Well, no shit. Thanks CNN - Voting derail

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Re: Well, no shit. Thanks CNN.

Post by Feck » Sun Aug 22, 2010 10:56 pm

I think as long as "the man in the street " has his views and opinions informed by a Tabloid press I wouldn't want democracy anyway .

When your population thinks Saddam Hussein was responsible for 911 and that G W Bush (an man who would choke on a Pretzel and confuse a friends face for a quail) must be a great guy because he found God then there is little fucking hope for the Saviours of Democracy .

Most of our politicians in the UK were lawyers FFS a profession where lying is a valued skill and adversarial arguments about the LAW take No fucking account of truth or justice .


And Ian , next election I will not vote and will still have every right to complain when the powers that Be FUCK ME OVER .
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Re: Well, no shit. Thanks CNN.

Post by Ian » Sun Aug 22, 2010 11:16 pm

Feck wrote:I think as long as "the man in the street " has his views and opinions informed by a Tabloid press I wouldn't want democracy anyway .

And Ian , next election I will not vote and will still have every right to complain when the powers that Be FUCK ME OVER .
My point wasn't that if you vote you won't get fucked over. It's that if you don't vote your opinion really means nothing, certainly not to anyone campaining for office. At least make your opinion official, then gripe about getting fucked over by the powers that be. If you don't bother, you're just assuming it's guaranteed to happen anyway. That's either nihilistic or masochistic, I'm not sure which.

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Re: Well, no shit. Thanks CNN.

Post by Feck » Sun Aug 22, 2010 11:19 pm

Ian wrote:
Feck wrote:I think as long as "the man in the street " has his views and opinions informed by a Tabloid press I wouldn't want democracy anyway .

And Ian , next election I will not vote and will still have every right to complain when the powers that Be FUCK ME OVER .
My point wasn't that if you vote you won't get fucked over. It's that if you don't vote your opinion really means nothing, certainly not to anyone campaining for office. At least make your opinion official, then gripe about getting fucked over by the powers that be. If you don't bother, you're just assuming it's guaranteed to happen anyway. That's either nihilistic or masochistic, I'm not sure which.
Nihilistic , I don't enjoy it
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Re: Well, no shit. Thanks CNN.

Post by Ian » Sun Aug 22, 2010 11:19 pm

maiforpeace wrote:
Ian wrote: I was going to say something about the percentage of Republicans who still think Obama is a muslim, but I think I'll pass...
:ask:
McConnell: I Take Obama 'At His Word' That He's A Christian

First Posted: 08-22-10 11:51 AM | Updated: 08-22-10 12:46 PM

With a growing portion of the populace convinced that President Obama is a Muslim, political observers and reporters have begun asking just how such information could be so widely disseminated. On Sunday, their ears perked a bit when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) would only go so far as to take Obama "at this word" that he was a Christian.

"The president says he's a Christian. I take him at his word. I don't think that's in dispute," McConnell told Meet the Press host David Gregory. "I think the faith that most Americans are questioning is the President's faith in the government to generate jobs. We've had an 18-month effort here on the part of this administration to prime the pump, borrow money, spend money, hire new federal government employees, sending money down to states so they don't have to layoff state employees. People are saying: Where are the jobs? The president's faith in the government to stimulate the economy is what people are questioning."

Politico's Mike Allen gave the exchange top treatment in his daily Playbook email, under the header "SIREN -- OR SHOULD WE SAY "DOG WHISTLE"? NBC's Chuck Todd, via Twitter, offered his own take, noting that it was an "Odd way to phrase it."

That's perhaps an understatement. McConnell may have been trying to avoid engagement in a debate defined both by confusion and, under the surface, a bit of Islamophobia. But by constructing his response in such a peculiar way -- suggesting that the debate over Obama's religion was legitimate and that the president was arguing one side of it -- he not only invited the type of skeptical coverage he received Sunday morning but will further spur claims that the GOP doesn't mind having this image of Obama spread.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, then Sen. Hillary Clinton offered the same type of evasive response to the same type of Obama-is-a-Muslim rumors. For days, if not weeks, she was dogged with accusations that she wanted voters to be skeptical about Obama's faith.
:fp:
I'm curious about statistics - are more people today thinking he's secretly a muslim than thought so on Inauguration Day? :dono:
I think it's more likely that Obama's a closet atheist than a closet muslim!

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Re: Well, no shit. Thanks CNN.

Post by Svartalf » Sun Aug 22, 2010 11:30 pm

Ian wrote:
Svartalf wrote:maybe it's lame, but Western world politics are so rotten that the "vote cthulhu, why choose the lesser evil" meme we've found in recent US elections is making detestable sense.

In the last 15 years, I've tended to vote more often than not, because I saw it as a duty, but seriously, there have been a number of cases when I deemed that neither gentleman was less horrible enough than the alternative for me to feel able to vote for a character I still essentially despised. This is all the more true as in France you send more of a message by abstaining than by blank voting or other solutions.
The French must not be too bright then. That's the attitude of a peasant who feels utterly powerless. It's incorrect, especially given the sheer numbers of those peasants.

The US midterms are coming up in a few months. Some Democrat voters are frustrated that Obama hasn't been moving things toward the left even faster (although I fail to see how he could move much faster than he has). Who benefits if those Democrats "send a message" by staying home? The Republicans. Next time around, those Democratic voters won't be whining about sending a message - they'll be climbing back uphill, desperate to try and unseat Speaker Boehner!
No, it's the fact that our rulers take heed of the abstention rate, but none of the null voting.

And when no canidate is actually worthy of being voted for, and write ins are null and disregarded (or so few in the same name that they are disregarded anyway), what are you supposed to do?
You can't send an effective message by voting for plague over cholera or AIDS... in such cases staying home is literally voting not to be infected (even if it's an ineffective measure)
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Re: Well, no shit. Thanks CNN.

Post by Svartalf » Sun Aug 22, 2010 11:32 pm

sandinista wrote: Not lame at all, just choosing not to participate in a sham. As for "fucking you opinions" after an election, thats a fucking stupid thing to say. Voting DOES NOT equal "doing nothing", thats naive.
+1 :this:
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Well, no shit. Thanks CNN - Voting derail

Post by Svartalf » Sun Aug 22, 2010 11:33 pm

Ian wrote:Excuses are like assholes. But I don't need to tell you that.
You mean that they stink but without one you'd die?
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Re: Well, no shit. Thanks CNN.

Post by Ian » Sun Aug 22, 2010 11:41 pm

Svartalf wrote:
Ian wrote:Excuses are like assholes. But I don't need to tell you that.
You mean that they stink but without one you'd die?
Yep. That's exactly what I meant. :biggrin:

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Re: Well, no shit. Thanks CNN.

Post by Ian » Sun Aug 22, 2010 11:53 pm

Svartalf wrote: You can't send an effective message by voting for plague over cholera or AIDS... in such cases staying home is literally voting not to be infected (even if it's an ineffective measure)
Semantics. How often is plague vs cholera vs AIDS really the case? Do you think the politicians who run those campaigns honestly care if lots of people stay home? Not in the slightest. Somebody's going to win, one way or the other. And the more people participate, the less distasteful those choices become anyway. If I found myself with no other options, I'd at least pick cholera as opposed to letting others decide what'll I'll be coming down with. I can live with cholera long enough to pick something else the next time around - maybe a mere case of pinkeye.

In other words, there is at least some value in choosing between the lesser or two or three whatevers.

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Re: Well, no shit. Thanks CNN.

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Sun Aug 22, 2010 11:59 pm

"You may not have anyone to vote FOR in an election, but there's always someone to vote AGAINST."
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Re: Well, no shit. Thanks CNN.

Post by Svartalf » Mon Aug 23, 2010 12:17 am

Ian wrote:
Svartalf wrote: You can't send an effective message by voting for plague over cholera or AIDS... in such cases staying home is literally voting not to be infected (even if it's an ineffective measure)
Semantics. How often is plague vs cholera vs AIDS really the case? Do you think the politicians who run those campaigns honestly care if lots of people stay home? Not in the slightest. Somebody's going to win, one way or the other. And the more people participate, the less distasteful those choices become anyway. If I found myself with no other options, I'd at least pick cholera as opposed to letting others decide what'll I'll be coming down with. I can live with cholera long enough to pick something else the next time around - maybe a mere case of pinkeye.

In other words, there is at least some value in choosing between the lesser or two or three whatevers.
Seriously... When I remember the French presidential elections : Last time I voted on the second round only because I knew that anybody, even the moronic caviar "socialist" I voted for would be better than sarkoshyt, the time before I voted for the fascist candidate in all good conscience because I knew that the alliance hostile to him would put that cowpie chirac in the seat again, with a sovietic score no less, and the previous one, faced with a choice between a mock socialist who, as prime minister, had been doing the right wing's program for the previous 5 years and that right leaning arrivist chirac, yeah, I stayed home because I could not in conscience endorse either, even as a barrage against the other Similar things tend to happen for other polls, depending on what lists actually run and what candidates are left for the possible second round... and I tell you, even in the first rounds when every crank party tries to get somebody running, it's darn hard to find one ticket I can agree with in conscience, and I still believe that if you can't cast a real vote (remember that write ins have become all but impossible here, and blanks or nulls get discounted altogether), I really don't see any reason. to dress and go to the polling station.
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Re: Well, no shit. Thanks CNN.

Post by Svartalf » Mon Aug 23, 2010 12:20 am

Gawdzilla wrote:"You may not have anyone to vote FOR in an election, but there's always someone to vote AGAINST."
Sure, I've vote even the lamest assed Dem against GWB ... against lesser evils than that, your third parties tending to be krank tanks, I'm not sure voting against is always feasible when you fear the one you are voting FOR in thiscase might actually end up worse.
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Re: Well, no shit. Thanks CNN.

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Mon Aug 23, 2010 12:22 am

Svartalf wrote:
Gawdzilla wrote:"You may not have anyone to vote FOR in an election, but there's always someone to vote AGAINST."
Sure, I've vote even the lamest assed Dem against GWB ... against lesser evils than that, your third parties tending to be krank tanks, I'm not sure voting against is always feasible when you fear the one you are voting FOR in thiscase might actually end up worse.
Voting is always feasible.
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Re: Well, no shit. Thanks CNN.

Post by Ian » Mon Aug 23, 2010 12:42 am

Svartalf wrote:
Gawdzilla wrote:"You may not have anyone to vote FOR in an election, but there's always someone to vote AGAINST."
Sure, I've vote even the lamest assed Dem against GWB ... against lesser evils than that, your third parties tending to be krank tanks, I'm not sure voting against is always feasible when you fear the one you are voting FOR in thiscase might actually end up worse.
Could either Gore or Kerry possibly have been worse than Bush? I doubt it. Could Vlad the Impaler? Not in my opinion.
$2.3 trillion in budget revenue lost to his tax cuts. The Iraq War. Reckless deregulation of the financial sector. And those are just the highlights. I voted against Bush more than I voted for the other guys, and I did so without much worry.

Thanks, Gawdzilla. Nice and succinct! :awesome:

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Re: Well, no shit. Thanks CNN.

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Mon Aug 23, 2010 12:51 am

Ian wrote:Thanks, Gawdzilla. Nice and succinct! :awesome:
I terse
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