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Oct. 30th, 2004 08:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
apocalypsosI've been thinking. This is bad.
I'm a Libra. And I wouldn't be one to believe in astrology or even point out something that insignificant if I didn't act just like a Libra is supposed to. So when it comes to any argument, I try desperately to see it from both sides. It's why I can understand how Bush supporters can point out Kerry's flaws and be right at the same time that I can understand how Bush can even have supporters at this point.
But if Bush wins on Tuesday, I will be disappointed.
No, I won't just be disappointed. I will be "your mother" disappointed, the kind of disappointed that actually hurts.
Now, my mother ... I'm pretty sure she has no idea who she's voting for, but I know that she's not voting for Bush. I don't know if she's truly voting for Kerry, but I at least know that neither one of my parents are Bush supporters. (When Bush visited Scranton, my dad said he would have gone to see him, but he had to clip his toenails that day. Heh.) But I can say one thing about my mother ... my brother and I have both made up our minds to vote for Kerry, and considering that this is the first time either one of us has shown the least bit of interest in voting at all, and that my brother the self-proclaimed slacker has spent this election year becoming well-informed about the candidates -- well, she's proud. You can just tell.
If Bush wins, I'll feel the exact opposite of that about this country.
I simply cannot understand how anybody can vote for Bush. I can't. Look at what's happened in this country in the past four years. We've had two wars, one of which has quickly become a quagmire with questionable reasons for starting it. We've gone from a $200 million surplus to a $400 million deficit (and growing, almost beyond the legal limits for it). The education system is crumbling because of No Child Left Behind. Faith has gone from something the president simply has to something the president wields to restructure government. An amendment to the Constitution that particularly restricts the rights of a certain group of individuals is floating around the government halls. We've gone to from the worldwide support following September 11th to immeasurable loathing in the global community.
Any one of those qualifications, in the past, would have been enough for a president to be ousted. So why the hell does this guy get to stay?
I keep trying to come up with a reason, and the reasons that I come up with don't seem much like compliments, especially considering I've heard them from actual Bush supporters.
"He just seems like the kind of guy I'd like to hang out with." Well, great. If we don't talk about religion or politics, I probably would watch a football game and eat barbecue with the guy, too. The problem is, we're not voting for Miss Congeniality, or the best beer drinker at the frat house. We're voting for President of the United States, and we need a professional, not the guy who'll bring a keg.
Do I think Kerry's a professional? I think he's more of a professional than the guy I've seen in the job in the last four years. This last term has shown me that George Bush likes to start wars and blame them on chasing terrorists even if the evidence might be weak, hates gay people but doesn't mind buying their jewelry for his wife and daughters, thinks women should be "brood mares for the state" (in the words of George Carlin) because fetuses have a right to life but Iraqi children don't, can call Kerry a flip-flopper but change his mind on several key issues in the last few days before the election in a desperate grab to get votes, and can, without fear of reprisal from anybody in his own party, makes jokes about finding those nonexistent weapons of mass destruction while he sends young Americans over to Iraq to die for them.
"He got the job done." I even spotted this particular phrase on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jedusor's LJ today, as said by a Bush supporter. The job? Bombing the fuck out of Afghanistan (or alternatively, Iraq). And let's face it ... I think we all know that the Middle East loves fighting anyway, so really, why not bomb the fuck out of them? They'll like it, and we'll kill a bunch of terrorists! And even if we get a bunch of civilians ... well, hell, they'll become terrorists later if we let them live.
Well, guess what? "Kill everybody" is not a viable foreign policy. The entire planet is about ninety percent normal people and about ten percent absolute fucking wackos, and each individual country varies with that estimate with regards to how stressful it is. You know what that means? That means that no matter how you do the math, everybody who has died in Iraq is not a terrorist. Even if you use conservative estimates of the Iraqi death toll, not all of them were terrorists. Some were kids or mothers or grandmothers or, as pointed out in that article a few days ago, newborn babies whose mothers were too afraid to go out into a war zone to give birth.
"Hey, there will always be civilian casualties in a war zone." No, you know what? I refuse to accept this. I refuse to accept dead children in another country that we accidentally killed in an airstrike. I refuse to accept tortured prisoners because they were "probably guilty" and "it was just like a fraternity hazing", because God knows fraternity hazings are perfectly okay. And I refuse to accept a war that the rest of the world is slowly but surely turning completely against. Sitting back and sneering that they're wrong to go against the war and we'll just boycott their asses is not going to help us if terrorists attack our country again.
Do you honestly think other countries are going to help us out again after the way we've behaved as a nation since September 11th?
No.
And this time, unlike last time, they won't keep it politely silent that with our foreign policies, we probably asked for it.
"I won't vote for Kerry, because the Democrats will tax the shit out of me." Well, guess what? You know what taxes are for? That's right ... taxes pay for crap that everybody as a group wants.
Let's just point out one thing before I go any further. The Democrats may tax the shit out of you, but with Bush's shiny $400 billion deficit, the Republicans are going to have to tax the shit out of you sooner or later, too.
And it's not like Kerry's going to go out and buy everybody an abortion, or set up Satanism as the national religion, or get Sarah Michelle Gellar a nose job. He's going to do the exact same thing Bush would try to do with new taxes: spend it on stuff we might all need like a great big grocery list. The problem is trying to decide between a guy who'll buy you bananas and apples and salads and spaghetti and a thousand other things that are good and good for you (along with the occasional bags of Cheetos and a liter of Pepsi to gorge yourself on and make yourself sick and fat), and a guy who'll buy you a steady stream of empty-calorie Cheetos and Pepsi food. I might like that diet as a midnight snack, but I don't like it as an economic policy.
"Kerry sucks." Okay. You don't like Kerry. Is that the only reason you're voting for Bush? Because ten bucks says you're the same person who knocks on other people for voting "Anybody but Bush."
And do you honestly think that "He's not Bush" is the only reason people are voting for Kerry? Yes, that's a a reason a lot of people like myself are voting for Kerry, but when we say we'd vote for an eggplant over Bush, we're not being literal. Kerry has his good points that most of us like, and when put up against Bush, for a lot of us, he's a better candidate.
He's not the best candidate, admittedly. But when has there ever ... ever ... been the best candidate? My personal favorite candidate right now, after looking over all of their positions, is Barack Obama. Is he running for President right now? No. Could I still write him into my ballot? Sure. Will I? No. Know why? Because the fact is that while I like Barack Obama more than John Kerry, I still like John Kerry, I agree with his politics for the most part, fifty million other people are not going to go into the polling place and vote for Barack Obama, and I need Bush out of that White House. Anybody who says "But you're not voting for who you really want for President right now!" gets a smack. 'Cause seriously, I do want Kerry as President. What I really want is for Barack Obama to hold every single government position available, as well as serving sandwiches in the Capitol cafeteria and delivering singing telegrams in Congress, and until they legalize cloning, I'm kinda screwed. :)
"The terrorists would vote for Kerry." When the hell did the terrorists become Democrats? Did I miss a meeting?
And while we're at it, "Jesus would vote for Bush."
Okay, let's establish a fact. Jesus was not a naturalized American and was not born in this country. The terrorists are not in this country (theoretically). So who the fuck cares who'd they vote for? If Americans get pissy because a British newspaper tries to influence voters and tells them to butt the fuck out and mind their own business, then what the hell are we supposed to care about terrorists?
Quite frankly, depending on which terrorist cell we're talking about, they could go either way, couldn't they? Tell you what ... go back and tell me if Timothy McVeigh was a registered Republican or a Democrat, and maybe I'll consider it. (And promptly discard it, because how a terrorist votes does not concern me even if he's American.)
As for Jesus, he's been dead for two thousand years. I'm more afraid of the way Cameron Diaz is voting, because the woman is actually allowed to and she thinks it has something to do with the legalization of rape. Er, no, Cameron, but if it had to do with legalization of lobotomies for everybody, we could sure save time and energy doing one on you, couldn't we?
What it comes down to, plain and simple, is that I don't understand why anybody would vote Bush after the disastrous state he's left this country in. Do you like arguing with everybody? Great, vote Bush and enjoy it for the next four years. Do you like the deficit getting that much bigger? Great, vote Bush and bankrupt the country. Do you like fighting the rights of unborn Americans to live while killing living, innocent Iraqi civilians? Great, vote Bush and we'll just keep shooting and blowing shit up until Iraqis are a distant memory.
If there was one single reason I could see from the other side to vote for Bush, I would just shake my head and throw up my hands in defeat.
But I can't. I just can't.
I'm a Libra. And I wouldn't be one to believe in astrology or even point out something that insignificant if I didn't act just like a Libra is supposed to. So when it comes to any argument, I try desperately to see it from both sides. It's why I can understand how Bush supporters can point out Kerry's flaws and be right at the same time that I can understand how Bush can even have supporters at this point.
But if Bush wins on Tuesday, I will be disappointed.
No, I won't just be disappointed. I will be "your mother" disappointed, the kind of disappointed that actually hurts.
Now, my mother ... I'm pretty sure she has no idea who she's voting for, but I know that she's not voting for Bush. I don't know if she's truly voting for Kerry, but I at least know that neither one of my parents are Bush supporters. (When Bush visited Scranton, my dad said he would have gone to see him, but he had to clip his toenails that day. Heh.) But I can say one thing about my mother ... my brother and I have both made up our minds to vote for Kerry, and considering that this is the first time either one of us has shown the least bit of interest in voting at all, and that my brother the self-proclaimed slacker has spent this election year becoming well-informed about the candidates -- well, she's proud. You can just tell.
If Bush wins, I'll feel the exact opposite of that about this country.
I simply cannot understand how anybody can vote for Bush. I can't. Look at what's happened in this country in the past four years. We've had two wars, one of which has quickly become a quagmire with questionable reasons for starting it. We've gone from a $200 million surplus to a $400 million deficit (and growing, almost beyond the legal limits for it). The education system is crumbling because of No Child Left Behind. Faith has gone from something the president simply has to something the president wields to restructure government. An amendment to the Constitution that particularly restricts the rights of a certain group of individuals is floating around the government halls. We've gone to from the worldwide support following September 11th to immeasurable loathing in the global community.
Any one of those qualifications, in the past, would have been enough for a president to be ousted. So why the hell does this guy get to stay?
I keep trying to come up with a reason, and the reasons that I come up with don't seem much like compliments, especially considering I've heard them from actual Bush supporters.
"He just seems like the kind of guy I'd like to hang out with." Well, great. If we don't talk about religion or politics, I probably would watch a football game and eat barbecue with the guy, too. The problem is, we're not voting for Miss Congeniality, or the best beer drinker at the frat house. We're voting for President of the United States, and we need a professional, not the guy who'll bring a keg.
Do I think Kerry's a professional? I think he's more of a professional than the guy I've seen in the job in the last four years. This last term has shown me that George Bush likes to start wars and blame them on chasing terrorists even if the evidence might be weak, hates gay people but doesn't mind buying their jewelry for his wife and daughters, thinks women should be "brood mares for the state" (in the words of George Carlin) because fetuses have a right to life but Iraqi children don't, can call Kerry a flip-flopper but change his mind on several key issues in the last few days before the election in a desperate grab to get votes, and can, without fear of reprisal from anybody in his own party, makes jokes about finding those nonexistent weapons of mass destruction while he sends young Americans over to Iraq to die for them.
"He got the job done." I even spotted this particular phrase on
jedusor's LJ today, as said by a Bush supporter. The job? Bombing the fuck out of Afghanistan (or alternatively, Iraq). And let's face it ... I think we all know that the Middle East loves fighting anyway, so really, why not bomb the fuck out of them? They'll like it, and we'll kill a bunch of terrorists! And even if we get a bunch of civilians ... well, hell, they'll become terrorists later if we let them live.Well, guess what? "Kill everybody" is not a viable foreign policy. The entire planet is about ninety percent normal people and about ten percent absolute fucking wackos, and each individual country varies with that estimate with regards to how stressful it is. You know what that means? That means that no matter how you do the math, everybody who has died in Iraq is not a terrorist. Even if you use conservative estimates of the Iraqi death toll, not all of them were terrorists. Some were kids or mothers or grandmothers or, as pointed out in that article a few days ago, newborn babies whose mothers were too afraid to go out into a war zone to give birth.
"Hey, there will always be civilian casualties in a war zone." No, you know what? I refuse to accept this. I refuse to accept dead children in another country that we accidentally killed in an airstrike. I refuse to accept tortured prisoners because they were "probably guilty" and "it was just like a fraternity hazing", because God knows fraternity hazings are perfectly okay. And I refuse to accept a war that the rest of the world is slowly but surely turning completely against. Sitting back and sneering that they're wrong to go against the war and we'll just boycott their asses is not going to help us if terrorists attack our country again.
Do you honestly think other countries are going to help us out again after the way we've behaved as a nation since September 11th?
No.
And this time, unlike last time, they won't keep it politely silent that with our foreign policies, we probably asked for it.
"I won't vote for Kerry, because the Democrats will tax the shit out of me." Well, guess what? You know what taxes are for? That's right ... taxes pay for crap that everybody as a group wants.
Let's just point out one thing before I go any further. The Democrats may tax the shit out of you, but with Bush's shiny $400 billion deficit, the Republicans are going to have to tax the shit out of you sooner or later, too.
And it's not like Kerry's going to go out and buy everybody an abortion, or set up Satanism as the national religion, or get Sarah Michelle Gellar a nose job. He's going to do the exact same thing Bush would try to do with new taxes: spend it on stuff we might all need like a great big grocery list. The problem is trying to decide between a guy who'll buy you bananas and apples and salads and spaghetti and a thousand other things that are good and good for you (along with the occasional bags of Cheetos and a liter of Pepsi to gorge yourself on and make yourself sick and fat), and a guy who'll buy you a steady stream of empty-calorie Cheetos and Pepsi food. I might like that diet as a midnight snack, but I don't like it as an economic policy.
"Kerry sucks." Okay. You don't like Kerry. Is that the only reason you're voting for Bush? Because ten bucks says you're the same person who knocks on other people for voting "Anybody but Bush."
And do you honestly think that "He's not Bush" is the only reason people are voting for Kerry? Yes, that's a a reason a lot of people like myself are voting for Kerry, but when we say we'd vote for an eggplant over Bush, we're not being literal. Kerry has his good points that most of us like, and when put up against Bush, for a lot of us, he's a better candidate.
He's not the best candidate, admittedly. But when has there ever ... ever ... been the best candidate? My personal favorite candidate right now, after looking over all of their positions, is Barack Obama. Is he running for President right now? No. Could I still write him into my ballot? Sure. Will I? No. Know why? Because the fact is that while I like Barack Obama more than John Kerry, I still like John Kerry, I agree with his politics for the most part, fifty million other people are not going to go into the polling place and vote for Barack Obama, and I need Bush out of that White House. Anybody who says "But you're not voting for who you really want for President right now!" gets a smack. 'Cause seriously, I do want Kerry as President. What I really want is for Barack Obama to hold every single government position available, as well as serving sandwiches in the Capitol cafeteria and delivering singing telegrams in Congress, and until they legalize cloning, I'm kinda screwed. :)
"The terrorists would vote for Kerry." When the hell did the terrorists become Democrats? Did I miss a meeting?
And while we're at it, "Jesus would vote for Bush."
Okay, let's establish a fact. Jesus was not a naturalized American and was not born in this country. The terrorists are not in this country (theoretically). So who the fuck cares who'd they vote for? If Americans get pissy because a British newspaper tries to influence voters and tells them to butt the fuck out and mind their own business, then what the hell are we supposed to care about terrorists?
Quite frankly, depending on which terrorist cell we're talking about, they could go either way, couldn't they? Tell you what ... go back and tell me if Timothy McVeigh was a registered Republican or a Democrat, and maybe I'll consider it. (And promptly discard it, because how a terrorist votes does not concern me even if he's American.)
As for Jesus, he's been dead for two thousand years. I'm more afraid of the way Cameron Diaz is voting, because the woman is actually allowed to and she thinks it has something to do with the legalization of rape. Er, no, Cameron, but if it had to do with legalization of lobotomies for everybody, we could sure save time and energy doing one on you, couldn't we?
What it comes down to, plain and simple, is that I don't understand why anybody would vote Bush after the disastrous state he's left this country in. Do you like arguing with everybody? Great, vote Bush and enjoy it for the next four years. Do you like the deficit getting that much bigger? Great, vote Bush and bankrupt the country. Do you like fighting the rights of unborn Americans to live while killing living, innocent Iraqi civilians? Great, vote Bush and we'll just keep shooting and blowing shit up until Iraqis are a distant memory.
If there was one single reason I could see from the other side to vote for Bush, I would just shake my head and throw up my hands in defeat.
But I can't. I just can't.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Re: I've got a good one for you
Date: 2004-10-30 09:03 am (UTC)Re: I've got a good one for you
Date: 2004-10-30 09:20 am (UTC)Re: I've got a good one for you
Date: 2004-10-30 10:30 am (UTC)Re: I've got a good one for you
Date: 2004-10-30 10:33 am (UTC)Re: I've got a good one for you
Date: 2004-10-30 11:23 am (UTC)It's connected now to your drier's license.