kerry writes this off by (bizarrely) blaming the whole NAFTA business on Republicans, but if he gets elected he's going to have to deal with it himself.

I guess my feeling on this is that it doesn't really matter, because it's not really a debate. There is no shortage of ways for Badnarik to get his message out. I agree the deck is stacked against him, and that's a bad thing, because the libertarians have many interesting things to say. But having him in the "debate" wouldn't really accomplish anything constructive.

r1dermon, I appreciate the response, but I think you may have missed my point. You asked why anybody would support Bush -- what reasons they might give. I assume you also meant "that are objectively valid". You've posted some nice refutations to my points, some of which I even agree with (I'm no Bush partisan). But the question remains -- have I answered your original inquiry? Do you conceed that there are valid reasons why somebody might want to vote for Bush, even if you disagree with them? Put another way, just how much of an ideologue are you? Did you really want an answer to your question, or were you just trying to insult Bush voters in a backhanded way? I'll be happy to address your specific points, but please consider what I said above to be my primary response. The rest of this is just... detail. It's not false economy -- it's 99% of the economic picture of any country. What's false is to claim that unemployment is the entire picture of an economy. In fact it's not only false, it's dangerous in the extreme. Is it valid to be concerned about 8 million people out of work (actually 13 million, according to Centrists.org)? Absolutely. I just think you overstate the case to suggest that the "real economy" is being "shipped to india and china". That's ridiculous. Outsourcing in the first quarter of 2004 was only *2%* of unemployment, according to the BLS (here's a link). TWO PERCENT. And I think you should read what budullewraagh wrote above about outsourcing. It's an excellent point as well. Whatever happened to liberal support for free trade anyway? Certainly seems to be gone with the wind where Kerry is concerned. Note that what I object to here is NOT concern about outsourcing, but making it sound like outsourcing and job-loss is the most important and ONLY important aspect of the economic picture. That is just wrong. I may vote for Kerry. But it won't be because of lies, spins, and half-truths. If by "half the population being screwed" you mean unemployment, I would remind you that it's 5.4%, not 50%. But I may not be interpreting you correctly there -- if you just mean in the sense that you believe corporate corruption is not as significant as the other issues, that's fine -- you have a right to your opinion. I think you're wrong in thinking that, however. Corporate corruption is incredibly important. In fact it was our number one national priority before 9/11. And I believe it's very important to the stability of our system to show these companies that we mean business about them playing fair and acting within the law. The last thing we want is for it to become commonly accepted that there are no consequences for their illegal acts. What's curious about this paragraph is that you stated an opinion (which is fine -- more power to you), but you didn't refute my points about the Patriot Act. You just told me I'm wrong. That's not refutation. I think what you care about is whatever the Bush administration has yet to accomplish. Anything that can be identified as "bad" from a pro-Kerry position. If we had Osama behind bars, you'd be talking about how that didn't matter because there's some other guy in charge now and he's just as bad. If we didn't have Saddam behind bars you'd be talking about that. I suspect you're one of those people who warned us about what a quagmire Afghanistan would be. And when it turned out not to be a quagmire at all, you jumped on the anti-Iraq bandwagon. And if we hadn't gone into Iraq, you'd still be telling us how horrible it was that we went to Afghanistan. We've documented several times here in the forum that that number is false. Here is another link for you: http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/08/factcheck/ Please provide a hyperlink to an article on this, from a non-partisan source. Until I read it from an objective position, I don't believe it. No matter what "it" is. That's all well and good, but those are just reasons to vote against Bush. They're not necessarily reasons to vote for Kerry. And when you reduce the above paragraph to stuff that can actually be proven, any OBJECTIVE person arrives at the conclusion that this is not enough to condemn on its own merits. More is required.