Political Discussion

[basildestiny]

So my brother is in town. Semper Fi! And he mentioned that he has to vote Republica now that he's in the military. Right now I am in the mood to have him convince me that voting Republican is right thing to do, but he's not home right now. Watching West Wing really puts me in a mood. This is the best show ever!

so what would you argue about the Republican incumbent? The President? That he has military prowess? How is that? Granted, we pull out and that whole thing is going to collapse taking our own boys. Something I do not want to see by any means especially since at that time, my brother will most likely be over there. Marines are invincible and all, but sometimes you have to think about the Army. ;) So I definitely think that George W. Bush's experience in Vietnam will be very useless-- oh wait! That's right. He wasn't in Vietnam. He served here in the States during that time. Do you think that Kerry's knowledge in Vietnam would be useful? Kerry hasn't said we should pull out anyway. He says we need more guys and he doesn't have a problem with that, but he wants to open things up to the UN. Hopefully those guys will go in this time instead of being cowards.

How about the tax debate? I definitely think that the republican idea of more tax breaks is a good idea. It is our money. And my neighbors living in HUD Housing with their food stamps definitely know what to do with their own money much more than economists who went to schools and then worked on this their entire lives. My neighbors who have not one, but two dogs tied to trees with chain less than 6 feet long. Or how about my other neighbors with the 8 pitbulls, 4 of which are puppies, and definitely were bred for to better the breed. Those people definitely know better how to spend their own money. Let's forget the fact that half of my neighborhood has a home because our taxes paid for those homes. Or the fact that half of my neighborhood has something to eat is because our taxes are spent on those people. Hey, those people may be fucking stupid!! But I'm willing to bet that an economist has better ideas for reducing the deficit than my fucktards neighbors.

But yeah, let's vote Republican. Shall we go on to the stupid homosexuality debate?? I'm not gay. But dammit being homosexual is NOT the same as being a pediphile. That backwards way of thinking should have gone out in the 50's and 60's. Put my tax money to educating people about homosexuality. The truth about it too. I know that's pretty radical sounding, but unitl we can get our heads out of our asses and figure it out, then let's be radical.

Where's Leland?
~Bas

Comments

[shagsthedustmop.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm a libertarian, not a democrat or a republican so take this for what it's worth.

But I don't see that being in the military obligates one to vote republican? Just because republicans traditionally favor more military spending? If you notice, our current republican president seems to have no problem with all our troops dying overseas, money or no money. If I were in the military, I'd be voting democrat just to get his a** out of office so I could come home from these stupid, senseless wars that are all about Bush's personal agenda.

On other topics, I do agree with having tax cuts, because I think that the government should get out of many of the businesses that it is in, and thus would need less of our money. Score 1 for republicans there.

But on personal freedoms, the republicans get a resounding -27. Bush declared a day in June "Jesus Day" a few years back, saying that everyone, even Jews, Muslims, Hindus, what have you, recognizes that Jesus Christ was da bomb. When I pointed out that whether Jesus was a good person or not, only Christians would refer to him as "Christ", I got a form letter that made it obvious that even the flunky who enveloped it didn't read my letter. Republicans say they're for freedom while trying to tell people how they can live their lives (religion, sexuality, what a woman can do with her body, etc.) and now with the "patriot act" they want to spy on us, too, in the name of 'security'. Democrats say they're for freedom but they want to take all your money and give it to 'the less fortunate'.

I say, boot both their a**es out of office and let's have some REAL freedom; where we can live how we like and spend our money where we want, and choose to donate to charities and support those programs we believe in. I may sound heartless, but how I live my life is none of the government's damn business. I don't steal, I don't shoot people no matter how much they provoke me, so leave me the f*ck alone.

--off soapbox

[basildestiny]

lol You don't have to censor yourself in my journal, Anye.

Secondly, it's my journal so I get to an opinionated butthole. I love that we have such a diversity of opinion. It's your right to try to boot us both out of office. I just disagree with you.

My neighbors aren't going to donate to charity. They are too fucking stupid. They can't feed or house themselves and they haven't figured out that they need to stop having sex with their estranged husbands because it produces more children. They haven't figured out that smoking inside is bad for their children's lungs. They haven't figured out that if you chain a dog to a tree, it will go crazy. Yeah, that's one family. So ok, it's at least half the people in my neighborhood. But this is a country based on capitalism. Don't fool yourself into believing that people would donate their money to "good causes." It ain't going to happen. Because for starters, I don't have any money to donate to causes. So all of my money is going to go to myself. At least when there are taxes, some of my money goes to those even less fortunate than I am.

I don't really think that is much of a but for the Democratic party. Nor should we be hindered by what the party has done in the past.

You regurgitated rhetoric and cliches, but you haven't convinced me of anything. Convince me that I'm wrong or that your party is right. Or covince me that I'm uneducated and don't what I'm talking about.

How you live is the essence of what is defined as the government's business. Government is here to make sure that the majority opinion is enacted while still protecting the unalienable rights of all. I think what you want is an island of your own with capitalistic values. Which is a fine dream, but it will never become reality.

[shagsthedustmop.livejournal.com]

If the majority is Christian, does that mean it's ok to say that everyone else has to be as well? Majority rule is not necessarily right for all things, and often conflicts with the 'inalienable' rights you mentioned. The government seems to me to be pushing the envelope in alienating our inalienable rights. Unless someone is actively hurting someone else, I don't think it is the governments business what they do. And to violate a person's privacy on the off chance the government might find some evidence of a 'security breach' undermines the freedoms they're supposedly trying to protect. I don't buy it.

As for your neighbors, it sounds like they are just the kind of people that I *don't* want my tax dollars supporting. I didn't say everyone would donate to good causes; of course they won't. But I do believe in the right to say that I want the choice to either do so or keep my money rather than have it go to welfare of people who may or may not deserve it.

I wouldn't assume you're uneducated because you disagree with me; the only thing you said that I thought was blatantly wrong was that one is obligated to vote republican if they were in the military. Last I looked there wasn't an official rule that says who military personnel have to vote for.

Personally, I think that having children you can't afford should be a crime, tantamount to child abuse, and people who do it should go to jail and have their kids taken away for good. Harsh? I don't give a shit. Because kids don't ask to be born to stupid parents, the normal rules of 'take care of yourself and don't expect me to do it' don't apply to them. So maybe we should just sterilize the ignorant and be done with it?
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[shagsthedustmop.livejournal.com]

Sorry, the rest got cut off :)

--


As for a libertarian dream, what's wrong with dreaming? The "American Dream" is for truth, justice and the pursuit of happiness. I see no difference between that and what I vote for.

[basildestiny]

Oh, I didn't realize you thought that opinion was mine. My brother said that since he's military he has to vote republican. His main logic for that was because we can't pull out of the Iraq right now because the vaccuum created would cause more deaths. Which was one of the points I countered. So it's not an official rule, it's military logic. Oxymoron, I don't know. Just what he'd said. Which was why I was waiting on him to get home so I could argue with him.

My neighbors may not have the best logic. But they are exactly the kind of people that need support from the government. And I don't mean just through housing and food. They need education! We need to better the education system. We need more jobs in the country. We have a lot of work to do and I don't think cutting these people off will in anyway make things better. Where would they go if we didn't support them? Are they going to magically sprout degrees? Of course not!

Feel free to have a dream. Without a dream the majority opinion would never change. I may disagree with the majority Christian opinion, but the only way to change it is to make my voice heard. I do that through protests and votes. I'm just saying that your arguments were weak at best. They sounded packed with emotion.

I don't think that the government needs to look at my life with a fine tooth comb. I like my personal liberties. But it is the government's job to look at our personal lives. How closely they look is up to public opinion. I am definitely not in favor of them moving in with me.

Harsh? I think your opinion about taking children away from their parents sounds ludicrous! What are you talking about? Take children away because at some point in their lives their parents can't afford it? What happened to these personal liberties you are preaching about? You don't want people going through your computer, but it's ok for the government to summarily sterilize people because 1) they are stupid or 2) they are poor or 3) when they become poor they shouldn't have children? I like to believe that people still have control of their bodies. It's the same reason that I support abortion. I would never have one, but the government sure as hell shouldn't be telling me what to do with my body.

[shagsthedustmop.livejournal.com]

If a person is too poor to feed a child, I believe they have no right to have one. That has gone beyond personal liberty to infringing on the rights of that child who now has no food. Your personal liberties end when they infringe on anothers and no sooner. And I didn't say if at some point in their lives they can't afford it, sorry if I was unclear - I mean cases where people already on food stamps and welfare are bringing yet another baby into the world to be supported by the government with little chance to succeed in the world. I was being sarcastic about the summary sterilizations of course but I really do believe that it should be a crime to bear a child when you can't afford to feed and clothe it. It isn't a matter of having control of their bodies at that point - another living being is suffering for that person's inability to use birth control or abstain which makes it not a personal liberty issue.

I agree that we should improve education. We need to improve it from kindergarten up, so that people from all demographic backgrounds have an equal ability to compete for jobs (as opposed to the 'give the job to the less qualified but more ethnically diverse' way we often do it now). And then once education is improved from the ground up, it will be the responsibility of the individual to actually do something to better their life. If your neighbors want to improve their life, they can do something about it. No, they won't sprout degrees but they can go take night classes or something. But I'm sure they're quite happy doing it the way they do, because the American psyche today is moving farther and farther away from taking any personal responsibility for their actions and circumstances. Am I emotional about this? You bet your a** I'm emotional. Not everyone who is born with less advantages than we have chooses to wallow in it; there are plenty of people who have pulled themselves out of the ghettos, educated themselves, and made lives for themselves. They don't all have the IQs of brain surgeons, either. It just takes a lot of work and some common sense (i.e. not to just keep breeding babies just because you have the equipment to do so). I shouldn't have to support those who are perfectly physically and mentally capable of supporting themselves with a little initiative on their part, and I wholeheartedly resent having to do so, even if such a view is politically incorrect and insensitive.