How You Could Have Had My Vote
POSTED BY: Jasonzzz
UPDATED: Thursday, November 18, 2004 03:26
VIEWED: 5131
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An open letter from a cogent moderate...
http://fromasadamerican.blogspot.com/2004/11/how-you-could-have-had-my
-vote.html
Quote:
How You Could Have Had My Vote
It's been two days since John Kerry conceded, and all I am seeing, hearing and reading from the Democratic party is that you guys think you lost on "moral values." You seem to think this means nothing more than opposition to gay marriage. You seem to think that Bush voters waited in line for hours to stick it to the queers, to tell those faggots how much we hate them!
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Many Bush voters, like myself, were not happy to be voting for the President's re-election. Many Bush voters agonized over our decision and cast our vote in fear, trepidation, and trembling. Many of us would have given our left arms for a Democrat we could have supported.
Because I am too young to be as disillusioned as I am, and because I know that one-party rule is not good for my country, and because it is my deepest wish to see the Democratic party change into one I can give my whole-hearted support, I am going to explain why you didn't get my vote, and how you can get it in the future.
First, for context, let me give you a bit about my perspective: I am a single, heterosexual, college-educated woman in my late 20's with an annual income of about $30,000. I live in a solidly red state in the South, the region you guys wrote off entirely without even trying to persuade us to vote for you. I am not an ideologue, and I experience painful ambivalence about many political issues. The notion of an abortion makes me queasy, but I don't want Roe vs. Wade overturned. I have friends who've been impregnated by rape and friends who found out late in their third trimesters that they were carrying babies too malformed to ever have normal lives. The pictures of Iraqi children who've lost arms from the bombs my tax dollars bought make me shed tears, but I recognize that the war was the right thing to do, given the information we had available at the time the decision was made. I had no health insurance for three years, but I'm still, hesitantly, not in favor of socialized medicine. I know people who abuse the social services, but I also have friends who would be dead without the food stamps and SSI checks they collect each month. I believe in God and consider myself a Christian, but I don't go to church, and Falwell, Robertson, and their ilk scare me more than they scare you. I believe that in a perfect world, Roy Moore would have to live with the stench of his own ego, just like the rest of us do.
I have gay friends who are closeted and gay friends who couldn't be more open if they had QUEER tattooed across their foreheads, and I think they should be allowed to get married if they want to. I read The Onion, Dilbert, Dan Savage's sex advice, Salon.com, and quite a few blogs. The local librarians know me on sight. I waited in line until midnight when the fifth Harry Potter book came out. I can't wait to see the new Chucky movie. I will probably shack up before I get married, but I won't be proud of it. I wouldn't buy an SUV, even if I could pay cash for one. I recycle. I shop at Wal-mart, but I feel guilty about it, and if they unionized, I would never cross the picket line. I think FOX News is about as fair and balanced as a seesaw with a gorilla on one end.
President Bush's close relationships to people like John Ashcroft scare me. I hate the PATRIOT Act and am fearful of what might be part of PATRIOT II. The two dumbest trial balloons I've heard floated for his second-term agenda are privatizing Social Security and abolishing the income tax. When he says that God chose him to be President during this time of trial, I am embarrassed. I roll my eyes.
I am a pragmatic, disillusioned, realistic, and entirely ordinary member of the radical middle.
Here is why you didn't get my vote:
1. You didn't give me clear positions on the issues. I followed the news closely all through the campaign, but I still don't understand Kerry's positionNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Thanks for posting this (and the link to it). I too am a Christian, Southern moderate. I voted Kerry (just barely) for a number of reasons that aren't germaine to this post. But this young woman's post struck a huge chord with me. I hope to see a change next time around.
In the meantime, life awaits. Adios.
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While I am a Canadian, and had no vote :
I thought John McCain would have been a much better choice for the republican nomination.
Just seems more sincere to me
From the way it sounds, many voted for Bush because they didn't want Kerry, and many voted for Kerry out of a dislike for Bush...
It's too bad there wasn't a " Now that guy makes sense " alternative.
Sad really
" Don't Blame Me I Voted For Kudos "
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Wow a college student in the south making $30,000 a year. I guess it's possible, but I gather she's not a full time student. Actually, makes me believe it's not really a college student, which makes me think this whole letter is just a fraud. Any way here's my diatribe (if that's an actual word)
Kerry clarified his position when he voted to give Bush the authority to go to war. It was a very eloquent speech. He stated that the President needed this power at this time, while encouraging the President to do all he could to find a dimplomatic solution. His point is agains the Iraq war is two fold 1) Bush didn't do all he could to avoid the war. 2) The president should have concentrated on Afghanistan and Osma Bin Laden instead.
Are we better off for the because of the war? I don't really know, it seems complicated when I think it over. First of all, there is very little or no correlation with Saddam Hussein and terrorist activity. The fact is Hussein ran a largely secular state that was repressing the element we are now combating. One explanation I've been given is that that the war in Iraq was meant to draw terrorist operatives to one place so we could destroy them. This may seem plausible, however by creating a guerilla war you create a situation that is very difficult to win. The reason we went is was to prevent a rogue nation from maintaining an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. We'll we're there and no WMD's have been found. Our administration just moves on.... "Well the world is better off for having Saddam Hussein out of power." This is a diversionary tactic should make you angry, it's obvious our country was mislead. We went through the same crap with Reagan and some how Oliver North comes out as a hero for violating drug laws and trying to sell arms to Iran.
The comment regarding Kerry's Purple Heart's is lame. I never heard a "drum beat" or mantra regarding the Purple Hearts, the Silver Star,or the Bronze Star. The Swift Boat Vet's for "Truth" were the one's making an issue of Kerry's war record.
The comment regarding Global test is double talk. I'm not talking about what Eurpoeans think, but I aslo don't care what they think. Gibberish. Incidnetly the word Global in the context Kerry said it means Comprehensive. It means that we really think an policy through before proceeding. Will we create a quagmire, will we actually eliminate terrorists or create additional ones, is this attack really going to serve our best interests, etc.? Not that we ask the UN for it's aboslute approval before executing our foreign policy.
Everyone admits that the attack on the twin towers was a crime, what kind of BS comment is that. A really love how Cheney just outright said if Kerry gets elected we will be attacked. How can he make such a statement and not get roasted for it. What's he saying there, He'll make a phone call and ensure it? That the terrorists are afraid of Bush? The terrorists are committed to blowing themselves up in the name of God, what makes you think they're afraid of the current adminstration. If I had to be in a fox hole with Bush or Kerry I'd pick Kerry, at least he's been in a few firefights.
When did Kerry demonize the rich? I missed that one. All he said was he felt they could afford to pay more of the tax burden.
I don't beleive Kerry ever called Bush stupid. And even if you mean the campaign or Kerry's supporters, why don't you apply the same standard to Bush's cronies. Bush actually said that Kerry, who has sat on the Senate Foreign Relation's commitee for about 20 yrs, didn't understand terrorism. How can that be? We've had international terrorism the entire time Kerry's been a senator. As far as the venom goes, it's two sided. I've listened for years as Republican broadcasters defamed Clinton as an incompetent, a liar and a murderer. You're not really giving the otherside a chance, otherwise you'd have noted the people you cited are propgandists and that their statements should be taken with a grain of salt.
"I am a pragmatic, disillusio
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Ooops double post. I've said my peace, no need to repeat it.
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I love when people say they don't care what Europeans or the French or foreigners think. Because as we all know, people from outside the United States don't have valid opinions and if a foreigner walked up to you on the street, he would spout more bullshit at you than an American because he was born in a different part of the world, where man-made borders have clearly defined intelligence and new ideas.
But all sarcasm aside, the person who wrote this is a hypocrite. She calls on us to fight terrorism and then in the same breath says we shouldn't care what the world thinks and then says that Kerry didn't understand terrorism.
See, the thing about that is that terrorism CANNOT be defeated. The war on terror is no such thing...for the simple reason that you cannot violently destroy irrational hate. If you violently destroy one hater, you create another. There will ALWAYS be terrorists. And once you understand that, you know why we NEED the rest of the world...not even counting the argument that the rest of the world is, in fact, occupied by other human beings.
The only way to fight terrorism is to minimize it. In the simplest terms, there will always be one terrorist. If you kill him (or her), another will take his place and no matter how hard you try, you will never convince this one terrorist to give up his irrational hatred.
However, there is hope because this one terrorist cannot do everything by himself. He needs supporters. It is those supporters who can be attacked...not by hunting them down, but by appealing to their more moderate values. Not every terrorist is as extreme as the one; not all of them completely lack the ability to reason. In fact, I would say that a majority were once people just like you and me.
By segregating the world, you encourage hatred. By saying 'Forget France, forget Germany' you effectively say 'We don't see you as people we need to consider when we take action' as clearly as any racist could say to someone different than himself. This breeds hatred and gives that one terrorist the support he needs.
Frankly, in my opinion, if you can't see everyone as part of the solution, you're part of the problem.
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I want to begin by saying that I understand this woman's post. She is expressing opinions I've heard from people like my sister, another college educated woman living in the south. Like my sister she is a Democrat who could not and would not vote for Kerry. Why? Because the national Democratic party does not represent her or her interests. It also makes a mockery of her values.
I heard an interesting line today from 'Smokey and the Bandit' (1977). The gist was that a person's intellegence can be measured by what part of the country they live in. Send a southern Democrat to the Northeast and they are backwards and ignorent. Send a Yankee liberal to West Virginia and they are elitist and out of touch. So when Zell Miller asks "What has happened to the Democratic Party of my youth?" The answer is they stopped listening to their better half.
Now for the rest of the story:
Quote:
Originally posted by Kirikoli:
By segregating the world, you encourage hatred. By saying 'Forget France, forget Germany' you effectively say 'We don't see you as people we need to consider when we take action'
You are correct. But by making France and Germany into "the world" you say the same thing to those nations who have chosen to join us and have paid the price in blood and dollars. Britain, Poland, Spain, Italy, Bulgaria, Japan, Iraq, Afganistan, Kuwait, Turkey, an assortment of "stans" from the former Soviet Union, and so on and so forth and look dead Australians who are neither French nor German, so are not a part of the liberal world.
So I say forget France and forget Germany because the US doesn't need to see you as people we need to consider when we take action.
Oh, I see the French are fighting a "wrong war" of their own in the Ivory Coast. I'm sure that if they find the Ivorians (real term, I looked it up) too much to handle, all they have to do is ask for some help...after all thats what "allies" are for.
H
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Quote:
Originally posted by Veteran:
Wow a college student in the south making $30,000 a year. I guess it's possible, but I gather she's not a full time student. Actually, makes me believe it's not really a college student, which makes me think this whole letter is just a fraud.
Umm. Says college-educated, not college student. Darn! An entire diatribe wasted due to lack of reading comprehension.
But statements like:
"The comment regarding Kerry's Purple Heart's is lame." or, "The comment regarding Global test is double talk.", "Everyone admits that the attack on the twin towers was a crime, what kind of BS comment is that.", "I really love how Cheney just outright said if Kerry gets elected we will be attacked."
do sort of support this sentence.
Quote:
Your attitudes, language, and behavior toward people like me...is reminiscent of nothing so much as an abusive ex-lover, a crazy and drunken stalker. "I'll make you love me, or you'll regret it, you worthless bitch! Come here and let me beat you over the head and tell you how stupid and worthless you are! Then you'll see it my way!"
The letter makes good points. I didn't even vote for Bush, but I was so turned off by the ceaseless hatred coming from the Democratic side that I couldn't vote Kerry either. It may not have been from his campaign, but the Dems I saw here and on other boards were so hateful and smugly eliteist that I couldn't stand it. You guys gotta learn that calling people stupid isn't the way to get them to support your candidate.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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This young college educated lady from the south did a very good job of summing up my feelings, and the reason I voted for Bush.
I stated in another thread that I don't even really like Bush, but I voted for him anyway just for the reasons she stated.
And why oh why can't we ever get a presidential ticket we can feel good about voting for instead of the far left/far right self professed moderates.
If there was a Lieberman/McCain or McCain/Lieberman ticket I'd happily vote for it with a smile of satisfaction on my face.
Am I a Lion?... No, I think I'ma tellin' the truth.
BarnStormer
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Quote:
Originally posted by Hero:
Oh, I see the French are fighting a "wrong war" of their own in the Ivory Coast. I'm sure that if they find the Ivorians (real term, I looked it up) too much to handle, all they have to do is ask for some help...after all thats what "allies" are for.
H
I usually don't reply to myself, since I am almost always right. But in this case I feel I can no longer agree with myself.
France is using its vastly supieror military to enforce its will on a tiny former colony. This is like a rapist being called to mediate a domestic dispute involving his victim. It aint right.
Now Ivorians weilding machettes are facing down French tanks. Naturally the French soldiers first instinct is to surrender, but here they are facing those machettes with the courage that a vastly superior manpower, training, and equipment gives them.
First we should support France's desire for sanctions against the Ivory Coast. Then maybe we should consider some sort of aid to the Ivorians. We could set up a "Cocoa for Food" program adminstered by the UN, I'm sure they'd be willing. Then, instead of food, we could substiute American made weapons. Finally, when France wants to send more troops and tries to get aid from other African and Euorpean allies we could say "no" and make every effort to keep other nations from joining the French war of Aggression against its former (and maybe future) colony.
Then its election time in France. We could encourage French radical filmakers to make movies about the French President's complicity in causing the collapse of the Cocoa market (thus causing the economic crisis)...we could call it "Cocoa Butter 9/11". We could call the French "colonialists" and "Imperialists" and "Hitler" and say they say waging war against Black Africa. Sure, they claim an immediate threat, but we all know they wont find the "Cocoa Beans of Mass Destruction". Then we could all suffer as the price of cocoa soars and a Hershey Bar costs $2. Then the whole world could hate the French for being "West Africa's Policeman".
Go Ivory Coast. This Browncoats pulling for you.
H
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