A funny thing happened on the way to work today,

[garnet]

Originally Posted by lookout123

mourn your candidacy in an honorable fashion and then start preparing for the next go 'round with the lessons learned this year.

If Kerry had won, I somehow doubt that you, wolf and the other R's on this site would be "mourning your candidacy in an honorable fashion." You wouldn't clam up and "move on" a day or two after the election. You'd be just as unhappy as we are, and most likely venting your frustrations and fear of the next four years here on the Cellar, too.

It's really easy when "your guy" wins to sit back and call the rest of us whiners. Sorry, we're really unhappy about the outcome of the election, and some of us have definite fears about what the next four years hold. We're worried, and venting our worries on this site is cathartic. And I'm guessing it will continue for a while. Be honest--you would do the same thing.

[Beestie]

Originally Posted by garnet

...Be honest--you would do the same thing.

No, I had already decided to look at the bright side if Kerry had won. This "sky is falling" stuff that I'm hearing from the Kerry supporters is a little over the top if you ask me.

Bush's flaws have been on full display for four years. Kerry was a complete unknown (being virtually invisible in his 20-year career in the Senate). To assume that once Kerry had the keys to the White House that we wouldn't then find out that he also has quite a few flaws (whatever they might be) is too much to ask.

I just don't think you can automatically assume that America under Kerry would have been that much better than America under Bush when Kerry is a complete unknown quantity. For all I know, he'd make a great president. But, I don't like being confused when trying to figure out what a guy stands for and with Kerry, I was twisted into a knot trying to figure out what he would do in a given situation. Bush is a known quantity and, for all his flaws, I and many others went with a less-than-perfect known quantity over a completely unknown quantity.

You can say I made a bad choice and I can stick up for myself but in the end - 4 years from now - I still think well be ok no matter which candidate would have prevailed. Allow yourself to look at the bright side - like not having to look at Tuh-REY-zuh for 4 years

[Happy Monkey]

This is what you have bought with your vote:

"The Republican Party is a permanent majority for the future of this country," House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, told supporters Wednesday. "We're going to be able to lead this country in the direction we've been dreaming of for years. . . . We're going to put God back into the public square."

[garnet]

Originally Posted by Beestie

Kerry was a complete unknown (being virtually invisible in his 20-year career in the Senate).

"A complete unkonwn"? Huh? 20 years in the senate isn't enough political experience for you? In 2000, GWB was complete unknown to pretty much anyone outside Texas. The rest of us only knew him as George Sr.'s son, and he had zero foreign policy experience. I assume you voted for him then, when he was an unknown quanitity. That argument doens't hold water at all.

Originally Posted by Beestie

Bush is a known quantity and, for all his flaws, I and many others went with a less-than-perfect known quantity over a completely unknown quantity.

Hitler is a known quantity--would you have voted for him over Kerry? (It's just an analogy--I'm not comparing Hitler to GWB)

Originally Posted by Beestie

Allow yourself to look at the bright side - like not having to look at Tuh-REY-zuh for 4 years

Who cares about that? Laura Bush has an idiotic, half-wit smile permanently plastered on her face, which I find annoying. However, my vote was based on the candidate, not who he's married to.

[Beestie]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

This is what you have bought with your vote:

And this is what you left out of your summary:

Other Republican priorities include making President Bush's income tax cuts permanent, capping monetary awards in medical malpractice lawsuits, curbing class-action litigation and enacting an energy policy centered on greater domestic oil and natural gas production.

...

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., put reforming health care atop his agenda, saying he wants to expand on Congress' enactment of a prescription drug benefit under Medicare.

"We need to have a consumer-driven, patient-centered . . . provider-friendly system," Frist said on NBC-TV's "Today" show. "With that, we can bring down the cost of health care."

Go ahead and focus on the negative all you want to - my point in my prior post still stands: there are positives to a 2nd Bush term. If you want to ignore them that's up to you. I do find it interesting, tho, that a renegade Republican (who, btw, I despise) makes a remark about putting God in the public square and that trumps all the issues that I had to go to the article you cited and highlight myself. That's exactly what I'm talking about - focus on a trivial negative (there are more significan negatives with a Bush admin than that) and ignore all the beneficial policies they want to enact.

Look at the glass anyway you want to but don't say its half empty and then blame me for it. You voted, I voted, the election is over now let's make the most of it. You still have congressmen/women and Senators and the idea of Consitutional merit still stands. The Supreme Courts of BOTH Bible-belt Alabama and the United States BOTH ruled against Judge Moore on the ten commandments thing so I don't know what you are so worried about.

[Beestie]

Originally Posted by garnet

"A complete unkonwn"? Huh? 20 years in the senate isn't enough political experience for you?

Your argument is a gross mischaracterization of what I said.

And your reaction to my joke (however bad it sucked) about John Kerry's wife makes it pretty clear that you need to relax and calm down.

Sheesh!

[garnet]

Originally Posted by Beestie

Your argument is a gross mischaracterization of what I said.

And your reaction to my joke (however bad it sucked) about John Kerry's wife makes it pretty clear that you need to relax and calm down.

Sheesh!

I guess I don't understand your point then. Please explain my "gross mischaracteriztion."

Hey, I am calm. I just had no idea you were making a joke.

[Beestie]

Originally Posted by garnet

I guess I don't understand your point then. Please explain my "gross mischaracteriztion."

In 2000, I knew more about Gore than Bush but chose Bush.
In 2004, I knew more about Bush than Kerry but still chose Bush.

In 2004, as a conservative, Bush is the presumptive choice however, I'm not above changing my mind. I did not know enough about Kerry to override my position. Anyone who gets in the Senate can stay there so a 20-year tenure is meaningless to me. His voting record was dubious (to me) and his bill sponsorship was virtually non-existant. And since his campaign was based on "I'm not Bush", I considered him a huge unknown.

In 2000, just the opposite. What I did know about Gore would have led me to vote for my next-door neighbor first. Hell, he couldn't even carry Tennessee. No one who can't carry his home state deserves to be president.

So, in 2004, Kerry didn't have enough positives to change my mind and in 2000, Bush didn't have enough negatives to change my mind (to vote for Gore). It has to do with one's bias.

Think of it like a boxing match. I hoped that Holeyfield as the challenger would beat Tyson because I didn't like Tyson. When Holeyfield was the champ, I still hoped he would win over a challenger I wasn't familiar with.

Originally Posted by garnet

Hey, I am calm. I just had no idea you were making a joke.

I guess the smiley was not enough to overpower the suckness of the joke

I'm not really in a fighting mood anymore over the election. The last word is yours.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Beestie

I do find it interesting, tho, that a renegade Republican (who, btw, I despise) makes a remark about putting God in the public square and that trumps all the issues that I had to go to the article you cited and highlight myself.

A what? A renegate Republican? I'm happy you despise him, but your view certainly isn't demonstrated by any Republican leadership. He's the Republican House leader. Despite multiple ethics violations and possible criminal action, all explicitly with the purpose of increasing Republican domination, his party has closed ranks around him. Almost all GOP House members accepted money from his PAC. Any compromises worked out in the more bipartisan Senate, get removed by DeLay in conference. This guy is no renegade - accept it: this guy is the new mainstream Republican congressman. His explicit goal, which has been supported and aided by the party machinery, is to get more people like himself elected, and remove the ability of moderate Republicans and Democrats to be elected.

As for what I "left out" - I wasn't attempting to summarize the article, I was pointing out a particular quote. And if you strip the feel-good terminology, the examples you found look more pro-corporate than pro-citizen to me. I see the glass as empty right now, and I hope people notice when they try to drink.

You still have congressmen/women and Senators and the idea of Consitutional merit still stands. The Supreme Courts of BOTH Bible-belt Alabama and the United States BOTH ruled against Judge Moore on the ten commandments thing so I don't know what you are so worried about.

I don't have any Senators or Representatives, but that's a separate issue. And I do have some faith in the courts at this point, but look at the rhetoric coming out of the Republican party right now. It is all geared at reducing respect for the courts. "Activist judges", "liberal courts", sentencing guidelines, preventing class-action lawsuits, capping damages, demonizing trial lawyers, legislation to limit the authority of the courts. Plus, Bush has had record success in appointing judges, has done recess appointments for some of the few that were successfully blocked, and is likely to appoint multiple US Supreme Court justices. Talk is already behinning about removing the filibuster option for even the most partisan nominations Outside the White House, a new Alabama Supreme Court justice is Tom Parker, Roy Moore's legal advisor. This nation is moving in a very dangerous direction.

Originally Posted by Beestie

And this is what you left out of your summary:

Other Republican priorities include making President Bush's income tax cuts permanent, capping monetary awards in medical malpractice lawsuits, curbing class-action litigation and enacting an energy policy centered on greater domestic oil and natural gas production

Go ahead and focus on the negative all you want to - my point in my prior post still stands: there are positives to a 2nd Bush term. If you want to ignore them that's up to you. I do find it interesting, tho, that a renegade Republican (who, btw, I despise) makes a remark about putting God in the public square and that trumps all the issues that I had to go to the article you cited and highlight myself.

You had to highlight it yourself because the rest of us understand just how bogus these "positives" are.

Starting with tax cuts. One of the first things Bush is doing will be to go to Congress and ask for another $40 billion for the war. Where do you think that money will come from? The first two guesses don't count. On top of that Bush's tax cuts amounted to tax INCREASES out there in the real world. The greatest breaks were given to the upper 1% (I'm so glad THEY get to hang on to their money). This aid to the wealthy was paid for by giving less Federal money to the states. The states responding by cutting back on services and at the same time raising state taxes, so we now all get less while paying more. Here are numerous citations from a wide variety of sources on this issue. You don't have to just take my word for it:

"What Tax Cut? States Are Using Higher Taxes and Fees to Take Back What Uncle Sam is Giving Away," U.S. News & World Report, 2/2/04
“Federal Policies Contribute to the Severity of the State Fiscal Crisis,”Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 12/3/03
"Decline in Federal Grants Will Put Additional Squeeze on State and Local Budgets," Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 2/3/04
"Up to 1.6 Million Low-Income People - Including About Half a Million Children - Are Losing Health Coverage Due to State Budget Cuts," Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 12/22/03
"Trends in College Pricing 2003," College Board, 10/21/03
"We're Paying Dearly for Bush's Tax Cuts," Citizens for Tax Justice, 9/23/03
"State Budget Deficits Projected for Fiscal Year 2005," Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 1/30/04
Figures on the incidence of the Bush tax cuts were provided by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.
Figures showing that national debt owed to foreigners have increased from $1 trllion in January 2001 to $1.5 trillion currently are from the U.S. Treasury International Capital System website.
Figures showing that the total assets of the Social Security Trust Funds borrowed by the federal government have increased from $1 trillion in January 2001 to $1.5 trillion currently are from Social Security Online.
Figures showing the $1.3 trillion increase in the national debt under Bush are from the U.S. Bureau of the Public Debt.

Malpractice is not the chief factor driving increased health care costs, so capping malpractice and class action awards will bring little relief in that area.

Increasing US domestic production of non-renewable energy supplies is a questionable cure for our current oil woes. The reason those sources haven't been tapped is cost. We can increase production, but the cost of doing so will show up at the fuel pump and on your utilities bill. It will be a short term fix, anyhow. Oil and natural gas are finite. Sooner or later we are going to be forced into seeking alternative energy supplies. There's no time like the present. The 40 billion dollars we will pour into the Iraq conflict could have funded a plethora of alternative enrgy research projects and been a giant step towards energy self-sufficiency for this country.

Bottom line, all that article is saying is that Bush's policies will continue to charge the average tax payer more money with less in return; a growing deficit; increasing instability in the social security system which is being raided to the tune of over a trillion dollars; and a bandaid to stick on this country's health care problems. Sorry if I see the glass as half empty.

[garnet]

Originally Posted by Beestie

His voting record was dubious (to me) and his bill sponsorship was virtually non-existant. And since his campaign was based on "I'm not Bush", I considered him a huge unknown.

You're contradicting yourself. You knew about his voting record and bill sponsorship, so he was therefore not a "huge unknown." You didn't vote for him because you didn't agree with his politics. Simple as that, and it's OK to say that.

Originally Posted by Beestie

No one who can't carry his home state deserves to be president.

Really? Say George Bush had once been governor of California. If he didn't carry California, would you still say he didn't "deserve" to be President? How exactly does carrying a particular state affect ones worthiness to sit in the Oval Office?

Sorry I'm not trying to beat this into the ground, I'm just confused by your posts.

[Beestie]

Originally Posted by marichiko

You had to highlight it yourself because the rest of us understand just how bogus these "positives" are....

You are familar with the idea that if one doesn't vote then he surrenders his right to complain?

Same applies to tax policy.

Same also applies to health care costs.

Regarding energy, what was Kerry's plan again?

Originally Posted by Beestie

You are familar with the idea that if one doesn't vote then he surrenders his right to complain?

Same applies to tax policy.

Same also applies to health care costs.

Excuse me, but I paid income taxes for well over 25 years of my life. I still pay sales tax (local and state), Federal tax at the gas pump, and property taxes which are passed on to me as part of my rent.

I went without adequate health care for over 5 years and missed out on vital treatment because I was paying out of pocket and couldn't afford it. All my prescriptions are still not covered and I pay $135.00 a month from my slender income (derived from the money I put into the system MYSELF over my working career) to cover those costs.

Kerry favored the development of alternative energy resources and incentives for more fuel efficient technologies.

[Beestie]

Originally Posted by garnet

You're contradicting yourself.

No, I'm just not making myself clear. I don't rely on voting records and I don't rely on Senate tenure. And Kerry's sparse activity in creating legislation (what I regard as the most indicative) was too sparse to reach a conclusion - 8 bills in 20 years half of which were ceremonial. That to me is a big unknown when I compare it to his ever-shifting position statements. I'm not afraid to say I don't like his politics - I just didn't feel like I had a handle on what his politics were.

As far as the home state thing goes, if the people that elected someone to represent them in the Senate later decided to elect someone else to represent them as president, then I think that is tantamount to a vote of no confidence from the folks that know him the best. Even the conservative Reagan carried California (twice).

[Yelof]

I think this is Beestie's political position