Who's your choice to be president?

[Tahu]

IDL said:

Kerry was voted the most liberal person in America!

They must have never met me...

[Stal]

Fox said:

Ugh, I'm with you there Linny. I only have my geology lecture and that's at 8 am so no one goes. After that I'm handing in a paper and hiding in my room praying it all goes away.

It's gotten to the point that I don't even want elections to happen. Whoever wins its going to be the whinefest of the century and I abhore whining.

I vow, right now, that if Kerry wins you won't hear a peep out of me. I will keep my mouth shut for the next four years and not turn into some pathetic little whiner that has to gripe on the president every second of their miserable lives.

Can we just fast-forward past this week? I'd like that.

I'm with you to a point. I won't whine that he won, I'll just speak out against his issues at times, but not do so in a way that's whining.

Oh, one more thing, if Kerry does come to the office, my mom's business goes down the tubes. She runs a small business of her own. It's new, it's been doing great, but based on what Kerry plans to implement there, it will utterly destroy her business and she'll go under.

Something to think about when it comes to Kerry's plans...there are real people out there that have to suffer the consequences of what he's doing

Oh, and don't use the war as an example of real people paying for the consequences of someone else's decision. See, it's different in the fact that these people volunteered to the military (think about that THE MILITARY) knowing full well they would have to serve if the time came. They signed those forms, they did everything. It was their decision to join the army. Quite an altogether different situation.

[Linnen Malfoy]

Fox said:

It's gotten to the point that I don't even want elections to happen. Whoever wins its going to be the whinefest of the century and I abhore whining.

Can we just fast-forward past this week? I'd like that.

Agreed. It's sad that this election isn't even ABOUT an election: it's about sticking it to the other guy. This is so personal that it's awful. My mom got very angry with me when I told her I voted for Kerry and ended our conversation (luckily she called back and apologized for her actions), but still, this election is, I must say, bogus. It's been hyped by the media, and I'm TIRED of it. Lawyers have been issued to both sides incase anything happens, and to be honest it's ridiculious!

But, the ironic thing about this election is that no one reallylikes Kerry, they're against Bush. It's a bit amusing because no one understands Kerry's policies, they are just aganist Bush.

This election is going to be a mess and awful. Tomorrow I'm going to studio, painting my wall, studying, and then putting a DVD in and forgetting about this mess. Everyone I've talked to has expressed their same concern over the election: they're scared. They worry what might happen with each canidate, because most don't have confidence in either. Moreso, they just worry what hissy whiney lawyer is going to open their mouths about the end.

[Tahu]

Yuki said:

I'm with you to a point. I won't whine that he won, I'll just speak out against his issues at times, but not do so in a way that's whining.

Oh, one more thing, if Kerry does come to the office, my mom's business goes down the tubes. She runs a small business of her own. It's new, it's been doing great, but based on what Kerry plans to implement there, it will utterly destroy her business and she'll go under.

Something to think about when it comes to Kerry's plans...there are real people out there that have to suffer the consequences of what he's doing

Oh, and don't use the war as an example of real people paying for the consequences of someone else's decision. See, it's different in the fact that these people volunteered to the military (think about that THE MILITARY) knowing full well they would have to serve if the time came. They signed those forms, they did everything. It was their decision to join the army. Quite an altogether different situation.

What about all of the poor people out there suffering because money that could have gone to them instead goes into the pockets of the top 1%? Just a thought.

[Linnen Malfoy]

By the way, I meant to post this earlier but I forgot.

www.factcheck.org/

It's a very intresting website which looks at the facts of both presidents and analysises them. It is non-partisian (if that's even possible), so it might be a look for everyone on both sides.

[Kiddo]

Tahu~ said:

What about all of the poor people out there suffering because money that could have gone to them instead goes into the pockets of the top 1%? Just a thought.

That just makes me laugh. Really hard. As someone who has been the top 1% and below poverty line I'm going to say I trust Bush more on this issue. After all, he cut taxes and my family really needed that break.

[Buddy]

I'll agree to that - this has been one of the ugliest elections around. And it's only going to get worse as each side baqttles in court for each district, for each state. This has been so personal, and it's only going to get more so... I don't know how, after all this, we're supposed to come back together to resume fighting this war on terrorism.

[Kiddo]

Buddy said:

I'll agree to that - this has been one of the ugliest elections around. And it's only going to get worse as each side baqttles in court for each district, for each state. This has been so personal, and it's only going to get more so... I don't know how, after all this, we're supposed to come back together to resume fighting this war on terrorism.

There's a girl down the hall who took a poster promoting Bush and wrote all this stuff all over it - how Bush stands for white trash and how he only likes you if you're caucasion unless you're the Hispanic who maintains his yard. It just screams class, let me tell you.

[The Wanderer]

Buddy said:

I'll agree to that - this has been one of the ugliest elections around. And it's only going to get worse as each side baqttles in court for each district, for each state. This has been so personal, and it's only going to get more so... I don't know how, after all this, we're supposed to come back together to resume fighting this war on terrorism.

Im with you guys. Let's all hope this ends tomorrow, and doesn't get hung up again.

I'm looking at yooooooouuu, Florida...

[Linnen Malfoy]

IDL said:

and Kerry was voted the most liberal person in America!

The Journal did rank Kerry the most liberal senator for 2003, but it's also true that Kerry missed 37 of the 62 votes on which the ranking was based due to his campaign schedule. So the Journal assigned Kerry a score only on economic policy for that year -- "a perfect liberal score," in fact. That was based on 19 Kerry votes, though he still missed 13 others on economic policy. The Journal didn't rank Kerry's votes on social issues or foreign policy for 2003 because he cast so few votes on those issues, but noted that he "consistently took the liberal view within the Senate" when he did vote on those issues.

To call Kerry the "most liberal man in the Senate" based on a single year's rating is simply incorrect, however. Over his entire career, the Journal rates Kerry the 11th most liberal Senator. It's doubtful that Kerry would have qualified for the "most liberal" label even during his first Senate term, when was rated #1 for three of the six years: 1986, 1988, and 1990. In each of those years Kerry actually tied for the "most liberal" rating, sharing it with as many as five other senators.

The ad also claims Kerry is "the most liberal person to ever run for President," but that's a ludicrous notion that ignores some of the more colorful figures in American history.

The RNC says they base their claim on vote rankings by Americans for Democratic Action, which describes itself as "America's oldest independent liberal lobbying organization." And indeed, the ADA did rank Kerry overall as more liberal than Walter Mondale, Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, Al Gore, or Bill Bradley , for what that's worth. The ADA rankings are based on only 20 selected votes each year, a fairly narrow measure. And more importantly, the ADA doesn't rank Kerry against presidential candidates who haven't been Members of Congress -- including Michael Dukakis.

And of course, there's no way to rank candidates from earlier in US history, including William Jennings Bryan or Henry Wallace. Bryan was the Democratic candidate in 1896, 1900 and 1908 and favored regulating child labor, granting the vote to women and taxing the incomes of the wealthy -- all extremely liberal views for their time. Wallace's left-wing views caused Franklin Roosevelt to dump him as his vice president in 1944 (allowing Harry Truman to get the nomination instead), and Wallace then ran as the Progressive Party candidate for president in 1948 advocating equal rights for blacks and higher spending on welfare, education and public works. That would make him a liberal even today, but extremely so for the time.

And what about Eugene V. Debs? The Hoosier firebrand and former locomotive fireman ran for president no fewer than five times -- 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912 & 1920 -- the last four times as the nominee of the Socialist Party. In 1908 he named his campaign train the "Red Special." His 1920 campaign was waged from Atlanta Prison, where he was jailed for making a speech against US involvement in World War I.


www.factcheck.org/article284.html

[Stal]

Buddy said:

That really makes no sense - unless, of course, your ultimate goal is to conquer to world. Which isn't what George Bush is trying to achieve... right?

Wrong. It makes sense when you're trying to hit at your enemies. Which is what we're doing, terrorist nations. Think about the reasons I listed those parameters as part of the strategy. Think about the effects those have and so forth.

When Clinton was in office, we were able to talk North Korea into standing down it's nuclear ambitions. But, when Bush came into office, Jong Ill got scared and started them up again. Since then, talks to get them to stop have borken down - especially under new accusations that South Korean scientists were doing nuclear reasearch in the 80's.

But there's still massive progress and work being made there. A fight with North Korea would be an extremely tough thing. We even tried to avoid war with Iraq and argued about things for over a year before this happened.

For a while, this is what made me think that something good might come out of the war - sure, we've got everyone mad at us, but at least they know we mean business! But, thinking it over, who do we really have on our side?

Yes, Libya - I'll give you that one. But who else? Well, Saudi Arabia. But, they've had terrorist attacks of their own. They would've helped us anyways. Iran? On the contrary, they've restarted their own nuclear programs (or so is suspected), which has, in turn, caused Israel to bristle it's fur, causing more tension between the two (if I had to place bets on the next country we'll have to take out, I'd say Iran). Pakistan is our only "real" ally - and they've been with us since Afghanastan.

And, if truth be told, only parts of their government is with us - the country is still a huge breeding ground for terrorists (though, admittingly, getting better).

So, who do we have with us now, really? In fact, if you look at how many countries have given us less and less support over (along with their populations' having lesser and lesser opinons of us), it almost looks a bit like we're in the negative...

Buddy, in American Revolution. How much support was given? Who were our allies?

The war of 1812? The Spanish-American War?

Are you saying that just because not everyone agrees or allies with us, we need to not do it?

I have to agree - if slightly - with you on this. I don't feel the media gives us everything; not because it is biased, but only because stories of little girls going to schools and Iraqis finally having jobs/cars/food just doesn't make good news (the media, sadly, is at the wrath of the cause of all evil - money).

All I said was the media controls what we hear. I didn't say anything about it all being liberal.

Oh yes, Kerry really does have a hard time finding an issue and staying to it, unlike George Bush, who keeps to his ideals all the time. Like when he first opposed the creation of a 9/11 Commission, then turned around and supported it. Or when he opposed the creation of the DEpartment or Homeland Security, then turned around and created it. Or when he wouldn't let Rice testify (as a "matter of principle") at the 9/11 Commission, then went ahead and allowed her to. Or when Bush said gay marriage was a state's issue, then turned around and supported the Constitutional Amendment to ban it. Or how Bush was a for a UN Resolution concerning Iraq and Saddam - in order to "see people stand up and say what their opinion is about Saddam Hussein and the utility of the United Nations Security Counci" and for people to "show their cards, to let the world know where they stand when it comes to Saddam" - yet withdrew the rquest, later.

The stone of flip-flopping/hypocricy is so large, it falls on both sides of the fence.

Heh. But here's the thing...Bush hasn't tried to argue both sides at once. He had to backdown from a position and allow it to happen. And then think about the actual importence of these issues in the grand scheme of things. If someone changes opinions it will not matter much. With Kerry it's a full-blown thing that happens all the time. With Bush it's similar to me having to backdown from something and go the other way...subtle differences which mean a lot.

While I know that we must sometimes "do what we have to do", to go around and act as if no one else matters - that the rest of the world is wrong, that we're right - might as well be just as bad. Never forget that one reason so many people hate us so is that we act arrogant.

You know what's funny? This whole thing is a rehash of the Post-WWI political debates between limited internationalism and internationalism. It came from the League of Nations. The large majority of people, at the time, did not want to be subject to what other nations said or did. We always wanted to be able to act unilatteraly (which seems to be okay if you're other nations...just not America)

Oily -- That's interesting, see, that must be pretty recent because I seem to recall you saying that yes, everyone had the same intelligence reports which all indicated they were there.

and yeah, by UN Lapdog I mean I want our country to be able to act on it's own accord, even if it steps on toes at times. Haven't you noticed that in my own life? That I will act unilaterally?

Oh, and they weren't drug into the war. They still had choices and stands to make. In the end it was there decision to finall ally with us.

Plus I was referring to the first part of the e-mail which showed Kerry's blatant hypocrisy and flipflopping.

[Tahu]

Yuki said:

Buddy, in American Revolution. How much support was given? Who were our allies?

France, a country that, when the Iraq war started, bore the brunt of quite a few taunts from the U.S...

And Kiddo, we got a tax cut too. I wasn't talking about tax cuts for people that need them. I like that. What I don't like is huge tax cuts for the rich.

[Stal]

You know what makes me wonder about Kerry, also? He won't sign the form 180 releasing his military records to the public. Come on, John, if you're going to bring the military into this election, you should've released those records.

Plus...I just don't get it.

Kerry testified (before congress and under oath) that him and his squadmates commited all these atrocities in Vietnam. Now, that's something I see discussed very little here. To me it indicates the man Kerry is.

Kerry said that he raped, pillaged, killed innocents, etc etc.

Shouldn't he be brought up on charges of war-crimes? If it's all true he has to pay for what he did! He's a war criminal! And not fit to run for office!

But if it's not true, which most of us agree it's not, then he commited purjory before Congress and should be prosecuted for that! And if someone would commit perjory like that, in front of congress, would you want him for President?

[Stal]

Tahu~ said:

France, a country that, when the Iraq war started, bore the brunt of quite a few taunts from the U.S...

And Kiddo, we got a tax cut too. I wasn't talking about tax cuts for people that need them. I like that. What I don't like is huge tax cuts for the rich.

And yet, Tahu, even with that tax cut they'll be supplying the veyr very large majority of the tax money going into the White House. It's giving the people a break for instance.

Oh, and under Kerry's terms, my family is classified as rich and privileged and needs to be taxed more...something my family can NOT take right now. We're barely managing as it is, as far as I can tell.

We're far from rich, I'll tell you that.

[Linnen Malfoy]

Yuki said:

You know what makes me wonder about Kerry, also? He won't sign the form 180 releasing his military records to the public. Come on, John, if you're going to bring the military into this election, you should've released those records.

Plus...I just don't get it.

Kerry testified (before congress and under oath) that him and his squadmates commited all these atrocities in Vietnam. Now, that's something I see discussed very little here. To me it indicates the man Kerry is.

Kerry said that he raped, pillaged, killed innocents, etc etc.

Shouldn't he be brought up on charges of war-crimes? If it's all true he has to pay for what he did! He's a war criminal! And not fit to run for office!

But if it's not true, which most of us agree it's not, then he commited purjory before Congress and should be prosecuted for that! And if someone would commit perjory like that, in front of congress, would you want him for President?

The Kerry campaign called it a smear and said his words were "edited" out of context. The ad does indeed fail to mention that Kerry was quoting stories he had heard from others at an anti-war event in Detroit, and not claiming first-hand knowledge. But Kerry passed them on as true stories.

Here's his entire speech...

Kerry Senate Testimony (1971): I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.

It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit, the emotions in the room, the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam, but they did. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.

They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, tape wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.


You can see the words which are used in the campaign, and, as you see, he didn't claim to do it but said he heard cases of it.